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The Moon Remembers
The Moon Remembers
Author: Anna Smith

Chapter 1

Author: Anna Smith
My name was Mira Thorne—once a healer, once Rowan’s mate,

now nothing but a shade chained to regret.

I floated above the den’s ceiling beams, unseen, unheard.

When Rowan opened the door, the air stirred; dust rose like mist around him.

“Where are you, Mira?” he shouted into the shadows.

“Voss is about to lose her license, and you’re still hiding?”

I smiled bitterly from the rafters.

Three years ago, after that cursed healing ritual, Rowan had cut me out of his life completely.

And now, when he finally came back, it wasn’t to mourn, or remember—

it was to make me take the blame for Voss Voss again.

He strode through the ruin of what used to be our home—the cracked table, the broken chair, the window webbed with cobwebs and frost.

“Where could you go?” he muttered.

“No one banished from the healer’s guild could hide this long.”

He kicked open the bedroom door, splintering the frame.

The empty room stared back at him.

“Voss just texted that the Elders have started investigating. Do you want her to go to prison? I’m counting to ten—get out here now!”

His voice rose, harsh and commanding. “One. Two. Three. Mira, do not test me!”

Watching his impatient face, I thought:

three Winter Solstices had passed, and he still spoke like a man who believed the world owed him obedience.

But no matter how high he counted, I would never step out again.

Because I was already dead.

Rowan shouted again, his voice echoing through the hollow space.

“Mira! I’m just asking for one favor—why are you being so petty?”

Silence answered him.

He slammed his fist against the wall, then turned and left.

Downstairs, the tavern door burst open.

Rowan grabbed Dorian, the innkeeper, by the collar.

“Have you seen Mira Thorne? The woman who lived upstairs?”

Dorian froze mid-motion, wiping grease from his hands.

“Mira?” he repeated softly. “She died three Winter Solstices ago.”

“You’re lying.” Rowan’s face twisted, disbelief flickering into anger.

“I can smell her scent in that room.”

“I’m not lying.” Dorian pointed toward the alley beyond the tavern.

“three Winter Solstices ago, the family from that malpractice case cornered her there—under the blood moon.

They used silver-forged blades, cut deep until her wolf couldn’t heal.

When the bond broke, she screamed once, and then… she was gone before the healers could even reach her.”

He paused, voice lowering.

“The Elders said her spirit howled for one year before the moon claimed her. Her scent lingers because she died there.”

Rowan’s brows furrowed, his jaw tightening with a pain he refused to name.

“Don’t insult me,” he snapped. “She always had a flair for drama.”

He pulled out his phone, the blue glow illuminating the hollows beneath his eyes.

A message flashed on the screen—from Voss:

Forget it. Mira’s still angry about the past. If she won’t help, I’ll take the punishment. If I end up in the Elders’ cells, please take care of yourself.

That one message was enough.

Rowan’s breath shook.

It convinced him that my death was just another excuse.

He typed back, his fingers trembling:

What right does she have to refuse? I paid her more than enough back then. If she’s alive, she owes me.

He looked up, eyes hard, fury burning behind them.

“Stop acting, Dorian! She’s hiding somewhere, isn’t she? Did she pay you off?”

Dorian sighed quietly. “Would I joke about something like this? It was even on the pack’s moon-broadcast.”

But Rowan wasn’t listening anymore. He shoved his phone into his coat and growled,

“Tell her—if she doesn’t show up within three days, her brother’s treatment ends!”

Dorian’s eyes widened. “Rowan, wait—”

“Don’t waste my time!” Rowan snapped, already turning toward the door.

“Either make him come out, or get ready to collect her brother’s body.”

The door slammed shut behind him, the echo rattling through the tavern.

Dorian stood there for a long time, then whispered to the empty air,

“What brother? Her brother died… because there was no money for treatment.”

I lingered beside him, my soul weighted with cold.

That “payment” Rowan mentioned—he had never sent it.

While my brother, Gavin Thorne, lay dying in the healer’s ward,

Rowan and Voss used that gold to buy rare silver instruments for their private lab.

And while I was bleeding out beneath the blood moon,

Rowan was across the valley—

raising a glass to celebrate Voss’s new appointment.

Now, three years later,

he was still using the name of a dead wolf to threaten another who’d long since turned to dust.
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  • The Moon Remembers   Chapter 7

    The day of the banishment hearing arrived with steady snow and a line of witnesses who weren’t used to public rooms.The Elders took the raised table. The scribe’s quill scratched. Voss arrived without counsel, hair pinned, expression controlled.The first witness—the fisherman—told the rescue story simply. He identified my parents by name and described their movements. He said he’d never seen the Voss couple that day. He signed his statement in front of the room.The second witness—the ward cleaner—confirmed the Voss matriarch’s ankle injury that winter and the absence from the infirmary. She produced a copy of the shift log she had saved because she didn’t trust the new system.The third witness—the baker—spoke briefly about seeing my parents with a limping boy and, later, seeing me alone.The Elders entered the ledger amendment as “provisionally accepted,” pending archive retrieval. No one protested.Then came the bank clerk, who testified to the transfers authorizing “professional

  • The Moon Remembers   Chapter 6

    Rowan’s suspension started the next morning. He reported to the lower ward at six, signed in, and took the sanitation cart from a teenager who had been told to train him and didn’t know where to look. Rowan didn’t mind. He learned the schedule and ran it.After his shift, he followed the paper. He requested Voss’s research grant files and found overlapping budgets with his own transfers. He requested access to the private lab inventory and found the silver instruments used once, cataloged twice, and written about three times.He also wrote letters—five of them: one to the Elders with a list of cases where he had overridden protocol for “noble kin,” four to families who had been pushed to settle because “reputation management” mattered. The letters were plain, one page each, and included an offer to reopen files without cost.He did not write to David. He didn’t need to; David kept showing up with documents and short sentences:— “The baker signed her statement.”— “The fisherman wants

  • The Moon Remembers   Chapter 5

    Rowan spent the morning pulling every thread that could still move.He returned to Records and requested the original witness contact forms. Two were out of date; one was current. He called the number and offered no money, only an apology in advance for the questions. The man spoke steadily: he had seen Alden and Celia Thorne dragging a half-conscious boy through snow toward the ridge road; he had never seen the Voss family that day.Rowan asked for a sworn statement. The man said yes and came to sign it in front of a clerk.Rowan then went to the bank and printed the last five years of transfers to any entity connected to Voss. The total was enough to fund a small ward. He highlighted the three payments that matched witness departures.He called the hospital’s storeroom and confirmed procurement dates: the “rare silver instruments” had been purchased with the same transfer that was supposed to pay Gavin’s treatment. The storeroom manager remembered the rush order, the signature, an

  • The Moon Remembers   Chapter 4

    I followed Rowan to the ridge graveyard because I didn’t believe he would go. He did.He stopped at two stones: GAVIN THORNE and MIRA THORNE. He stared, waited for an error to appear in the letters, and when it didn’t, he sank to his knees.David found him there. “Now you believe,” he said.Rowan didn’t answer at first. “How long.”“Three winters,” David said. “Gavin, one year.”Rowan’s voice was flat. “The hospital records could be wrong.”“They aren’t.”Rowan stood. “Then I failed both of them.”“You did,” David said. “Start by saying that out loud. To someone other than yourself.”Rowan looked at my name again. “I made her sign a confession to protect Voss Voss. If Voss had fallen, she’d lose everything.”“And Mira didn’t?” David asked.“I thought she’d survive,” Rowan said. “I thought she was stronger.”“You used her strength as a cushion,” David said. “Why Voss, specifically?”Rowan gave the answer he had practiced for years. “I owed her. Her parents saved me from rogues when I wa

  • The Moon Remembers   Chapter 3

    The next morning, Rowan’s first stop was the healer’s sanctuary on the east ridge—the same place where my brother had taken his last breath.I drifted after him through the mist, the air thick with the scent of wolfsbane and frozen pine.His car tore along the icy road, headlights slicing through the fog.His brows were furrowed, his jaw locked, every motion sharp with urgency—but I knew that desperation wasn’t for finding me.It was for fixing Voss’s latest disaster.He didn’t even stop the car properly. The door swung open before the engine died.He leapt out and strode into the sanctuary’s marble hall.“You,” he snapped at the nurse behind the desk. “I need Gavin Thorne’s medical record—now.”The young nurse startled. “One moment, Doctor—”Before she could finish, a voice drawled from behind him—low, mocking, and all too familiar.“Well, well. Look who the moon dragged back. Rowan Hale himself.”Rowan stiffened. He turned to see Dr. David Ward, a healer who had left the pack hospi

  • The Moon Remembers   Chapter 2

    My soul remained tethered to him like a cursed chain.Even in death, I followed him back to our old manor on the northern ridge—the place that once smelled of pine smoke, moonlight, and lies.When Rowan returned, the door creaked open and warm light spilled onto the frozen floor.Voss was waiting by the fire, her white fur cloak glimmering like fresh snow under a hunter’s moon.“You found her?” she asked, rising from the chair. Her tone was sweet, but her golden eyes gleamed with fear.Rowan hesitated, his voice low. “No. Dorian said… Mira’s been dead for three winters.”“Dead?” Voss’s brow furrowed. “Impossible. She’s hiding, trying to guilt us. You know how dramatic she was.”He didn’t answer. The silence pressed between them like fog before a storm.Voss sighed, feigning sympathy. “That must be it. Mira’s still angry over what happened three years ago. If she refuses to help, then fine—maybe I should turn myself in to the Elders.”Rowan flinched. “Don’t talk like that. You know what

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