THE BANISHED LUNA

“You know she has to die, David.” Sophie’s voice rang out over the clamorous charity gala as her champagne glass glinted in the light. “The Council will not wait very long.”

"Not here." David's jaw clenched as he glanced around the room, an expensive suit not enough to disguise the tension in his shoulders. “We do have half the city’s elite watching us.”

I froze behind the marble column, my heart throbbing in my ribs. They hadn’t seen me yet — my own husband and his supposed best friend, discussing my murder over champagne. The anniversary gift nestled in my clutch weighed a ton.

“She’s getting suspicious,” Sophie said, turning her red lips into a smile as she waved to a passing senator. “Yesterday she asked about where her family’s foundation’s missing money went.”

“Because you got careless about the transfers.” David’s tone stayed polite, but I could hear the peril. “Two hundred million doesn’t just vanish without questions.

My hands shook when I took out my phone, opening the banking app I had been obsessively checking for weeks. But there were the transactions — the enormous sums coursing through shell companies I had never seen before. I’d already confronted David about it yesterday, and he’d kissed my forehead, brought up how paranoid I was. *Just some bookkeeping errors, darling. I will have it by morning. *

“It’s not about the money.” Sophie's voice dropped lower. "It's the bloodline. The Weber legacy endangers everything we've created, as long as she lives. Or have you forgotten what became of the last pack that allowed a Weber to live?”

“Of course I remember that.” I watched as they were burning.” David’s crystal glass splintered in his hand, and the startled looks of other guests were drawn to him. He smiled sheepishly, blotting a bleeding palm with a napkin. “But if we kill her now it will attract too much attention. Her father's still got people in the Council.”

“It is her father’s allies who we have to now act against.” Sophie pointed to an old man watching them on the other side of the room. “Marcus says the binding spell is weakening. If she begins to remember what she truly is — “‘

"She won't." David's voice hardened. "I've made sure of that. I’ve been renewing the spell every night for the last year while she dreams. She still believes that her nightmares about running with wolves are simply that, dreams.”

Memories washed over me in waves — waking up gasping, my skin burning, David’s hands on my temples while he whispered words I couldn’t understand. He always blamed it on my sleep medication.

"And what about the child?" It felt like a physical blow when Sophie asked me this question.

"What child?" David’s quick retort reflected my own mind scream.

“What do you mean you haven’t noticed? Six weeks, give or take. I can smell it on her." Sophie's laugh was cruel. "A Weber-Blackwood heir. The first in centuries. Think what we could do with that bloodline, if we had it under control.”

My other hand instinctively went to my stomach. I had assumed the nausea was stress — the missing money, and how David had been withdrawing more and more from me. I hadn’t even gotten tested yet.”

"This changes everything." Davids’ voice had a calculating quality that made my skin crawl. “We’re going to have to keep her alive until she gives birth. The child would be the key to shattering the ancient wards, to finally taking what’s ours.”

"And then?"

“Then she has this tragic accident. The mourning widower raises his child in the pack, and finally the Weber line has a real purpose.”

I must have made some kind of noise — a gasp, a whimper, something — because they both turned toward where I was hiding. I pressed further into the shadows, hoping they had not seen me.

"David." Sophie's voice sharpened. "We're being watched."

"I know." He answered casually but I could hear him coming closer. "I can smell her fear."

I ran.

I fled down the mansion’s winding hallways, heels clicking against marble, through startled guests and worried security guards. I heard David making excuses behind me — My wife’s had too much champagne, just nerves about her speech tonight — but I didn’t stop.

I rushed into the deserted library and frantically pulled out my phone. My father’s number was just dialing when a hand clamped over my mouth.

"Now, now, sweetheart." David’s breath warmed my ear, but his grip was iron. "Let's not do anything rash."

I bit down hard on his hand, tasting blood. He cursed, and his grip loosened just enough for me to slam my elbow back into his ribs. Self-defense classes, which he’d always ridiculed as irrelevant to his spoiled wife, had finally come in handy.

"Stay back." I snatched a heavy brass candlestick from a nearby table and backed toward the door. "I heard everything."

"Did you?" He straightened his tie, almost pityingly smiling, not concerned about my improvised weapon. “And what did you actually hear? That your doting husband is worried about your state of mind? You’ve been making wild accusations about missing money? That the stress of running your family’s foundation is finally taking its toll?”

“You’re stealing from my family. You're planning to kill me." My voice shook. "You're not even human."

"There's my clever girl." In the library’s evening-won light, his eyes shone gold. “Starting to finally remember who you are. What we both are."

"I'm nothing like you."

"No?" He moved quicker than humanly possible, knocking the candlestick from my hands. “Then why do you feel me approaching?” Why do you run faster, heal faster, feel more than any regular human? Your father was determined to squash your nature, but blood will out, Lena. You’re as much of a monster as I am.”

"You're insane." But as I said this, familiar memories stirred – running through forests in my dreams, being drawn to the moon’s pull as if by a physical touch, the way animals would either love me on sight or flee in terror.

"I can prove it." He took out a small knife and dragged it over his palm. The cut healed instantly. "Your turn."

Before I can respond he’s taken my hand, the blade touching my skin. I cried out — but the pain faded almost as quickly. I watched in horror as the cut closed, leaving unblemished flesh in its wake.

"What am I?"

"You're a Weber." He said it like a curse. “The last of a bloodline that has hunted my kind for centuries. And now you’re carrying my child — the ideal fusion of hunter and prey. “A weapon that will close this war, finally.”

The library doors burst open. Sophie stood there, flanked by three men who I’d seen on David’s company board. All their eyes glowed that same inhuman gold, and their presence crackled with barely contained energy. My stomach turned, my guts yelling danger.

“The guests are leaving,” she said, and her voice was eerily calm. "We can begin."

"Begin what?" I backed against the wall before I realized I’d been backing away. My pulse pounded in my ears.

David advanced, gliding, predatory. The hard angles of his face twisted slightly, something bestial flickering just beneath the surface of his features.

“Breaking the spell your father put on you. His voice was nearly gentle, coaxing. "Time to wake up, love. Time to remember who you really are.”

I shook my head, attempting to control my breath. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The three men came up around me in a triangle. Their lips moved in perfect synchronization, murmuring in that strange language—the language of my dreams, the language that always left me breathless and terrified.

David lifted his hands, aimed for my temples, and I felt the heat from his fingertips before they reached my skin. It was a fire that did not burn, a pressure that pressed down on my mind, that made something in me shift.

And then, I remembered.

The voice of my grandmother, tough and leathered, echoed from the marrow of my mind: *“If they ever catch you, if they attempt to rouse your blood before you’re prepared, speak the words I taught you. The words that tie both sides of your nature. *

The memory arrived with the flash of something deeper — images of my childhood, times when the world had felt too sharp, too bright. How animals had always gazed upon me, waiting. The way my father had been looking at me, sad but determined, as though he had known this day was to come.

David’s power bore down on me more, in my mind like molten metal seeking to reshape the shapes of the mind. My knees wobbled. My vision blurred. I had seconds to kill myself before I submitted to whatever they were trying to awaken.

But I had the words.

I was struggling to force my lips to move, whispering the counter-spell.

Meaning-packed, ancient syllables rolled off my tongue. They had the flavor of lightning, electric, astringent. The air crackled around me. The chanting faltered.

David's golden eyes widened. "Stop her—"

Too late.

Power hit from my very core, like a wave of pure energy that blasted outward. It struck them like a hurricane, bodies flying. Photos torn from the wall. Windows exploded, the stinging rain of glass joining their astonished screams.

I staggered and grabbed the shelf closest to me for support as I gasped. My skin broke out in a fine case of tingles, thrumming with something I hadn’t known before — something complete.

And for the first time, I felt it.

The hunter in me and the hunted, both waking in perfect harmony.

A predator’s awareness distilled in my bones, sharp and sharp, but it was counterweighted by something deeper, something older. I wasn’t just waking up. I was becoming.

David got up from where he had fallen, panting heavily. Blood dripped from a gash on his forehead, but he wiped it away absently, his eyes fixed on mine.

I didn’t have to look to know my own eyes had shifted into the same molten gold as his.

“You—” His voice had clouded with disbelief. “You weren’t supposed to remember yet.

A strange, new smile creased my lips.

“Well, that’s too bad for you,” I whispered.

The three men behind him moved, rattled, spilling off the blow, their golden eyes wary now. They had thought I was weak. That I was trapped.

They had been wrong.

I breathed out, the last guard coming down, and the change could finally sweep me up. My skin prickled. Bones shifted. Power coursed through my veins.

I looked at David, my lips curling up innocently.

“You might want to discuss that divorce.”