THE MOONBOUND KING

CHAPTER TWO

Hester

I didn’t sleep that night.

Not really.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the paint and pretending not to think about him. Pretending that my mind wasn’t replaying his voice, that strange golden gaze, and the way the air had bent around us like the night itself was listening.

But it was pointless—every breath I took was soaked in memory. His voice lingered like smoke in the corners of my mind, curling through the silence with a weight I couldn’t shake. I told myself I didn’t care. That he was nothing. Just a man I barely knew. But my body betrayed me. My heart stuttered at the thought of him, as if it hadn’t gotten the memo that we were supposed to forget.

The ceiling offered no comfort, just the peeling remnants of past seasons and storms. I traced a familiar c***k with my eyes—one that forked like lightning, slicing toward the window where the moon bled silver onto the wall. Even the night felt different now. He had changed it. Branded it with the echo of his presence.

I closed my eyes.

Big mistake.

There he was again. The memory of his gaze—piercing, unreadable—burned behind my lids. Not cruel. Not kind. Just… knowing. As if he saw something in me I didn’t even see in myself. And maybe that was what terrified me most. That he could look at me, really look, and see beneath the careful mask I wore for the world.

I rolled onto my side and pulled the covers tighter, as if they could shield me from the truth unraveling in my chest. I wanted to hate him. Or forget him. Or at the very least, feel nothing at all.

But the night was listening. And so was my heart.

And both remembered everything.

I sat up around 3 a.m., sleep having long abandoned me, leaving behind only restless thoughts and the ache of things unsaid. The house was wrapped in that peculiar silence only known to the darkest hours of night—still, but not empty. The soft hum of power pulsed through the walls like a heartbeat, steady and distant. From down the hall, my baby brother’s gentle breathing drifted through the quiet, a small anchor in an otherwise drifting world.

I slipped out of bed, the sheets whispering against my skin. The wooden floor was cool beneath my bare feet, grounding me as I moved through the familiar dark. I reached for the sweater draped over the edge of a chair and tugged it over my sleep shirt, the fabric soft, worn—like a memory that hadn’t faded yet.

I didn’t bother turning on the lights. I didn’t need them. I’d walked these halls a thousand times, in a thousand versions of the night. My fingers skimmed the wall out of habit, finding the corner where the wallpaper peeled just slightly, and then I turned toward the living room—the place where shadows softened and the world felt far away.

I crossed to the window, my steps soundless against the wood. The glass was cold beneath my fingertips as I brushed aside the curtain. Outside, the world was drenched in moonlight, quiet and silver. The trees stood still, like ancient sentries keeping secrets only the night could understand.

I pressed my forehead to the glass.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Maybe peace. Maybe answers. Maybe just a sign that I wasn’t the only one awake—haunted by someone I shouldn’t be thinking about, by words that were never spoken, and a gaze that still lingered in the back of my mind like a ghost that refused to let go.

The night offered no clarity. Only the silent witness of stars.

And still, I stood there, waiting.

For something.

For him.

For nothing at all.

It was probably just… adrenaline. A weird social overload moment. I hated parties. That much was fact. So maybe my brain had just latched onto the one interesting person I saw. That was all. Nothing more.

Except I didn’t believe that. Not even a little.

Outside, the moon hung fat and pale over the pines.

It looked… closer than usual. Brighter.

I told myself I was being dramatic. I told myself to go back to bed.

Instead, I stood there a long time, just watching.

The next morning passed like fog—soft around the edges, thick with thoughts I couldn’t quite shake. School was closed for the council holiday, a quiet reprieve that should have felt like a gift. But it didn’t. Not today. The weight of the night still clung to me like the taste of a dream you can’t swallow or forget.

My mother moved through the house with her usual rhythm, as if nothing had changed, as if the world hadn’t shifted beneath our feet while we slept. She fussed with breakfast, flipping eggs and slicing fruit with a kind of cheerful precision that made the silence in my own head feel even louder. The baby gurgled happily in his high chair, his chubby fists smacking the tray as she fed him small bites of mashed banana.

She hummed an old lullaby under her breath, one I hadn’t heard in years—something she used to sing to me before I understood the kind of things that keep people awake at night.

Then she glanced at me, over the steam rising from her coffee. “So,” she said, too casually, “how did you enjoy the ball?”

I blinked.

The question settled in the space between us like a stone dropped into still water. I wasn’t sure how to answer. My mind sifted through fragments—velvet shadows, masked faces, the heavy press of eyes that felt too knowing. And him. Always him. The memory of his voice brushing against my skin, the way he stood as if the night belonged to him. As if I did, too.

“It was… fine,” I murmured, pushing eggs around my plate.

She arched an eyebrow but didn’t press. Not yet. That was her way—plant the seed and wait. Eventually, she’d circle back with more questions, all sweet and careful, like she wasn’t digging.

But I wasn’t ready to talk about the way the air shifted when he looked at me. The way something ancient and unspoken had cracked open between us. I wasn’t even sure it had been real.

So I took a sip of juice, nodded like the conversation was over, and pretended not to notice the way my mother watched me, thoughtful and quiet.

And outside, the world went on pretending it was just another morning.

I mumbled something noncommittal.

She didn’t press. She rarely did.

Sometimes I wondered if she could sense things—like when I was lying, or hurting, or holding something back. But she always let it slide. Maybe because I wasn’t blood. Maybe because she didn’t want to push me further away.

My dad left early for a council meeting, and I spent most of the day holed up in my room with a book I wasn’t really reading. My mind kept drifting.

Who was he?

Where had he gone?

Why had he said he’d been waiting… for me?

And what exactly had I felt when he looked at me like that—like I was the answer to a question he’d asked long before I was born?

Around dusk, I found myself in the garden.

It wasn’t anything fancy—just some stone benches, a little fountain that didn’t work anymore, and a lot of wild vines that grew no matter how often my mom trimmed them back.

I used to sit here when I was younger, imagining the roses were enchanted and the wind carried secrets. Back then, I thought maybe I had magic too. Something hidden. Something waiting.

But nothing ever happened.

Until last night.

Now even the silence felt charged, like the world was holding its breath again.

I picked a dead leaf off one of the vines and rolled it between my fingers.

Maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe he’d just been some ancient vampire with a taste for drama. Maybe he said that to all the girls.

But that didn’t explain the way my skin still hummed when I remembered his voice.

Or the way my reflection flickered slightly when I looked in the mirror this morning.

The wind shifted.

Not violently. Not with any real force.

Just enough to make the ivy rustle and my skin prickle. Like something had just passed by me too quickly for my eyes to follow. I sat up straighter on the garden bench, heart ticking a little faster, though nothing had changed.

Except I was sure it had.

I glanced behind me. Nothing but the empty stone path and the lingering scent of damp earth.

Something was off.

Not wrong… just different. Subtle. Like the world had tilted a fraction of a degree to the left, and only I had felt it.

I stood, brushing dirt from the back of my jeans, and tried to shake it off.

Back inside, I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror.

And stopped.

It wasn’t anything dramatic. No vanishing face. No sudden fangs.

But for a second—just a second—I swore my eyes were too bright. The grey a little too silver. As if light had caught them from the inside instead of the sun outside the window.

I blinked.

Gone.

I leaned closer, touching the mirror’s surface. My reflection stared back like normal. A little tired, a little haunted. Same red hair. Same sharp jawline I got from a birth mother I never knew.

I shook my head. “Get a grip, Hester.”

But even saying it out loud didn’t help.

Because deep down, some part of me knew—something had changed. Not in the world. In me.

That night, I dreamed.

Not the usual nonsense kind. Not anxiety loops or awkward classroom memories.

This was… vivid.

I stood beneath a sky made of smoke and starlight. The moon hung massive overhead, white-gold and trembling. Beneath my bare feet, the ground was soft, ash-colored, and humming faintly.

I wasn’t alone.

I couldn’t see anyone. But I felt him.

Not beside me. Not behind me. In me.

In my breath. In my blood.

A voice drifted toward me—not spoken, not heard, but known:

“You are the end of my beginning.”

I turned. Reached. But the dream slipped through my fingers like water—

And I woke up with a gasp, the moonlight pouring in through my window like liquid silver.

I stayed still for a long time.

The moonlight spilled across my blankets, cold and soft like breath on glass. My room was quiet, untouched. Everything exactly as I’d left it before falling asleep.

But I wasn’t the same.

My pulse hadn’t calmed. My thoughts wouldn’t settle. And my skin—it felt like it was vibrating with something I couldn’t name. Not fear. Not excitement. Just… awareness.

I sat up slowly and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

Then I saw it.

A mark.

Small. Faint. Right at the curve of my collarbone.

It hadn’t been there before.

At first, I thought it was a smudge—a shadow. But as I leaned closer to the mirror by my nightstand, I saw it for what it was: a tiny, pale crescent. Almost invisible. Like a scar shaped like a half-moon.

My breath hitched.

It didn’t hurt. It didn’t glow or bleed. But it pulsed faintly beneath my skin, steady as a heartbeat.

You are the end of my beginning.

The dream whispered back to me, like a forgotten memory returning.

I touched the mark with two fingers, half expecting it to fade.

It didn’t.

I didn’t sleep again. Not really.

And though I told myself not to look—just one more time—I found myself at the window again before dawn.

Waiting.

For the moon.

For the wind to shift again.

For him.