The Veiled Silver Moon

LIORAN'S SHADOWS

Lioran’s POV:

The mate bond should have sparked. The pull should have been magnetic.

But nothing happened.

That was the first thing that terrified me.

I had imagined this moment too many times. The pull. The undeniable recognition of fated pairs.

I had expected a spark and for our bond to snap back into place, no matter how much time or distance had been forced between us.

Instead, there was silence.

Not emptiness.

But a wall.

The moment I saw her, my heart lurched. My wolf had surged forward instinctively, claws scraping against the inside of my chest, only to recoil as if obstructed by a wall.

It didn’t feel severed.

It felt blocked.

She looked the same.

No, that wasn’t true. She looked more alive. Steadier than she had been before the accident.

Her aura was… contained. And full of energy, like she can contain the whole universe in her.

A contrast to her sickly and pale appearance from before.

She was now balanced in a way that unsettled me more than if she’d seemed broken.

She did not look like the mate I knew.

But the aura was unmistakable.

I had spoken out her name without thinking.

Arwenna.

The name came out like a withheld grief that was finally let out.

Her confusion had been real. Not an act.

She had looked at me like a stranger.

She really didn’t remember me.

The realisation hit me slowly. Cruel.

Although I knew it was going to be like that, I was still disappointed.

I had hoped that there would be some sort of familiarity or connection with her, even without her memories.

When she asked me if she knew me before, something inside me had cracked.

Still, I had lied.

I don’t know why I did.

But what else could I do?

The man beside her had noticed immediately.

Kaelith.

I knew his name even though I had never seen him.

Liriel had told me.

She had only informed me that he was her husband and that his name was Kaelith Draevan.

That was it.

She couldn’t find any more useful information.

His presence matched his mysterious identity.

Power clung to him in layers, restrained with disciplined cruelty. The kind of strength that didn’t announce itself because it didn’t need to.

When Kaelith arrived, the melancholy inside my chest changed into an alarming panic that made my wolf whimper submissively inside me.

That doesn’t normally happen.

He must be the reason my mate bond with Arwenna had gone silent.

That should not have happened.

Mate bonds don’t just go quiet in the presence of others.

It didn’t go away with a simple marriage tie with another other than one’s fated pair.

Unless something had gone very, very wrong.

I had retreated before acting blindly.

I couldn’t act even if I wanted to.

I ran until the stoned pathway of the college gave way to trees, and the sounds of the college had fallen behind me. Only then did I stop and let tension bleed from my shoulders.

My wolf still whimpered restlessly. Unsettled.

“She’s alive,” I murmured, pressing a hand to my chest. “But she’s not… reachable.”

Guilt twisted through me, both sharp and familiar.

I know I had let her go first.

I failed her when she needed me. That truth remained unchanged.

But this?

This was not about abandonment.

Something else had intervened.

Someone powerful enough had altered what should have been immutable.

My thoughts drifted, unwillingly, to that night.

To the stormy night that flashed with silver light and blood.

And the screams... that scream still haunted my dreams.

I clenched my fists. My fingers were digging into my palms and almost drew blood.

Her parents had probably done this because they believed they were protecting her.

The realisation chilled me more than anger would have.

I lifted my gaze toward the distant spires of the college.

If the bond could not guide me to her, I would find another way about it.

Carefully.

This was the first obstacle I faced in my life.

The greatest threat standing between my mate and me was not distance or fate. It was the very hand that now stood closest to her.

And that hand did not look easy to shake.