Chapter1
1230 Words
Gwen's feet dragged against the pavement as she walked home from another exhausting night shift.
The sun was just beginning to rise, painting the sky a dull orange. Most people were waking up for the day. But she was ready to collapse into bed.
After spending ten hours stacking boxes at the warehouse, every muscle in her body ached. The only thing keeping her moving was the thought of visiting the hospital and checking on her mother.
As she turned into the narrow alley leading to her apartment building, something felt wrong. A crowd had gathered outside.
Her heart skipped. The front door of her apartment hung open.
"No..."
Gwen broke into a run.
People watched as she pushed through them and rushed upstairs. The moment she reached her unit, her stomach dropped. The room had been trashed.
Her old drawers were pulled out. Her mattress had been flipped over.
Her small wooden table lay broken on the floor. Even the old fan she used during hot nights was missing.
"What happened?"
Gwen stumbled inside. Her hands shook as she looked around. Everything she owned had been thrown around like garbage.
"You're finally back."
A familiar voice made her freeze.
Her landlord stood by the doorway, arms crossed. Mr. Briggs looked annoyed rather than concerned.
Gwen swallowed. "Sir, someone broke into my apartment."
"You think I can't see that?" The older man scoffed. "What matters is that the police found evidence your place was used by thieves."
"What?" Gwen stared bewildered. "I wasn't even home."
"Not my problem." Mr. Briggs tossed a folded paper onto the floor. "You've caused enough trouble already."
Gwen picked it up. Her face went pale.
FINAL NOTICE.
Eviction. Three days. Three days to leave.
Her breathing became uneven.
"Sir, there has to be a mistake."
"No mistake."
"I always pay rent."
"Late."
"Only because of my mother's hospital bills."
The landlord's expression remained cold.
"I don't run a charity over here."
He stepped closer, eyes dragging over her slowly. His voice dropped, oily and quiet.
"You’re a pretty girl, Gwen. Desperate too. I could forget this notice. Let you stay. All you’d have to do is come to my room tonight." He smiled. "Sleep with me. One night. That’s all I’m asking. Then this place stays yours."
Gwen felt her stomach turn. She took a step back, clutching the eviction notice like it could protect her.
"No." Her voice shook, but she didn’t look away. "I won’t do that."
The change in him was instant. The fake charm dropped.
His face twisted with anger. "You ungrateful little…" He jabbed a finger toward the door. "You have three days."
"And if I can't pay?"
"Then I'll throw your things onto the street myself."
The door slammed shut. Silence filled the apartment.
Gwen stood alone among the wreckage. Her hands trembled as she stared at the eviction notice.
Three days. Three days before she lost the only home she had left.
Her phone suddenly vibrated. A hospital number flashed across the screen. Gwen's blood ran cold. Slowly, she answered.
"Hello?"
"Gwendolyn Brooks?"
"Yes."
"This is St. Mary's Hospital." The nurse hesitated. "We need you to come immediately. Your mother's condition has worsened."
The eviction notice slipped from her fingers. And for the first time in a very long time... Gwen felt completely hopeless.
*. *. *
The room was all stone and iron.
Chains hung from every wall. Thick, rusted, carved with wards that hissed and smoked where they touched his skin. Cold iron manacles bit into Lucien Quin’s wrists and ankles. Cursed silver burned in deep grooves, keeping the beast inside.
Three centuries ago Lucien had torn through his own pack in one night. No thought. No mercy. Just blood and teeth and a throne left empty. When he woke, the world was ash and the Moon Goddess stood over him in the ruin.
Her voice had been quiet. Final.
“You will never know peace, Lucien Quin. You slaughtered your own for power. So you will rule in ash until the world forgets your name. No love will touch you. No mate will claim you. You will burn alone under every moon until the last star dies.”
The Moon Goddess’s Curse was carved into his bones. Branded on his soul.
The room shook, but he didn’t hear it. He heard only the chains. Rattling with every breath he dragged in.
The moon climbed higher through the barred slit. Pale and cruel.
“Again?” His voice scraped raw, more beast than man. “You drag me here every full moon just to remind me I’m alone?”
The air shifted. The chains went taut, then slack, like something exhaled.
Light poured down from the barred window and struck the center of the room. Not moonlight. Something older.
Lucien staggered against his restraints, snarling as the silver seared deeper.
The light condensed and shimmered.
And showed her in a vision. She was frail, small. A human.
She collapsed to her knees on cracked pavement, not stone. Bare feet bleeding. Eyes wide and drowning in fear. No wolf scent. No power. No strength.
Her ribs showed through a thin, stained dress. Her hands shook like she hadn’t eaten in days. Hopeless.
Gwen Brooks.
He didn’t know the name yet. But the bond did. It burned it into his mind.
Lucien froze mid-breath. The vision shifted. Her standing in a trashed apartment, eviction notice in her trembling hands, a hospital number flashing on a dark phone. She whispered to an empty room. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
No one answered her. The light snapped out and silence crashed back.
Then Lucien growled. The chains groaned against the stone. The ground cracked beneath his claws as he bowed his spine, fangs tearing at the air.
“THIS?!” He roared, voice shaking the walls. He slammed his chained fists into the floor, splitting the stone. “After three thousand years of your curse…‘No love will touch you. No mate will claim you’...THIS is what you give me, Goddess?!”
The room answered with only the rattle of iron and the hiss of burning wards. But the vision stayed, imprinted behind his eyes.
Frail. Starving. Broken.
His mate…His damn human mate.
Lucien dropped to his knees, chains dragging, the silver burning holes in his skin. His claws gouged lines into the stone.
“Goddess,” he snarled at the barred moon, voice breaking. “You made me lonely because I went feral. Because I killed without thinking. Because I was betrayed.”
He yanked against the iron. Blood ran black down his arms.
“But what happens when the heavens finally decide to pardon me?” His silver-grey eyes glimmered in the dark. “What happens when the bond wakes me up and your words mean nothing?”
The beast in him snarled, clawing for blood, for destruction, for the night air.
But Lucien stared at the empty space where the vision had been.
And for the first time in three thousand years of full moons…He didn’t want to break the chains to destroy.
He wanted to break them to find her.
The Moon Goddess had cursed him to die alone. Tonight, she had given him a reason to live.
And Lucien Quin wasn’t sure which was more dangerous…the curse, or the girl.
- Writer
