The Healer Luna

CHAPTER THREE

FIONA

Alpha Damien was six foot one, even barefoot.

With sandy blonde hair and light grey eyes that reflected sunlight like glitter off diamonds, he had the sort of face and body that made it easy to believe that the moon goddess herself had carved him with bits of every woman’s fantasy and then dropped him straight down into the world to wreak havoc.

But none of that was why I fell in love with him.

Did it help? Of course it did, I wasn’t blind. But my short twenty four years of living have been enough to teach me that beauty fades.

I fell for Damien because he was kind. Because he was strong and he cared about his pack. He cared about me.

Or at least I had believed that he did.

I lay curled up on the cold marble floor of the hallway, my back against the wall and my fist pressed to my lips to stop myself from screaming.

After Serena dropped the bomb of her pregnancy, my legs had given out beneath me and I crumpled to the ground, eyes fixed straight ahead.

But Serena would not stop sobbing about how I had tried to attack her and so Damien had taken her back into our room to try and console her while I remained in the hall, listening to the sounds of my husband comforting the woman who had taken my place.

My chest burned and I pressed my hand over my chest, half expecting to find a gaping hole where my heart was supposed to be.

The last thing I wanted was for any of the maids to come and see my like this but I couldn’t find it in me to move when every breath I took felt like I was inhaling broken glass.

Growing up the daughter of an alpha, I had never fantasized about being married to one. I loved my father, fiercely and he in his own way had loved me. But I hated the nights he was away.

I hated sitting on the steps long after the moon had risen, praying to the goddess for him to come back safely and he always did. Until the day he didn’t.

He was injured on the field, trying to protect his men from an attack. My father was in a coma for days and I thought he was going to die.

That day, I learned two things. How hard it was to run a pack, and thatI didn’t want to spend my life waiting. I wanted to participate, I wanted to do something.

My brother said I was moon-touched.

“What kind of girl fantasizes about being out on the field amongst blood and broken bones?” He asked me once.

He didn't understand that I didn’t want to be a warrior. I didn’t dream of fighting. I dreamed of saving.

Then one day, news reached us that the king who was extremely sick and at the point of death had been saved by a man, a healer everyone called the Bishop.

I immediately became fascinated by healers and started to read about it in secret.

I found out that a healer was a rare being of unimaginable power. They were so rare that no one even believed they existed till the Bishop healed the king.

But as always, power came at a cost. Healers were always smaller and weaker than the werewolves around them. They were also infinitely more sensitive to pain and what might not even bother a warrior, could easily kill a healer.

Still I wanted it. I begged the goddess even though I knew it was pointless.

The night everything changed started like every birthday before it. My father threw me a party and I tried to hide from it. But then I feel asleep and I saw her.

I was not really surprised.

Every werewolf dreams of the Moon Goddess eventually. On the night that you turn eighteen. You might hear her voice echoing in your head like a memory or see her in fragments of light and beauty, right before she offers you the gift of your wolf.

But I saw her clear as day.

She sat at the bank of a silver lake. Her feet were bare and her snow white hair drifted around her like mist. She turned to look at me and her eyes were twin pools of endless light. I could taste salt on my tongue, and could feel the sharp cold wind on my skin.

She trailed her hand through the water and the droplets sparkled like stars. “Hello moonchild.” she said and her voice was warm and cold, high and low. It was the sky and it was the sea and I felt it to the very fibers of my being.

“Goddess.” I knelt, shaking even though I knew it was a dream.

She turned away from me,

“You have come for your wolf. But instead, I shall offer you a choice.”

Despite my fear, I lifted my head, trying to look at her. “I do not understand.”

I did not see her smile but it felt like she did.

She waved her hand across the lake and the image of a giant wolf with grey fur bounded across the water. My breath caught in my throat at the sight.

“I could give a wolf,” She said “Or,” The wolf disappeared and the goddess turned to me once again. “I could give you what you truly desire.”

My pulse thundered in my ears.

What did I desire more than anything? More than my wolf.

I opened my mouth to speak but she cut me off.

“Careful.” She said, “Once made, the choice cannot be undone.”

A werewolf without a wolf was like a man without his limbs.

I set my lips in a tight line.

“I choose the gift of healing. That is what I want.”

The goddess nodded softly. “As you wish, moonchild. But remember this. A healer cannot bring the dead back to life should ever exceed the limits of your ability, you will die.”

My head snapped up.

What?

“Goddess…” I started to speak but the dream faded abruptly.

When I woke up, my palms were burning and my entire body was drenched in sweat but my heart was filled with an excitement that I could barely contain.

I was going to be a healer.

So I ignored the ‘wolfless’ jeers from my brother and waited eagerly for my powers to manifest.

But they never did. Instead all that happened was that I grew weaker and more sensitive to even the slightest injury.

Years passed and I am not certain when I gave up, but somewhere along the line, I did. I stopped waiting for a magic that would never come and instead, I learned the art of medicine itself. I studied anatomy and physiology, learned how to set the bones of a werewolf and to cure a moon fever.

When my brother introduced me to Damien Sinclair, I knew it was his attempt to get me away from a life of sadness as he liked to put it. But I was wary of the alpha of the Silver moon pack.

Damien was handsome and he was nice. But he was not my fated mate.

In a world like ours that was ruled by bonds and fate, choosing to get married to someone without that certainty was a huge risk and I had told Damien has much. I told him that unlike everyone else, I was more sensitive to pain and that a bond breaking might kill me.

But he had laughed, soft and warm, taking my hand in his larger ones. “I’m not a child Fi.” He said. “I know what I want and I choose you. I will always choose you”

“Even if you find your fated mate?” I asked softly and Damien lowered his head and looked into my eyes.

“Nothing will ever come between us.”

I shook my head.

“This is a serious thing Damien. I need to hear you say the words. Promise me.”

“Fiona…”

“Promise me.”

“Fine.” He sighed softly. “I promise that I will never leave you. Even if I find my fated mate.”

I believed him and I fell in love with him. Hard.

Like head over heels, sometimes forgets my name when he looks up at me hard.

Foolish. I slammed my fist into my chest. Stupid. I did it again.

How could I have been so blind?

Everyone had told me that deciding to go to the frontlines to help out the wounded was a bad idea. Everyone but Damien and at that time, it had felt like he was the only one in the world who understood me.

But no one does. No one ever did.

The tears running down my cheek are hot.

I hate him.

I hate him for doing this to me. For reducing me to a mess curled up and sobbing on the ground.

I had spent the last six months of my life at camp agonizing over whether it had been the right choice to leave my husband behind. Even right now, a part of me still wants to blame myself.

He said I abandoned him.

Maybe if I had never gone he would not have fallen in love with someone else?

No. I shake my head vehemently. It was never about that.

Damien had never meant to keep his promise to me. Whether I had stayed or not, he would have betrayed me eventually.

I staggered to my feet, bracing myself against the wall even as sounds of Damien and Serena’s laughter reached me.

I stumbled down the steps and into the living room in a daze.

I hate him and I will never forgive him for this. I will make him pay. I will make all of them pay.

A sharp pain tore through my chest and I had to bite down on my lip to stop from screaming.

“Luna!”

It was Elias. He ran towards me.

“Luna, what’s happening?” He asked frantically.

But I could barely hear him over the fire burning its way through every part of my body.

“I hate you Damien SInclair.” I whispered through clenched teeth. “And I curse the bond that ties us together.”

The pain tripled and I dropped to one knee, gasping, sweat dripped from my forehead in fat beads.

Besides me Elias shook his head. “Luna, no.”

I ignored him and pressed my palm over my heart.

This is where it ends.

“I sever my bond to you Damian Sinclair.” I hissed loud enough for anyone to hear. “Let the goddess bear me witness!”