The Ancient Moon

Chapter 10: Something in the Night

POV Dorian

The moment it happened, I knew. My eyes snapped open before my mind had caught up, before the room around me made sense. Something cold had brushed against the edge of my senses — not fear, not danger, but something worse: a presence I didn’t recognize, touching what was mine. My feet hit the floor. I didn’t dress. Didn’t think. I shifted before I reached the door, fur erupting across my skin like armor, bones snapping into place. I vaulted down the stairs, out the back, into the trees before the house had even finished creaking behind me. She was gone.

Not far.

But not inside.

And she hadn't screamed.

She hadn’t panicked.

That was what chilled me.

Because it meant whatever called her didn’t frighten her.

It pulled her.

Like the Moon does.

But this wasn’t the Moon.

It was something else.

Something wrong.

I ran like the ground owed me answers. Wind howled past my ears, branches tore at my sides, but I barely felt them. Her scent was faint, muddled by dew and woodsmoke. She was barefoot. I could smell the frost on her skin, the bite of hesitation in her sweat.

She’d hesitated.

But she’d gone anyway.

I found the edge of the clearing near the outer boundary — the place the Pack doesn’t name. Not because we fear it, but because we remember it. The trees here lean too far in. The air never quite clears. It smells like bone and rot and waiting.

Her scent ended there.

And I didn’t find her.

Just empty ground.

And something that still echoed in my chest, like a memory that didn’t belong to me.

It was like walking into a house and smelling blood with no body. Something had happened. Something that hadn’t finished.

I shifted back, standing in the cold, naked, breathing too hard. My hands curled into fists. I wanted to rip something apart. Not her. Not even the thing that had whispered to her in the dark.

Myself.

Because I should’ve felt it sooner.

I should’ve stopped it.

But I’d left her alone.

And someone else had reached her first.

—

By the time I made it back to the house, the sun was pushing against the horizon, bleeding light through the fog like a warning.

She was inside.

Safe.

Alone.

But not untouched.

I found her in her room, curled beneath a blanket like nothing had happened. Her eyes opened the moment I entered.

“You left,” I said.

She sat up slowly. “I had to.”

“No. You didn’t.”

She flinched, but didn’t back down. “Something called me.”

“And you just followed it?”

“What was I supposed to do? Ignore it?”

“Yes!”

My voice snapped.

She looked stunned for a heartbeat. Then angry.

“I’m not a prisoner.”

“You are when you walk into danger like it’s a game!”

“It didn’t feel like danger.”

“It didn’t feel like me, either.”

That silenced her.

I stepped forward.

“I didn’t feel you in that moment. Not like before. You were gone. Completely. Like something had swallowed you.”

“I came back.”

“What if you hadn’t?”

We stood in silence.

The air crackled between us.

“I need to understand what’s happening to me,” she said.

“I am helping you understand.”

“No. You’re protecting me.”

Her voice was quiet, but sharp.

“I don’t need a wall, Dorian. I need the truth.”

I exhaled, looked away.

“I’m trying to protect both of us.”

She stepped closer.

“From what?”

I looked at her. At her wild eyes and steady mouth. At the place on her neck where her pulse beat faster every time I said her name.

“From me.”

She didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

“Why?” she asked.

I hesitated.

Because the answer would break something I couldn’t rebuild.

But I gave it anyway.

“Because you’re my weakness.”

She inhaled.

“Then don’t act like I’m your burden.”

I flinched.

She saw it.

Good.

Let her see what she was doing to me.

Let her feel how badly I wanted to grab her, shake her, hold her, keep her.

“I’m not yours to protect,” she said, voice softer now. “I’m not yours at all.”

I stepped closer. So close the heat between us built like pressure under skin.

“You’re right,” I said.

She swallowed.

“But if you leave this house again without me—” I leaned in, voice a growl. “—I will track you down. I will find you. And I won’t be gentle.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It’s a promise.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“I’m not scared of you.”

“You should be.”

She stared at me, breath shallow.

But she didn’t back away.

And neither did I.

Because the worst part wasn’t that she walked into the woods.

It was that some part of her wanted what she found there.

And that meant I was already losing her.

POV Beatrice

I wanted to be angry. I wanted to scream at him for barging into my room like a storm, for shouting like he had some right to decide what I did with my body, my power, my self. But the truth was—I wasn’t angry. Not in the way I should’ve been. I was burning, yes, but not from rage. From something darker, heavier. I was burning because everything he said had crawled under my skin and made itself a home. His words didn’t hurt because they were wrong. They hurt because they echoed something I hadn’t let myself admit: I had followed the voice. I had gone without fear. And I hadn’t thought of him until it was already too late. That terrified me. And it thrilled me.

When he said I was his weakness, I should’ve felt powerful. Instead, I felt trapped.

I waited until the house went quiet. Until his scent faded down the hallway. Until I was sure he wasn’t pacing outside my door, ready to crash back in. Then I slipped out and made my way to the river behind the tree line. The moon had climbed halfway through the sky, pale and cold, and the water moved like a sheet of steel, silent and reflective. I knelt by the edge and stared at my face. I looked the same. But I wasn’t.

The girl in the water didn’t blink.

The girl in the water wasn’t scared.

I touched the mark on my back through my shirt. It pulsed, not with pain, but with clarity. Like it was trying to remind me—you’re not his. Not anymore. Not anyone’s.

I remembered the sound in his voice when he said I was gone. That he couldn’t feel me. Like it was a betrayal. Like I’d stolen something from him. But I hadn’t asked him to stake his claim. I hadn’t asked to be found. I hadn’t asked for the weight of his gaze to brand my skin.

And still.

Still, I wanted it.

That was the worst part.

I wanted him to say more. To say what he wouldn’t. To admit what he feared. Not just that I was his weakness. But that I had become his hunger. His question. His undoing.

Instead, he gave me commands.

Threats wrapped in longing.

And I hated how much of me responded to that.

I stood and walked along the river, letting the cold bite my ankles. The forest was quiet tonight, like it too was holding its breath after what had happened. Like it knew I wasn’t just a visitor anymore.

I didn’t know who I was.

But I knew I was becoming.

Faster than I could hold onto.

And Dorian—he was trying to grip me with hands that didn’t know how to hold anything gently. He pulled me close and pushed me away in the same breath. He made me feel wanted, then warned me to stay away. I couldn’t live in that rhythm.

Not anymore.

He wanted control.

But control was slipping.

Not just from him.

From me.

I closed my eyes and listened. Not to the wind. Not to the trees. To the pull. The one that had led me into the woods. It was still there. A thread at the edge of my thoughts. Not pulling. Not calling.

Just waiting.

Dorian thought he could protect me from it.

But he didn’t understand.

It wasn’t hunting me.

It was part of me.

And maybe—just maybe—it knew me better than he did.