The Lunar Curse: A Second Chance With Alpha Draven - Chapter 440

Chapter 440: Close to Unlocking the Secret
[Meredith].

Felling the urge to use the bathroom, I left the living area and made my way towards it.

After I finished my business, I stepped into the bedroom, still drying my hands, and froze at the sight before me.

Draven was inside the bedroom, standing in the living area with his back turned to me. He was staring at the small ashtray on the table, the one holding the charred remnants of my grandmother’s letter.

Instantly, my stomach twisted. Of course, he would come looking for me.

The moment Draven sensed movement behind him, he turned slowly, and his gaze locked onto mine, calm and unreadable. His hands were buried casually in the pockets of his pants, but the tension in his shoulders said everything.

“What did you burn?” he asked.

The question hit me harder than his tone. I tried to act unaffected, fighting the urge to swallow saliva.

“The letter,” I answered simply.

His brows pulled together in a faint frown as he stepped closer. “Why?”

I forced a lazy shrug I didn’t feel. “It’s just… a habit.” Though my response wasn’t a lie, it wasn’t the complete truth either.

His eyes sharpened. He was not angry or even annoyed, just fully aware that I wasn’t telling him the truth. And that was worse. Much worse.

“What did the letter say?” he asked.

My throat dried instantly. I should have expected this—him probing deeper, refusing to let something slide just because it was ‘mine.’

But normally, he gave me space. Normally, he didn’t corner me. But today, his whole aura felt different—stronger and heavier. As if he had closed the door on privacy entirely and decided he wanted answers, not distance.

I bit my lower lip—a small, betraying motion I shouldn’t have let slip. I wasn’t ready to talk about my grandmother. About anything the letter contained. Not now. Not like this.

Draven took a step toward me. Then another. His pace was unhurried, but each step stole a fraction of the space between us, tightening something inside my chest.

I quickly searched for something, anything to deflect him.

“When is the next full moon?” I blurted out.

He didn’t answer. He just kept walking.

That look in his eyes—cold, focused, and disturbingly unreadable—made my pulse jump.

It had been months since he looked at me like that, and I didn’t understand why it scared me.

Draven wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t violent with me. Every logical part of my brain knew that. But instinctively, I stepped back.

He kept advancing. I retreated again until the back of my legs hit the edge of the bed. I had nowhere else to go.

I stopped breathing for a moment.

Draven finally halted in front of me, towering over my frame, studying my expression with an intensity that felt like it cut straight through bone.

His voice was low when he spoke. “Why are you so afraid?”

“I’m not,” I whispered.

He could see the lie right through it.

A brief silence followed, then he exhaled slowly, shaking his head as if disappointed—not in me, but in the situation.

“You’re supposed to be confident,” he said quietly.

Then he leaned back the slightest bit, his gaze softening but his frown remaining.

“Don’t act like that around me,” he said. “It makes me feel like I’m abusing you. Like I’m some kind of monster.”

The words hit me deeper than I expected, and for a moment, guilt replaced my fear.

I understood the meaning behind Draven’s words immediately.

The kind of fear I had just shown him was the fear of a woman trapped with an abusive mate—the sort of fear I knew he had low-key sworn he would never inspire in me.

I quickly smoothed my expression and steadied my breathing.

“You’re overthinking,” I said gently. “You just… caught me off guard.”

He studied me for a moment longer before finally taking a step back, though his eyes stayed on me, sharp and searching.

“Are you still afraid?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. I can breathe just fine now.”

“Good,” he murmured.

A brief silence stretched, then he answered the question I had used to distract him earlier.

“The next full moon is in five days.”

I nodded, though my mind was already spiralling inward.

Five days.

Five days until my grandmother expects me.

I stared at Draven’s face—the man who had carried me through danger, who had shielded me, claimed me, loved me in ways I never imagined possible. And he was the closest thing I had to family now.

I trusted him with my life. At least, he deserved a small portion of the whole truth.

“My grandmother wants to see me,” I finally said.

His eyes narrowed, faint suspicion flaring. “Oh? So the letter I wasn’t allowed to see—the one you burned, was from your grandmother?”

My lips twitched. Of course, he would phrase it that way. “Yes,” I replied.

Then he asked, “Which grandmother?”

“My father’s mother,” I answered.

He gave a slow nod. “I know nothing about her.”

‘How could you?’ I thought silently. ‘How can anyone know a fae who has spent decades hiding from the world?’

But aloud, I only said, “She is very private.”

Draven clasped his hands behind his back, a posture he assumed when evaluating, when thinking, when peeling back truth.

His gaze didn’t leave me.

“So this grandmother,” he continued, “is the same one who sent the letter you burned back in Duskmoor?”

My heart clenched. There was no use pretending now. He had connected the dots. So, slowly, I nodded.

Draven’s voice lowered. “It seems to me you have a very special relationship with her.”

I didn’t deny it. “Yes. I’m the closest family she has. And, I grew up with her for some years.”

Another nod from him, sharper this time.

“So,” he said, “your grandmother wants to see you on the night of the next full moon?”

I nodded again.

At that exact moment, something shifted in his eyes, something too thoughtful, too perceptive.

“Hm,” he murmured. “An auspicious night.”

I folded my arms, narrowing my gaze at him.

I could practically feel him drawing closer and closer to the truth—that there was something unusual about my grandmother, about us, about these letters.

This entire conversation suddenly felt like a careful interrogation disguised as concern.

And Draven was dangerously close to unlocking a secret I had guarded with my life.