Moonbound Secrets

Episode 2

This made Lyra think suddenly that she could hear her heart jumping out in her chest, to splinter through her ribs, she said. She heard those words fall like a kind of ghost-trail in her mind, his voice was as low and proprietary: Mine.

She pushed aside the furs, and swung her legs out of bed, feet bare on chilly stone. She felt her instinct warning her to flee, to avoid being as near to him as she could, but each movement was clumsy against the burden of his stare.

"I am not yours," she said, and that too, although her voice shook. “You don’t get to decide that.”

There was a little silence between us, which seemed uncomfortable and close, and then he laughed--low, silent, a growl that shook in the air like a growl of a predator pleased by the insurrection of his prey.

You believe you made a choice? He came nearer. The shadows curled towards him, the firelight blazing as though the room itself recognized his superiority.

Lyra’s pulse hammered. She turned instinctively back, but before she could take another step, the wall was blocking her shoulders. His air filled the air, his odor wrapping around her until she could no longer breathe.

She flashed back to the clearing. The woods, the blackness, the unbelievable monster that was created. She recalled the enormous paws that were buried in the ground, the blaze of its golden eyes, its heat, not that of an animal.

"You were the wolf," she whispered as the truth broke her voice.

“Yes.” He didn’t deny it. His lips pouted, though the expression was cold. “The wolf is me. And I am the wolf.”

Her stomach twisted. Monsters did not talk. They were not to be like men with cut jaws and fire-lit eyes and grates that raved round your veins like a narcotic.

She forced her chin up. “You should have killed me. It would have been kinder.”

He stilled. The air shifted. Then he was before her, faster than her human vision, and his hand was against the wall with his head. The other hand, his, floated near her jaw, but it did not touch--just close enough to glow into her with his warmth.

I do not kill my own," he said, in a low voice. Too soft.

Her breath hitched. The fighting instinct was shouting to fight, to claw, to get away--but her body lied to her. She could feel her skin tingling, her stomach aching, and as he leaned nearer, the world was reduced to the sharpness of his mouth, to the threat of his golden eyes.

I am not yours, and this time it was weaker, as though she was persuading herself more than her husband.

His eyes sank into her lips, and then up to her eyes. “Your scent says otherwise.”

Her whole body flushed. She would have screamed back, pushed him away, made it clear to him that she was not trembling because of him. But opening her mouth, she produced nothing.

He bent over, almost touching his breath against her ear. “Deny me all you like, little one. The bond doesn’t lie.”

Her head swam up and down in sharp shallow breathing. The bond. The term was ringing within her blood like a chain that she could not see but was already blinking around her.

Then--she could not move, she could not think--he withdrew. Like that the warmth of him was lost, and she was shivering in the shadows of the cold. His face no longer bore the soft and dangerous expression, but the sharp and commanding one.

"You will remain here," he said, and his voice will not be argued with. This is my territory. Now under my protection you are.

"I do not want your protection!" She flashed anger at the fear. I want my life back. I want to go home.”

Something twittered in his eyes when he went home. Something raw went by, a flash and vanished. His jaw tightened.

"Now this is home," he said.

Her nails tore through her palms, anger and fear in a blend. “I don’t even know your name.”

He stopped, and, as though the sound was weighty, himself bestowed it on her.

“Darius.”

The name suited him--dark and sharp, too powerful to be called anything human. It sat down in her heart like a curse.

Lyra looked at him, not letting him notice how unsteady she was. “And mine was Lyra. Keep it in mind when you know that I will never belong to you.

His smile extended to his eyes,--the first time it was a smile--but it was not a good one. It was hunger, ownership and the assurance of a predator that was aware of his target that he would not escape.

“I already remembered,” he said. “From the moment I saw you.”

Her blood ran cold.