Kai hated it.

Selene was Lunar. Lunar, Lunar, Lunar. It drove him crazy. She was Lunar. Even though Kai was convinced that Selene wasn't at all like any of the Lunars he'd grown up hearing about, the wicked ones that manipulated and murdered Earthens, and the malicious royals that picked off Earthen leaders with cunning and heartlessness one by one, Kai knew somewhere deep in his heart that the way he reacted to Selene was wrong.

Every time he talked to her, his heartbeat quickened and he stumbled over his words. Every time she smiled at him, he blushed profusely and it wouldn't fade for several minutes. Every time she passed him in the corridor, he felt a soaring hopefulness that crashed down as soon as she would disappear from his view. He couldn't understand how someone could make him feel so chaotic and ecstatic inside all at once. Every day when he woke up, he felt an inexplicable dread and hope that coursed through every fiber of his being. He blushed too hard, too easily. He thought about her too much. His eyes searched for her in every crowd. Every day, he felt as though a thousand daggers ripped through his heart and a million people walked over it, simultaneously, but he loved the sensation, especially when it made him feel like the happiest person in the galaxy and when it sent hundreds of butterflies through his stomach. And then hated that he loved it, because it was wrong and he knew it.

He shouldn't be feeling this for Selene. Feel it for a noble girl in the court. Feel it for anyone else. Don't feel it for the queen of Luna.

Kai dreamt that night of Selene. Actually, he dreamt of Selene every night, but this dream was especially vivid. Selene was wrapping her arms around him. Her steel hand rested against his neck. Her chocolate brown hair glittered in the moonlight and slowly, very slowly, she pressed her lips against Kai's.

"No!" Kai jerked up in his canopy bed, shouting the word out before he could stop himself in a moment of overloaded emotions from the dream. He was in a cold sweat, and a million passions remaining from the dream simmered down slowly in his chest. Before Kai could even stop to think about what he was doing, he threw back the covers and jumped out of bed, pulling on clothes quickly and shoving his feet in silk slippers. Kai stepped out his door and jogged down the halls of the palace, towards the gardens.

•

The palace gardens were a magical place at night, with the moon sparkling brightly, the reflection of its lights shimmering on the koi ponds. Kai shuffled out towards a bench and sat down, surveying the garden in its beauty late at night when the people darting in and out and around, doing their business, were asleep and he could sit in quiet, thoughtful solitude.

His room had felt too stifling. The walls had felt as though they were closing in on him, so in desperation, Kai had escaped out here.

Now he wished he had at least taken a jacket with him. The cold seeped in through his thin shirt, and his teeth clattered. He raised his gaze to the moon and stared at it silently. Luna was up there. Right now, would people be sleeping or going about their day? Was it mid-morning there or late afternoon?

Kai tried to imagine. That was where Selene lived. Where she grew up. What was it like to grow up as a princess on Luna? What did she do when she woke up? Was royal life there similar to the Commonwealth, with dozens of public speakings, galas, national events, speeches, and worrying? Or did Selene have people to do all that for her?

Kai hated what he felt for Selene. Every time she walked into the same room as him, his breath stopped and his heart started beating faster and faster until it exploded against his chest. He fantasized about holding her. Every time he thought about that time in the quarantine when she'd been so close, he turned red as a beet. He wished it would stop. He wished that Selene could just go back to Luna and he could forget about her.

But somehow he knew that he wasn't going to be able to forget about her. Even if she did just disappear from his life forever. In the back of his mind, Kai wondered how he'd gotten in so deep.

How he'd fallen for Selene so hard, so fast.