Blood Bound Luna

The fortress looked like something that had crawled out of a nightmare and decided to stay. Selene had seen it in paintings dark, looming, wrapped in silver mist like a shroud. But seeing it up close? That was different. The walls were black stone, slick and gleaming under the moonlight, carved with symbols she didn’t recognize but could feel. They pulsed with the same rhythm as the mark on her back, like the fortress itself was alive, breathing, waiting. The gates opened without anyone touching them. Of course they did. “Creepy much?” Selene muttered. Dorian’s chest rumbled against her back not quite a laugh, but close enough to surprise her. “You’ll get used to it.” “Bold of you to assume I’ll be here long enough to get used to anything.” He didn’t answer. Just guided the horse through the gates into a courtyard that looked like it had been designed by someone who really, really hated joy. Everything was sharp angles and cold stone. Wolves prowled the perimeter, their eyes t

The ceremony was set for midnight. Which meant Selene had approximately eight hours to have a complete mental breakdown, and she was determined to make the most of it. Kira had dragged her to what she called the “training grounds” … a massive courtyard where wolves sparred in both human and shifted forms, their bodies colliding with enough force to crack stone. The sound was brutal: snarls, thuds, the wet crunch of bone meeting bone. “This is supposed to help?” Selene asked, watching two massive wolves circle each other, teeth bared. “Distraction,” Kira said cheerfully, perched on a stone wall and eating an apple like they were at a casual sporting event. “Plus, you should see what you’re dealing with. Dorian’s wolf is bigger than all of these. And meaner. And hotter, if you’re into the whole feral murder puppy thing.” “I’m really not.” “Liar.” Kira’s grin was wicked. “I saw how you looked at him this morning. All ‘oh no, he’s broody and damaged and unfairly attractive, whatever

Selene woke up to the worst hangover of her life, except she hadn’t drunk anything, and also her entire nervous system felt like it had been deep-fried and reassembled slightly wrong. “Ugh,” she sighed. The mark on her back throbbed not painfully, but insistently, like a second heartbeat she couldn’t ignore. And there was something else. A presence. A awareness hovering at the edge of her consciousness, just out of reach but definitely, absolutely there. Dorian. She could feel him. Not his thoughts, exactly, but his… essence? His emotional state? It was like standing in a room and knowing someone was behind you without having to look. Currently, he felt… annoyed? No, that wasn’t quite right. More like deeply, profoundly irritated with something. Good morning to you too, she thought sarcastically. The presence in her mind flickered surprise, maybe? then retreated, like he’d slammed a mental door in her face. “Rude,” Selene muttered, dragging herself out of bed. Her reflection

Silas led her through parts of the fortress she hadn't seen yet courtyards filled with training wolves, libraries that smelled like old leather and older magic, hallways lined with portraits of dead Veyraths who all looked varying degrees of homicidal."Cheerful family history," Selene observed."We're a cheerful family," Silas replied smoothly. "Can't you tell?"They ended up in a garden that shouldn't have existed. It was impossible, a pocket of spring in the middle of the fortress's perpetual gloom, with flowering vines climbing the walls and actual sunshine filtering through an opening in the ceiling.A table had been set with lunch: fresh bread, roasted vegetables, wine that probably cost more than Selene's entire childhood home."This is..." Selene gestured vaguely."Excessive? Unnecessary? A blatant attempt to make you comfortable so you'll let your guard down?" Silas pulled out a chair for her. "All of the above."At least he was honest about it.Selene sat, eyeing the food su

Selene had been reading for three hours when she found the first interesting thing.It was in the journal of Aldric Veyrath, heir from about three hundred years ago. His handwriting was awful all cramped letters and ink blots but his observations were meticulous.The marked woman, Elise, lasted four months before the curse took her. But in those months, something changed. The bond did not merely flow from me to her it began to flow back. She could feel my pain, my thoughts. We were becoming… synchronized.This terrified me. I could not allow her into my mind, could not let her see the beast I’m becoming. So I pulled away. I closed myself off from the bond, shutting her out.She died three days later.I have wondered since: did I kill her by rejecting the bond? Does the curse feed on separation, on isolation? Or am I simply a coward looking for meaning in tragedy?Selene sat back, her mind spinning.What if the curse wasn’t just about the pregnancy? What if it fed on emotional isolatio