Chapter 4-The Curse Beneath the Moon
1073 Words
Lucien
A week has gone by since the incident in the greenhouse. He thought about the blooming lunar blossoms and how they reacted towards them. Those images flashed through his thoughts. He didn't know how to stop thinking about the encounter with Mira. He kept going over the details from that day. Touching her just set his nerves and his wolf on fire.
Lucien hadn't planned to touch her.
He meant to keep his distance- observe, analyze, protect the fragile boundary between instinct and control. But when Mira touched him, something shifted.
Not in the air.
In him.
The street dissolved. The city vanished. And suddenly, he was standing in a forest bathed in silver mist, the ground beneath his feet pulsing like a heartbeat.
He knew this place.
Not from memory. From blood.
The trees whispered in a language older than speech, their branches etched with glowing sigils-union, sacrifice, binding. Ahead, a stone altar rose from the earth, carved with symbols he only seen once before, buried in the forbidden archives beneath his family's estate.
Two figures knelt before it.
One with Mira's face.
The other with his own eyes.
Lucien stepped forward, breath caught in his throat. The vision was too vivid to be a metaphor. Too precise to be a dream.
The kneeling version of himself reached for her-his Mira, not this one, but the same soul. Their hands clasped. Their vow echoed through the trees.
No matter the life. No matter the loss. I will find you.
Then the council came.
Dark-robed figures. Eyes like frost. Words like knives.
"No union shall hold. No vow should last. Each life shall find the other- and each time, they shall be torn apart."
Lucien flinched as the altar cracked. The forest dimmed. The sigils burned red.
The curse wasn't legend. It was law.
His chest ached. Not from fear-but from recognition. From grief. From the weight of every life he hadn't known he lived.
He turned toward Mira-this Mira- standing beside in the vision, her wide eyes, her breath shallow.
"They cursed us," he whispered. "To find each other. To lose each other."
She didn't speak. She didn't need to.
Lucien reached for her hand again, and this time, when their fingers touched, the forest pulsed with light.
"Then we break it." she said.
The vision shattered.
Lucien gasped, blinked against the cold night air. They were back on the street. The city was real again. The bond between them had changed.
He looked down at their hands- still clasped.
And for the first time in years his wolf didn't growl.
It bowed.
The vision had ended.
The cold night pressed against Lucien's skin, he barely felt it.
Mira's hand was still in his, warm and steady, grounding him in the present if the past clawed at his mind. The vision lingered like smoke- those ancient vows, the council's decree, the way her eyes looked at him across lifetimes.
He released her hand slowly, not because he wanted to, but because he didn't trust what might happen if he held on too long.
"You saw it?" he said quietly. "All of it."
Mira nodded, her expression unreadable.
"I don't know what to do with it yet."
Lucien exhaled, the breath shakey.
"Neither do I."
They stood in silence, the city humming faintly around them. A car passed in the distance. Somewhere, a dog barked. But here, in this moment, everything felt suspended.
Lucien turned towards her fully.
"I've spent years controlling the wolf inside me. Surpressing instincts. Avoiding anything that felt like fate."
He paused, searching her face.
"And you walked into me. And everything unraveled."
Mira's face softened, but her voice stayed firm.
"You think this is fate?"
Lucien hesitated.
"I think it's a choice disguised as fate. And I don't want to make without you."
She blinked, startled by the honesty. So was he.
"Lucien..."
"I don't expect you to trust me. Not yet. But I need you to know- I won't let them take this from us again."
The wind shifted, brushing her hair across her cheek. She didn't move to fix it. She just looked at him, like she was seeing something she hadn't let herself believe until now.
"Then we figure it out," she said. "Together."
Lucien nodded once, the weight in his chest easing just enough to breathe.
"I'll walk you home..."
She didn't argue.
And as they moved side by side through the quiet streets, Lucien felt something he hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
Lucien walked Mira home in silence.
Not the kind born in discomfort- but something deeper. Reverence. His steps were measured, not out of caution, but to mirror hers, to give her time to breathe, to process.
The city moved around them- cars, lights, humans- but none of it touched the quiet orbit they existed in.
"Each life...torn apart."
The council's decree echoed in his skull, etched like a flame. But tonight, it hadn't felt final. It had felt... challenging. Like something to be rewritten.
They reached her building's gate. Mira turned to him, searching his face like she could sketch the emotions he wasn't ready to name.
"I don't know how to stop the curse." she said. "But I don't want to run from it."
Lucien's throat tightened.
"Then you won't have to."
There was a long beat where neither moved. Her key hovered near the lock. His hand was still warm from hers. The air buzzed with static- energy drawn not from instinct alone, but recognition. From connection.
And then something shifted- subtle, low, and almost missed.
His wolf stirred- not with hunger, or violence, or warning.
But protection.
The feeling crashed into him like an ancient echo: She is mine to guard. Not possess. Guard.
Lucien stepped back. It was the hardest thing he'd done in years.
"Go inside," he said quietly. "Lock your window. Keep the bloom somewhere safe."
Her brow furrowed.
"Why?"
Lucien scanned the shadows. The fog had thickened. And somewhere beneath it, he sensed movement. Watching.
"Because if we remember, so does everything else."
Mira hesitated. Then nodded.
The gate clicked behind her. Lucien waited. Listened.
And when her light came on in the upstairs window, he finally turned away-pulse sharpening, jaw locked.
The council would move soon. He felt it like gravity.
But this time, when they came?
He wouldn't be the obedient heir.
He would be the warning they forgot to fear.
- Writer
