Chapter 14: Lunar Pull
1343 Words
Lyra’s Pov
The full moon shone at its brightest. We were supposed to have our pack run as the full moon rose responding to the call of the moon, running till our legs gave out. A sacred and happy moment, but tonight the pack run was cancelled due to the attack from the covenant pack. Their rangers and scouts had been spotted too close to the perimeter. The Alphas gave an order that no one is allowed beyond the residence perimeter tonight.
I paced in my room until the floorboards memorized my steps and the pull only tightened around my ribs. My veins were buzzing with the adrenaline that comes with the moon call. But due to the cancelled run, the energy had nowhere to go.
I kept pacing, since what I read at the archive last night, I have felt a constant pull towards wherever Draven is and I think it's the full moon that's amplifying it. Right now it's pulling me towards the west wing. The pull coiled tighter until it hurt. I have tried several things to ignore it, exercise, and stretching, but none worked.
I told myself I was stronger than this and I would stay in my room.
But my body called me a liar when my feet carried me out the door before I could talk myself out of it. I moved down the east corridor, past the darkened dining hall where we’d had that disastrous dinner. The house was silent except for the soft creak of settling wood and my own uneven breathing. I meant to keep walking and maybe go out to the training ground to burn off steam but I didn’t.
I found myself at the wide glass doors that opened onto the west balcony and he was already there.
Draven leaned on his arms on the railing, looking so carefree with his head tipped back to the sky. Moonlight shined over him, making it seem like his glowing, silver washed over his dark hair, accenting his broad shoulders, and the little scars on his bulging biceps. He wore on loose pants and nothing else, his skin gleamed like he’d just stepped out of a shower. The sight hit me hard and the charged energy i felt moved down south like it found where to release itself.
He turned before I could turn away. He didn’t speak, just watched me. The pull between us strung tighter, amplified by the full moon until it felt like a physical thread stretched tight. My feet moved forward, towards him without permission. One step. Two. Until I stood by the railway, close enough his scent started to overwhelm me. I kept as much distance as the balcony could allow.
Neither of us moved closer. Neither of us dared.
“You shouldn’t be here,” his voice low and deep as he looked away.
“I know.” I said looking at the sky
He didn’t tell me to leave. I didn’t leave either, I couldn't.
We stood in silence filled with tension, staring at the moon, our only witness to what it was causing between us. Wind rustled the trees below as we heard a distant howl filled with longing and sorrow.
The pull tightened again. The heat under my collarbone flared, making me raise my hand to it. Draven looked at me, but I ignored him. My body felt alive buzzing like it got what it wanted.
Then something happened. A thought that wasn’t mine slid into my mind. It was soft, raw, unguarded like it wasn’t meant to be heard.
I never stopped loving you.
The words landed like a fist to the sternum. I gasped. My hand flew to my chest as though I could push the thought back out. My eyes snapped to him wondering what that was but he looked just as shocked as I felt.
Color drained from his face. That thought was from him. The silence that followed was deafening.
I took one step back. Then another. My heart hammered so hard I could hear it.
He reached out, his hand lifting, then falling again.
“Lyra, I didn't mea—” I turned and fled.
I ran down the corridor, until I reached my door, and slammed it shut. I leaned against it, my chest heaved as I tried to force air back into my lungs like it would force the words out of my head.
I never stopped loving you.
Over and over, the thought kept echoing in my mind. If he never stopped loving me…then what had those eleven years been? What had my letters been? What had my hatred been built for? And he wouldn't have left me. Without a word. Like I'd meant nothing to him.
I told myself to stay put. To let it die in the dark of my room where it belonged.
My hand found the mark on my neck without thinking. It burned under my fingertips like it was answering him.
I opened my door heading back to his wing. The corridor was silent, the kind of silence that made every step feel like a decision I couldn’t undo. I moved fast at first, then slower as I neared the west wing, as if my body remembered what my pride refused to, I was walking toward the person who had broken me and the part of me that still reached for him.
The balcony doors were open. He wasn’t there anymore.
I crossed to his door. Stopped with my hand raised, my knuckles hovering a breath away from the wood.
If he had been forced to leave, he should have told me. If he had loved me, he should have answered. If he had any right to say those words into my mind tonight, he should have had the courage to say them out loud.
My hand fell.
I turned away before I could knock. Before I could give him the power of watching me choose him first.
I walked back down the corridor, slower than I’d come, as if the house itself had grown heavier around me.
I stopped and slid down the wall until I sat on the floor. I drew my knees up, arms wrapped tight around them.
I pressed the back of my head to the wall staring emptily. Tears burned behind my eyes. His words wouldn’t stop ringing in my head.
Somewhere deep inside me, a small, traitorous part of me answered his words. Then why did you leave?
I didn’t know how long I stayed there, staring at nothing while everything inside me screamed. By the time I dragged myself back to my room, the moon had dipped low and the pull had dulled into an ache that sat behind my ribs like a bruise.
I lay on my back on the bed without sleeping, staring at the ceiling as dawn bled slowly into the sky. His words had worn holes so deep in my mind, opening wounds I thought I’d buried deep enough to stop hurting. A lot of questions circled in my mind.
And the growing certainty that whatever Draven had been hiding all these years…It was about to tear us both open.
Later, when I couldn’t stand the silence in my own head anymore, I got up.
I crossed to my dresser and opened the bottom drawer.
My fingers closed around the wooden wolf pendant he’d carved for me when we were kids. I had touched it only twice since he left. On the day I needed him, the day before I moved into this residence and now, after he let his words slip into my mind.
The wood felt warm against my palm, impossibly warm, like it hadn’t been hidden for a while. I turned it over and froze. My breath hitched at what I saw.
On the wolf head, between a small parted fur not noticeable unless you look carefully, was a tiny, carving I’d never noticed before.
A half crescent moon. Exactly like the one forming on my neck.
- Writer
