The Moon That Cursed Us

EPISODE 3 — HIS HOME

The old house stood alone at the edge of the forest.

Dark.

Silent.

Hidden from the world.

Weathered oak timber, black stone, and ivy-strangled pillars merged seamlessly into the steep face of the mountain, making the structure look less like a residence and more like a forgotten ruin. No smoke rose from its stone chimney, and no light flickered through the heavy, iron-barred windows. It was a sanctuary built to keep the world out—and to keep whatever was inside trapped within.

Asher pushed the door open with his shoulder. The hinges groaned under the weight, sending a faint cloud of dust into the chilly air.

He carried Luna inside.

He placed her carefully on the old sofa in the center of the spacious, dim room. The leather was worn and dark, smelling of cedar, old leather, and dried herbs.

For the first time, he looked at her properly.

The low light filtering through the rafters revealed every detail he had missed while running through the canopy. She was small, her delicate frame practically swallowed by the vastness of the furniture.

She was pale.

Her skin looked almost luminous under the faint starlight, translucently pale like fine porcelain. There was a cut near her forehead, swollen and oozing a thin line of red down her temple.

Several scratches covered her arms, crisscrossing her olive skin where the thorns had bitten deep.

Asher sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with a heavy hand.

“Great.”

He had no idea why he was doing this.

She was a stranger.

A complete stranger.

He was a man who lived by a simple, brutal code: survive, remain unseen, and never interfere with the politics of the human or supernatural realms. He should have left her somewhere safe and walked away. He should have dropped her outside a village clinic, or better yet, left her on the gravel road for the local law to pick up.

Instead, he found himself gathering water, clean cloth, and medicine.

He filled a brass basin from a pump in the corner, grabbed a strip of boiled linen, and knelt beside the sofa. His movements were surprisingly gentle for a man whose hands were built for violence. He squeezed out the excess water and leaned in.

He carefully cleaned the blood from her forehead.

Luna flinched. A tiny, painful crease formed between her delicate eyebrows, and her breath hitched in her throat.

Asher immediately stopped.

“Easy.”

Her eyes remained closed, her head tilting slightly toward the cool dampness of his touch.

“You're safe.”

The words left his mouth before he could think. They sounded strange, foreign, slipping through his lips like a forgotten language.

He stared at her, his hand freezing mid-air.

“Why did I say that?” he muttered to the empty room, feeling an unexpected spike of annoyance at his own weakness.

He stood, intending to pull back and let her sleep off the exhaustion on her own.

Then he heard something.

A heartbeat.

Thump.

Asher looked at Luna.

Thump.

Her heartbeat sounded strangely loud in the silent room. It was accelerating, driving hard against her chest like a frantic rhythmic drum. To his heightened senses, it echoed off the timber walls, filling the quiet cottage with a vibrant, agonizingly human warmth.

Something inside his chest tightened. A sudden, terrifying pressure gripped his ribs, constricting his lungs until he couldn't pull in a breath.

He placed a hand over his own heart.

Nothing.

His own pulse was slow, almost stagnant—the mark of a cursed existence that barely registered life. But as he stood over her, the rhythm of her heart seemed to echo within his own hollow ribs, forcing a phantom pulse to beat beneath his palm.

Then Luna suddenly whispered something.

Her head turned against the leather cushion, her lips trembling as if fighting off a nightmare.

Asher leaned closer, drawn in by an invisible, irresistible tide.

“What?”

Her lips moved again, barely parting as a soft breath escaped her.

He barely heard it.

“Moon…”

Asher's expression changed. The annoyance melted away, replaced by a sudden, razor-sharp stillness.

“Moon?”

Luna's eyes opened for half a second.

They weren't dark or clouded with sleep. For a fraction of a moment, her irises flashed with an otherworldly, silver radiance—bright as the high lunar eclipse.

They met his.

And Asher felt something he hadn't felt in years.

A sharp pain burned through his chest. It felt as though a red-hot iron had been pressed directly against his sternum. A violent surge of raw energy surged from her body, traveling through the quiet air between them and slamming directly into his core.

His eyes darkened, the cold amber turning to a terrifying, pitch-black void. He stumbled, his boots catching on the floorboards as he instinctively tried to sever the invisible cord connecting them.

Then Luna passed out again, her eyelids fluttering shut as her body went completely limp, her breathing returning to a slow, steady rhythm.

Asher stepped backward, his chest heaving, his hand still clutched tightly over his heart. The burning sensation lingered beneath his skin, leaving behind a deep, throbbing ache that shook him to his very foundation.

“What the hell are you?”

He stared at her in the dim light of the cabin, his mind racing through ancient texts, forgotten legends, and dangerous bloodlines.

For the first time, the stranger he'd rescued didn't seem so ordinary.