CHAPTER FIVE: Dream bound
1291 Words
-Mira-
The moon was full again.
And I was awake again.
I lay in my bed, chest heaving, the thin cotton shirt I wore clinging to my skin like it had been painted on. My sheets were a knot around my legs, tangled like someone had been holding me down. My thighs trembled. My lips still tingled. My body hummed as if I had been… touched.
No. Not touched.
Claimed.
This was the third night in a row.
It was always the same—only the details shifted. In the dream, I wasn’t me. Not just me, anyway. I was… something else. Something wild, unafraid, unbound. A mate. And Damon—gods, Damon—he was there every time. His voice curling through the dark like smoke, like he’d always been whispering in my bones. His hands gripping my hips as though I was already his. As though he’d been born to hold me like that.
And I didn’t push him away.
I wanted it. Wanted him. Every savage touch, every possessive growl in that strange, ancient language that made my blood thrum like a war drum. I remembered the way my legs wrapped around him like instinct. Like memory. Like I’d been doing it for lifetimes.
Even now, awake, I could still feel the ghost of his lips at the curve of my neck. I could still hear the way he said my name, low and rough, like a promise and a warning at once.
“Mira.”
I sat up, pressing my palms into my eyes. Moonlight bled across my room, soft and gentle, and it felt like a betrayal. Because all I wanted was to fall back under and feel him again.
What was wrong with me? Was it normal to want your dreams more than your life?
-Damon-
The moonlight painted the balcony silver, spilling over the pack house like liquid metal. I stood there, elbows braced on the rail, my jaw tight enough to ache. The night air was thick—storm-thick. Charged.
She was dreaming of me again.
I didn’t know how I knew. The bond wasn’t complete, but it had started to hum days ago—first faint, like a faraway song. Now it was a pounding drumbeat in my veins.
And the truth I’d never admit out loud?
I was dreaming of her too.
Every night.
Not just dreams—visions. Tangled limbs, the sound of my name spilling from her lips, my teeth grazing her skin until she trembled beneath me. Her soul fitting into mine like it had always belonged there. My wolf rising, snarling in victory.
But I couldn’t let myself have her. Not fully. Not yet. I was Alpha-in-waiting. Heir to a cursed crown. My secrets would ruin her.
That night at the party, when she’d run from me, I’d let her go. Because I knew the moment she stopped running, she’d never be able to leave again. And I wasn’t ready for what that would mean.
The balcony door slid open behind me.
Jack stepped out, beer in hand, grinning like he owned the night. “You look like hell.”
“I haven’t slept,” I growled.
He chuckled. “Dreaming about your little human again?”
I didn’t answer. Saying it out loud would make it real.
Ronan emerged next, shirtless, his grin sharp. “She’s not just human. You smell it too.”
“Different,” Charlie’s quiet voice added as he slipped out after them.
Different didn’t even begin to cover it. She didn’t just tempt me—she unsettled me. She stirred something ancient in my blood.
“Still betting you can win her first?” Jack asked Ronan, smirking.
But Ronan wasn’t smirking anymore. He was staring toward the tree line. “Something’s coming.”
Charlie’s gaze sharpened. “Someone crossed the ward this morning. Female.”
Ronan looked at me. “You didn’t sense it?”
“I’ve been… occupied.”
Jack snorted. “Occupied by Mira’s thighs in dreamland.”
None of us laughed.
Because the night split open.
Not with thunder, but with a howl—low, velvet, threaded with Alpha power. It rolled over the campus, seductive and dangerous, a calling and a warning tangled together. Beneath it… something else.
Desire.
-Mira-
“What the hell was that?” Zara hissed beside me as we stepped out of the student union.
“That wasn’t one of our usual wolves,” Sasha murmured, eyes scanning the night.
The air had changed—charged like before a storm. Students were filtering out of buildings, sniffing the air, murmuring in confusion. Some looked intrigued. Others nervous. A few… terrified.
Whispers spread faster than the wind.
“You heard, right?” a girl said behind us. “She’s new. Came from Romania. Smells like moonfire.”
“What the hell is moonfire?” Isla asked.
“A myth,” I said automatically.
Sasha shot me a look. “You know nothing’s just a myth in our world.”
Then I saw her.
She stepped out of the registrar’s office like she was stepping onto a stage she owned. Her hair was dark, almost black-blue, flowing over her back like silk and shadows. Her skin looked like moonlight on porcelain. Lips painted crimson, like she’d bitten into something forbidden and liked the taste.
She didn’t walk. She prowled. Every step deliberate, her gaze sweeping over the crowd like she was measuring and dismissing each person in turn.
Then her eyes locked on me.
Cold. Sharp. Curious.
And she smiled.
Not the friendly kind. The kind that said she already knew my secrets. The kind predators wore when prey noticed them too late.
I froze. My heart slammed against my ribs.
Zara actually gasped.
Isla’s fingers curled into fists.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t.
Because I knew without a doubt—she was a wolf. And not just any wolf. There was something regal in the way she held herself. Dangerous in the way she seemed to drink in the air, as if scent alone told her everything she needed.
And it hit me—she wasn’t here for classes.
She was here for someone.
And deep in my chest, my heart whispered what my brain refused to admit.
She was here for Damon.
Her gaze flicked past me—to the direction of the pack house—and something in her smile deepened, sharpened. She didn’t have to say a word for me to feel it: challenge accepted.
The rest of the campus could have disappeared right then, and it would’ve just been the two of us, locked in silent warning.
And for the first time since I’d met Damon, a shiver slid down my spine that had nothing to do with desire.
It was fear.
Because something told me this girl wouldn’t just compete for him.
She’d destroy me to get him.
- Writer
