Chapter Nine: The Rise Of Two Moons
974 Words
The moon split that night.
Not literally but it felt like it.
Two full moons hung in the sky, one pale silver, the other an eerie gold. No one had seen it in centuries. And those who had were already dead.
The seers called it an omen.
The packs called it war.
I just called it a warning.
Because I knew — whatever was coming wasn’t just prophecy anymore.
It had arrived.
Kieran and I were summoned at dawn.
Not by the council.
By the Night Circle an order older than the Alphas, older than the packs. Secret. Ruthless. Feared. They hadn’t interfered in a bloodline dispute in decades.
Now they wanted to see the Hollowborn.
They wanted to test his claim.
“You don’t have to go,” I told him as we dressed.
“Yes, I do,” he said, voice tight. “If I run now, I’ll always be the hunted.”
I reached for his hand. He let me hold it for a heartbeat too long.
“Promise me something,” he whispered.
“Anything.”
“If they try to take me don’t let them.”
“I won’t.”
No matter what I become?
I nodded. But my stomach twisted.
Because something inside him was changing and it was fast.
The Night Circle’s temple was deep underground, carved into volcanic stone, lit with crimson fire. Its walls were marked with ancient runes protection sigils and blood-binding curses.
They made Kieran kneel before the altar.
They didn’t kneel for Alphas.
Not even for kings.
But they made him kneel.
“We will test the bond,” the High Priest said. “We will speak to what’s inside him.”
“And if it speaks back?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
They spilled a drop of Kieran’s blood onto the altar stone.
The ground shook.
And then the flame turned black.
Kieran grunted, body arching backward. His claws tore into the stone floor. His veins pulsed gold. His eyes went completely dark.
And then
He screamed.
The sound was not human.
Not wolf.
Not even vampire.
It was older.
The priest gasped. “This isn’t Hollowborn.”
I gripped the edge of the stone. “Then what is he?”
He’s something we tried to destroy when the world was still fire.
Kieran collapsed.
Smoke rose from his skin.
But I could still feel the bond humming between us.
And when I touched him
I saw it.
Not a vision.
A memory.
Kieran as a child. Alone. Covered in blood. Standing before a burning house.
And then—another face.
Mine.
But it wasn’t me.
I wore armor of bone. My eyes burned red.
I was standing beside him. Holding his hand.
We had been here before.
In another lifetime.
And I had died for him.
I pulled back with a gasp. My body shaking.
“I’ve seen this,” I said. “This has all happened before.”
“No,” the High Priest replied, stunned. “It’s happening again.”
He looked down at Kieran, now breathing shallow on the stone.
“He’s not prophecy.”
“He’s the reset.”
We barely made it back to the compound before the assassination attempt.
It happened at dusk.
A cloaked figure — fast, silent — breached the west wing.
I felt the bond snap tight as danger pierced the air.
I found Kieran in his room, half-shifted, eyes blazing, fangs bared.
The assassin lay dead at his feet — throat torn, blood staining the sheets.
Kieran looked at me, shaking.
“I didn’t mean to—”
“You protected yourself,” I said.
“But I liked it,” he whispered.
And that was the part that scared him the most.
The council responded fast too fast.
They called for him to be removed. Silenced. Locked in the Hollow Keep until a “purity trial” could be held.
I refused.
So they voted.
And I was stripped of my title.
I stood in the chamber, head high, as my father took the Alpha ring from my hand.
“You’ll regret this,” he said.
“No,” I replied. “You’ll regret making me choose between your laws and my mate.”
We fled that night.
No guards.
No allies.
Just us.
We rode hard through the mountain pass, through snow and ash, past the southern ridge where no pack claimed land.
Kieran barely spoke.
I watched his hands. How they shook.
How far will we run? he asked quietly.
Far enough.”l
“What if I lose control again?”
Then I’ll fight to bring you back.
And if you can’t?”l
I looked at him.
“Then I’ll stay lost with you.”
We found shelter in a cave high above the valley the old ruins of a forgotten temple, half-swallowed by snow. As we built a fire, Kieran turned to me, something unreadable in his eyes.
“I remembered more,” he said. “From that vision. That other life.”
“What did you see?”
“You died for me.”
I didn’t speak.
“You held the line while I escaped. You gave your life so I could live. Just like you almost did today.”
He paused.
“I don’t think this is just a bond. I think… we’ve always found each other.”
“Fated?” I asked.
“Worse,” he said. “Bound.”
And he kissed me — not like a boy in love, but like a god who remembered what it felt like to lose.
The moon was still split in the sky — two orbs of fire and frost.
And beneath them, I kissed the one I was never supposed to find again…
Because this time, I wouldn’t let him go.
- Writer
