Their first encounters weren’t great.

  Once, she was ashamed, but at the time, she was young and couldn’t understand what it was about or what her grandmother had planned. Later, Luna understood. Her grandmother… Unio families, what a thing.

  Her dad would be devastated if he knew.

  Lukai was a good man for not taking the opportunity, which she knew any Unio man would have taken without hesitation.

  “Why did my grandmother hate me so much?” It was a question Luna asked herself many times when she was younger.

  Now, she had ideas about the reasons for her grandmother. Luna understood her surroundings and politics better. Whether she wanted to or not, she was dragged into it.

  It was the Hal family; her father had offended them. Tara Alena, his mother, was angry.

  The Alena family’s fall was because of the choice her father made back then—he chose to abandon the arranged marriage because he fell in love with some other girl; how stupid, certainly, the Hal family thought about it like that.

  The great Hal family felt insulted, and with many small actions and gestures, they managed to get their revenge. Luna made her choice a few years ago as well; she testified in favor of Avery Corja, her friend. Her action had not helped ease the tension between the two families. Not at all.

  … She knew her grandmother was venting her anger on her. Still, she couldn’t understand. She was the last from Alena. Why not focus on the future and try to find solutions to bring back Alena’s glory?

  Luna was, as her grandmother called it, ‘broken’ in the aspect of having kids. Dad informed her grandmother just after she had passed the age—no children possible because ‘her biology was disturbed.’

  Of course, dad never said what exactly was wrong with her. Grandmother was not aware that Luna was dual. Fortunately. Better not to even think what she could do to her then.

  Grandmother was stone-cold; Luna couldn’t recall any smile. It was like that until…

  Until the attack on Moon Two and dad’s death.

  What happened later was shameful to tell aloud. Her grandmother—how she behaved… Luna didn’t want to recall it.

  The fact that Lukai was connected to her grandmother didn’t help to be calm around him.

  Their first meeting was embarrassing, but the next was, in Luna’s opinion, a disaster.

  It was about Taj and his Crystal.

  Her grandmother didn’t ever learn what it was—this small Crystal that dad had left her. Tara Alena only knew it was a gift from her son’s wife to her daughter, so she did not comment; she hated this unknown mother.

  Well, back then, Luna was constantly scared. She had so many things to hide, to be afraid of. And Lukai. He was already the OFF General, a young one, but he fought in the battles; he was renowned for his tactics and his commanding style.

  He was also big… Lukai was indeed a big, stocky man with muscles and broad shoulders. His army clothes, part of the harsh OFF style, made him intimidating. He often did not shave. His hair looked like a historical warrior’s style.

  As if there were not enough scary things in Luna’s life, it was also him, and he visited her grandmother frequently back then.

  Luna, whenever he was to come, hid near the lake. She spent hours there, alone or with Taj released, if energy flow in their family territories allowed him to materialize.

  Taj projected for her only, the version that only she could see and talk to.

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  Once Lukai went there, he found her.

  Unexpectedly for her, he was angry for a reason she never came to understand. He took her Crystal from her with force and threw it into the lake. Luna was looking for Taj for hours, during the night also, until she found it. She was always so scared of losing Taj—and it almost happened.

  She also recalled that she cried so hard. But the thing she had to admit was that Lukai was right. It was too easy to take Taj’s Crystal from her. She needed to find a way to wear it securely.

  Honestly? What Lukai had done was good.

  Taj and she later decided to do it as in the old times. People might think she was crazy, but wasn’t she already an oddity? Crystal, embedded in her chest, as one hundred years ago? Sure.

  Luna liked the idea. And she did it as a symbol of her rebellion, of her being able to overcome another fear, the one of ‘what others would say.’

  She embedded Taj’s Crystal the same way Crystals were embedded years ago. Custom-made, easy to click in and out, a small case, in her body. Not beautiful, not very comfortable, but very practical. Luna felt less scared after making this decision.

  However, Lukai.

  He broke her heart.

  Lukai broke her heart two years ago when he left her so easily. She didn’t agree with his proposal, marriage, because he wanted her to have kids.

  She couldn’t explain her situation, though. Because how even?

  What a stupid thing, it all.

  She didn’t tell him. She was scared.

  They met irregularly for months. She wasn’t attached at first; she wasn’t in love. She was proud that she was not scared of him. That was her success. She was also, of course, attracted to him.

  Although rare, when they talked, she learned more about him. Why did he choose the OFF? What did he want to achieve? Why did he fight? Luna also read about him, searched more, and started to admire him.

  At first, she didn’t think about it, but later, she noticed. When Lukai smiled, finally, when he smiled, he was nice.

  She began to feel more, and then he broke her heart.

  His way of proposing. What was that? Luna even now wasn’t sure. All right, later, when Unio alliance with Shadows was announced, she then understood. It was his way of helping her. Her heart melted then, the day she understood it. But when Lukai had proposed, it had seemed to come out of nowhere.

  He came to her house, unannounced, without sending a message.

  “You have one hour,” he said.

  This she remembered as if it were today. One hour he gave her to consider his marriage proposal. He left… truly, was he for real? He came back after exactly one hour; he then wanted to hear her response.

  What could she say? They agreed to only meet—no bonds. What had happened? Why? Was it romantic? No?

  Luna then wanted to ask him to give her time or something. How could she easily explain who she was? Children... in fact, it was not that she didn’t want them. She couldn’t have. As dual, she couldn’t. And her family, her other surname. All was complicated.

  They agreed—no attachment.

  She was already attached, but if he was, she wasn’t sure. How could she trust just like that? She couldn’t decide in one hour; she couldn’t trust him completely while under this kind of pressure. Forced.

  He gave her one hour… for all the skies!

  She hesitated.

  It was also then that Luna understood that she needed more time to be able to trust Lukai. She didn’t tell him anything about what she was hiding. So, she somehow thought it wouldn’t be fair to say ‘yes.’ He should know all the bad and good things about her and decide after knowing them all.

  When he came back, after this stupid one hour, she said what she said, tried to explain, and asked for more time.

  He took it as a ‘no.’ Left, without anything more said, visibly angry. She tried to contact him. Lukai never replied.

  Luna only then talked to Taj. Right. It lasted months, and back then she didn’t ask Taj to project. Luna hid his Crystal. In her embedding she wore this duplicate Lukai gave her some time before.

  She didn’t tell Taj earlier about her—romance? Romance. But finally, she did.

  “If someone loves truly, then do not hurt.” Taj said only this.

  Luna agreed with what Taj had said.

  She missed Lukai, of course. Eventually, she moved on. And now, two years later. Now, she was this infamous future Shadows Lord’s fiancée and had to endure his humiliating postponements.

  They never met. Why Shadows Young Master never cared to meet her, even briefly? It was his decision to entirely ignore her.

  She went to see him when he arrived the first time, thinking he came to see her. Shadows Young Master announced he was to postpone the contract for a year.

  Luna felt humiliated. All around her, in the crowd, were nodding their heads. It was clear. Even Shadows did not have any good attitude toward her and the Alena family, which was then declining. Certainly, because of her unknown mother. They were all nodding and murmuring; all were commenting on it in this way.

  She endured it, then, in the crowd. The next year, she didn’t go there. She later read it was the same.

  What Taj had said about coming back to Shadows to reveal her identity was very exciting two years ago. Later, definitely no.

  Taj was so disappointed.

  … Now. It had to be Lukai, of course, to recognize her.

  They didn’t see each other for two years.

  “What to do, though?” Luna stood up.

  Taj dematerialized his projection. She took his Crystal and clicked it into her embedding. She took a look in the mirror. Then slowly went out of her library, heading to meet her past lover.