Bound By The Blood Moon

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 – Shadows in the Dreams

Selene’s Point of View

The dreams began before midnight, creeping over me like smoke, leaving me choking in my own sheets.

I never knew when they would start. Sometimes a faint flicker of movement at the edge of sleep, a shadow sliding across the corner of my vision. Other times, they hit with the force of a hurricane, dragging me into a world that was not my own.

Tonight, it was fire.

A forest burning. Flames clawing at the sky, consuming everything in sight. The smoke was thick, black, choking, and I coughed, desperately trying to breathe. The ground beneath my feet was slick with ash, and the trees twisted, skeletal, their bark blackened and cracked.

And then I heard them.

A howl.

Low at first, almost mournful, carried on the wind. I froze. The hair on my arms stood on end. Wolves. I had always loved them from afar, admired their strength and grace. But these were different. Not ordinary wolves. They were enormous, larger than any I had ever seen. Their eyes glowed like molten gold, and their fur seemed to ripple with shadow and fire.

They circled me, silent and predatory. I tried to move, but my legs refused to obey. My chest tightened as though invisible hands were pressing down, forcing me to kneel in the ash.

One stepped forward, taller than the rest, and I recognized him instantly.

The boy.

From my dreams. Golden eyes burning into mine like coals. His presence was overwhelming, suffocating. He did not speak, but I could feel the words pressing against my mind, a vibration I couldn’t shake.

“Selene…”

The voice wasn’t loud, but it rang clear, deep, resonating in my chest as though it had been carved into my soul.

I wanted to run. I tried to scream. But the fire surrounded me, the wolves closed in, and his eyes… his eyes held something impossible. Recognition. Authority. Judgment.

I woke up with a scream lodged in my throat, heart pounding like a drum in my ears. My sheets were tangled around my legs, damp with sweat. The room was still dark, the moon just a thin sliver through the curtains. But the mark beneath my collarbone burned with a strange heat, throbbing in rhythm with my pulse.

I sat up, hugging my knees to my chest, trying to calm myself. My room felt normal too normal, as if it had never been touched by fire or shadow. But the weight of the dream lingered. Heavy. Insistent.

I had no memory of ever dreaming like this before. Not like this.

Breakfast was the usual quiet routine. Mom noticed my pallor, but didn’t press. I forced down pancakes, every bite tasting like ash. The dreams were too vivid to dismiss.

I kept seeing him. Always him. Always the wolves. Always fire. And every time, the mark on my chest pulsed in response, as though acknowledging something I couldn’t understand.

After Mom left for the clinic, I wandered outside, hoping the cool morning air would clear my head. The forest at the edge of our property was eerily quiet, the birds gone, the wind barely rustling the leaves. I shivered.

The feeling was back. That pull. That tug deep inside my chest, impossible to ignore.

I pressed my hand over the mark. It burned faintly, like a warning, a whisper from some part of me I didn’t know existed.

I shook my head. “It’s just a dream,” I muttered aloud. “Just a dream.”

But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t.

That night, the dreams returned. Worse.

The fire was closer, the smoke thicker. The wolves were not just watching now they were moving with purpose. I ran, stumbling through the ash-strewn forest, the heat searing my skin. But no matter how far I ran, the golden-eyed boy was always ahead of me, always out of reach.

Then I heard voices.

Human voices. Screaming. Calling a name I didn’t recognize.

Gunshots.

I froze. The smoke cleared just enough for me to see the source: a man running through the trees, clutching something to his chest. A woman behind him, swaying, her stomach swollen and tight, clutching her belly as she struggled to keep up.

I wanted to help, to call out, but my voice was gone. My legs refused to move.

Then the flash. The shot.

The man collapsed. The woman screamed. And I realized…

The child he had been carrying was me.

I woke with a gasp, sheets tangled around me again. The fire burned behind my eyes. My chest ached from the dreams as if I had actually run through the flames. My body trembled uncontrollably.

And still, the mark pulsed.

I tried to tell Mom the next morning. “I’m having… dreams,” I said hesitantly over breakfast. “Really bad dreams. Wolves, fire, and… someone. Someone I think I know, but I don’t.”

Mom’s fork paused mid-air. She didn’t look at me directly. Her hands trembled slightly, and she dropped the fork with a clatter. “Selene…” she said softly. “It’s just your imagination.”

“No, it’s not!” I exclaimed, my voice cracking. “I wake up, and it feels like it’s happening! And this…” I lifted my shirt just enough to show her the mark.

Her eyes widened, but she quickly looked away. “Selene… please. Not yet. Not here. Not now.”

I frowned, frustration boiling. “Why? Why can’t you just tell me what this is?”

She shook her head, tears welling. “You’re too young… not for tonight.”

I felt my stomach twist. I was eighteen. Too young? I was not a child. I needed answers. And yet, there was a fear in her eyes that rooted me to the spot.

That night, the dreams returned with new intensity.

I was back in the forest, the trees charred and black, smoke curling like fingers around my ankles. The wolves were closer now, circling me, their golden eyes reflecting the firelight. One stepped forward. The boy. His presence consumed the space, larger than life, impossibly commanding.

And then I heard him speak. Not with words this time, but with… something else.

A thought. A pull. A connection that made my chest ache.

Selene… find him.

I did not understand. Find who? The man from the dreams? My father? The boy?

The wolves began to close in, forming a barrier of fur and teeth around me. I tried to scream. My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Panic clawed at my chest.

Then fire erupted at the edges of the clearing, flames twisting unnaturally, almost alive. The wolves flinched but did not retreat. The boy’s golden eyes glowed brighter, as if feeding off the chaos.

And I knew. I knew that I was the one being called. That I had been at the center of something far larger than my life, something I could not yet comprehend.

The fire spread, hot and suffocating, and I felt my body pulled forward, toward the boy, toward the flames. My chest burned where the mark throbbed, and I screamed finally, finally, sound pouring from me.

And then I woke.

The room was dark, the moon a thin sliver again. Sweat coated my body, sheets twisted around my limbs. I could still feel the fire, the heat in my chest, the tug of those golden eyes pulling at me across time and space.

I sank to the floor, hands pressed over the mark. It pulsed faster now, insistently. My mind was foggy, heart racing, but one thought burned clear:

I could not ignore it.

I had tried. I had thought the dreams were meaningless, the mark a strange birthmark or allergy. But this was different. Something was calling to me. Something ancient. Something tied to me before I even understood my own existence.

And I could not run from it.

The next day, I found myself wandering toward the forest. Not daring to cross the edge, not yet, but standing at the boundary where my world ended and something else began. The wind carried scents I had never noticed before: wet earth, wild animals, something faintly metallic, almost like iron.

The pull was stronger now. A sensation beneath my skin that made my muscles ache. My heart thudded painfully against my ribs. I tried to remind myself that I was human. That I was safe. That the forest was just trees.

But the mark… the mark had begun to burn from the inside.

And I knew.

It would not stop until I crossed into its world.

Until I faced whatever was waiting for me in the fire, in the forest, in the dreams.

Until I answered the call.

And I had no choice but to do so.