When the moon remembers

ARIA

I didn't sleep well. Again.

The silver-haired boy haunted my dreams with those dark, aching eyes. Every time I closed mine, I saw his face. Heard his voice. Felt his arms around me as the light left my body.

You promised, he whispered.

I didn't know what I promised. I didn't know who he was.

But I believed him.

And that was the part that scared me most.

---

"Eat," Mom said gently, sliding a plate of toast and eggs toward me. "You've got school today."

I stared at the food, appetite nonexistent. "I don't want to go."

"You'll be fine." She smiled like she hadn't noticed the shadows under my eyes or the shaking in my hands. "New beginnings, remember?"

New.

Nothing about this town felt new to me.

Everything felt like a repeat of a life I didn't remember.

I forced a bite down. Forced a breath.

Then grabbed my backpack and headed outside into the misty morning air.

The school was a fifteen-minute walk through the edge of the woods. I didn't want to walk past the trees, but I didn't want to ride with Mom either. I needed space.

I hadn't told her about the second dream.

Or the third.

Last night, the boy had touched my face and said my name.

Only it wasn't Aria he said.

It was—

No. I didn't let myself think the name. It curled like smoke in my head. Slippery. Dangerous.

Some instinct deep in my bones whispered that remembering it would kill me.

---

LUCIAN

The second I stepped onto the school grounds, I felt it.

Her.

The pulse of the bond echoed through me like the first breath after drowning.

I was here under pretense. A carefully forged identity, enrolled through old ties and older secrets. The Alpha of Duskwither Pack disguised as a student.

No one questioned it. They never did. The magic around me twisted reality just enough.

But none of that mattered.

She walked through the front gate with her hood up, her head down, trying to go unnoticed.

But to me—she was the sun.

Her scent hit me first: wild honeysuckle and earth. Then her energy—pulsing against mine like a long-lost heartbeat.

And then—

She looked up.

Our eyes met.

My breath caught.

She didn't remember me.

But gods, she felt something.

The way her shoulders stiffened. The confusion in her brow. The flicker of recognition she couldn't explain.

I turned away before I crossed the line.

If I moved too soon, too hard, the bond would overwhelm her.

But I watched her.

All day.

Like a shadow clinging to the edges of her light.

---

ARIA

Everyone stared.

Duskwither High wasn't big, and new kids were rare. Most of the students had known each other since kindergarten.

Whispers followed me like fog.

"Who's she?"

"Isn't that the girl who moved into the Winslow house?"

"Creepy."

But none of that bothered me.

What did bother me was the boy I'd seen standing by the office.

Tall. Broad-shouldered. Silver hair cropped close. Eyes the color of a dying star—dark, burning, unreadable.

He looked at me like he knew me.

And for one second, I thought I knew him too.

But then he was gone.

Like smoke.

---

By lunch, I was ready to disappear. I grabbed a tray and took it outside, away from the noise. I found a spot under a twisted oak and sat with my back to the trunk.

I didn't eat.

Instead, I pulled out my sketchbook and started drawing the boy again.

The one from my dreams.

Not the silver-haired stranger I saw this morning—but close.

His face came to me easily. Eyes closed. Expression peaceful. My head in his lap.

I always died in his arms.

Always.

And every time, he held me like it was the end of the world.

---

LUCIAN

She was sketching.

I watched from a distance, leaning against the outer wall where no one noticed me.

She always drew when she was nervous. That hadn't changed.

My wolf ached to go to her. To speak. To touch.

But I stayed back. Because even this—just watching—was more than I'd hoped for.

Because she was alive.

Breathing.

And close.

---

ARIA

The library smelled like old paper and time.

I ended up there after school, searching for something—anything—that could explain why this town felt so familiar.

Duskwither had a history section in the back, dusty and ignored.

I pulled out books. Flipped through faded newspaper clippings. Strange reports of animal attacks. Symbols carved into trees. Local folklore about moonlight rituals and sacred groves.

The more I read, the colder I felt.

This town wasn't ordinary.

And neither was the forest.

One page caught my eye.

> Years ago, locals reported unexplained tremors and light phenomena during a blood moon. The forest trembled. No one vanished, but stories whispered of something ancient breaking.

I froze.

My fingers trembled as I traced the words.

Not a disappearance. No missing persons. Just... broken magic.

I didn't know what it meant.

Only that it did.

---

LUCIAN

She was digging.

I felt the bond flare again the moment her fingers touched the page.

She didn't know what she was looking for.

But her soul did.

Selene had always been drawn to the truth.

Even when it killed her.

---

ARIA

The dreams returned that night.

But this time, they changed.

I didn't die.

Instead—I woke up.

In the dream, I was lying in the forest, bleeding.

The silver-haired boy held my face in his hands.

"Please," he whispered. "Come back to me."

"I don't know who I am," I whispered back.

His voice cracked. "Then I'll help you remember."

---

I woke up crying.

Not out of fear.

But grief.

And longing.

And love I couldn't explain.

---

LUCIAN

I felt it when the bond shifted—when the dream deepened.

She was starting to see me again.

Piece by piece.

I would protect her memory.

Her life.

And when the time was right, I would bring her back.

Not as Selene.

But as Aria.

Mine.