Luna Lost

Damien’s Wolf

The forest had never sounded like this. Everywhere Damien looked, wolves moved beneath the silver light.

They came from every direction for the Blood Moon—families, packs, lone shifters, young wolves nearing adulthood and older ones who had already experienced the magic of this night. The clearing was alive with laughter, howling and the low murmur of voices.

Tonight was sacred.

For most of them, the Blood Moon meant finding their mate, for others, it meant completing the final stage of their adult transformation.

For Damien, it meant something no one else could truly understand.

He had been born a shifter. Born with four legs and with the instincts and strength of something that should have taken years to become. Tonight, for the first time, he would be given the chance to become something else.

Human.

The elders completed the ritual beneath the enormous red moon. The various packs gathered in wide circles while the shaman lifted her hands toward the sky.

Damien stood among his brothers.

Cassius bumped his shoulder.

“You ready?”

Damien glanced at him.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Jace grinned.

“Imagine having hands.”

Damien snorted.

“Imagine being useful.”

Jace shoved him.

The ritual ended in a chorus of howls.

When Music began, all sorts of live game and cooked food was brought out. The younger wolves scattered, chasing the live game and one another between the trees while the adults mingled.

Damien stayed for a while.

He laughed, He listened. He even allowed himself to enjoy the celebration, but something restless had settled beneath his skin. He couldn’t explain it, the moon just seemed to be pulling at him.

So he left.

He wandered deeper into the forest, following a feeling he couldn’t name.

The trees eventually opened, and Damien stopped dead. A pool lay before him. He had never seen it before, and yet he knew every inch of this land for kilometres.

The water was perfectly still.

Moonlight shimmered across its surface, turning it almost white. No wind disturbed it. Nothing moved. It felt impossible- Sacred.

Damien stepped closer.

And then he saw her.

A woman stood at the opposite end of the pool. Her back was turned toward him, and she was completely still, bathed in moonlight. He couldn’t see her face, he didn’t need to.

Every instinct inside him recognized her.

His mate.

The word appeared in his mind with absolute certainty.

Damien’s breath caught.

He stepped into the water.

“Hello?”

She didn’t turn. Instead, she gave a soft giggle.

Damien froze- He knew that sound.

Somewhere, somehow, he had heard it before. A memory stirred.

Small hands.

Silver eyes.

Then the memory vanished beneath something warmer. He dared take another step.

“I won’t hurt you.”

Another soft laugh. His heart pounded, and the moon above them began to change. It grew brighter, larger, until its light seemed to fill the entire sky. Damien could barely see her anymore.

Still, he kept moving.

One step.

Then another.

The water reached his waist. He was almost there. His hand lifted and he reached toward her porcelain smooth shoulder, and then the world disappeared in white.

The moonlight swallowed everything.

For one impossible moment, Damien felt himself split between two worlds.

His body changed. Bones shifted, muscle stretched. The familiar weight of four paws disappeared beneath him.

But his wolf didn’t.

He felt him. Not as himself anymore, as something separate. A presence deep inside his mind.

We are still here.

Damien froze.

You can speak?

A low rumble answered him.

I have always spoken. You simply couldn’t hear me.

The realization nearly overwhelmed him.

His wolf had always been there.

The instincts.

The warnings.

The hunger.

The inexplicable pull toward things he didn’t understand.

It hadn’t simply been instinct. It had been him, another consciousness, a nother part of the same soul. And now, somehow, Damien could hear him.

She is ours.

Damien’s breath caught.

Who?

The wolf growled softly inside his mind.

The one from the water.

Then the light became blinding. Damien gasped, Water rushing around his legs, and he looked down.

Hands. Human hands. He touched his face, his chest, his arms. Human.

His wolf stirred inside him.

Interesting.

Damien almost laughed.

That’s all you have to say?

I have never had hands before.

Damien laughed for the first time in his new voice. The sound was deep and unfamiliar. He looked toward the moon.

“I understand.”

His wolf was quiet for a moment.

Then—

Find her.

Damien lowered his head.

“I will.”

And for the first time in his life, he wasn’t alone inside his own skin.

The wind moved through the trees. He felt her presence disappear. Not gone- not truly. Just beyond his reach. Damien bowed his head again, in reverence to the Moon Goddess.

“Thank you.” He said to the massive, bright, glowing orb in the midnight sky.

He didn’t know whether the Moon Goddess herself had guided him there, or whether she’d simply given him a vision.

He didn’t care, he was certain of one thing.

She existed.

Somewhere.

His mate was somewhere beneath this same moon, and he would find her.

Damien stepped from the water and shifted back to his wolf form, disappearing into the forest. He had spent his entire life running from those who hunted him, and for the first time he wasn’t running away from something.

He was running towards it.