The Moonlit Heart

The Golden Eyes

Episode 2

Sleep came in fragments. The howl replayed in Aria’s mind like a haunting melody. And those eyes—the way they seemed to pierce straight into her soul—made her question if she had imagined them at all.

At Ravenwood High, things weren’t much better. The hallways felt like rivers of silence that parted around her. Students whispered behind cupped hands, and when she passed, they watched as if waiting for her to stumble.

It was during lunch that she noticed him.

At a table set apart from the rest sat a boy—tall, lean, with dark hair falling into his eyes. His presence was magnetic, commanding without effort. But it was his gaze that caught her. Dark, sharp, almost feral.

Someone whispered his name like a secret: Lucian Blackthorn.

The name stirred something in the air. When his eyes flicked up, locking with hers across the cafeteria, Aria’s chest tightened. For just an instant, his irises flickered—gold, like fire hidden beneath ash.

She blinked, and the glow was gone. He looked away as though she didn’t exist.

But Aria’s hands trembled around her lunch tray. Because if she hadn’t imagined it, then Lucian Blackthorn wasn’t just a boy.

He was something else.

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