Bound By Moonlight to My Mates (by Sofange Daye) novel Chapter 93

Aclara

The wind changes at midnight. It carries the scent of silver.

My eyes snap open. The fire has burned low, now it is just embers and smoke, but I can see everything. The forest holds its breath. The animals have fled. The night hums with something older than hunger.

We’re not alone.

I rise without a sound. The shadows move with me, stretching across the clearing, listening. My hand drifts to the blade I carry, not because I need it, but because mortals find steel comforting.

Behind me, Caleb shifts in his sleep. He’s dreaming again. He talks in his dreams sometimes; half–formed words, names that sound like prayers. I never wake him. Whatever he sees in those moments, it doesn’t belong to me.

A branch cracks in the darkness.

They come fast. Too fast to be men, too quiet to be wolves.

I turn just as one steps into the light. Its eyes glow amber, its mouth stained red. A corrupted wolf. They were once sacred, now rabid with the absence of my sisters in the world. I’ve seen a thousand like it before. They are what happens when divinity rots.

Caleb groans. “What is happening?”

“Stay down,” I whisper.

Caleb bolts upright, still groggy. “What…”

The wolf lunges.

I step between them, palm out. Power floods through me, silver fire bursting from my fingertips. The creature hits the ground before it can scream, body twisting into ash.

Another follows. Then two more.

I meet them head–on. Shadows surge from my skin like a living tide, tearing through fur and bone. The air fills with the scent of burnt fur and blood.

When it’s over, silence rushes back in, sharp and heavy. The ash of the fallen wolves drifts across the snow like black petals.

Caleb stares at me from where he sits, chest heaving. “You… you killed them.”

“They were already dead.”

“Then what were they?”

“Remnants,” I say softly. “The kind that remember what it was like to worship.”

He stands slowly, eyes searching mine. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything?”

“Because you’re not supposed to understand it.”

“That’s not an answer.”

I turn away, but he catches my wrist. His touch burns, not painfully, but with recognition. His pulse stutters, and my magic responds, unbidden.

Then I see it.

Flashes of his memories but the are disjointed, impossible, and in the wrong order.

A battlefield under two moons. A woman with hair the color of flame. A man kneeling before her, silver blood spilling from his hands.

A name, my name, on his lips.

I jerk back with a cry, the vision shattering. My knees hit the dirt hard. The world spins.

Caleb drops beside me. “Aelara? What happened?”

I can’t speak. The images are too real. I’ve seen mortal memories before but this… this felt like mine.

“You…” I manage, voice shaking. “What did you see?”

“Nothing. I just touched you and…” He breaks off, eyes widening. “You’re bleeding. I think.”

I glance down. Silver seeps from my nose, glittering in the firelight. Divine blood.

“Don’t,” I warn as he reaches for me.

He ignores it, catching my chin and forcing me to look at him. His hands are warm, steady. “What the hell was that?”

“Your past,” I whisper. “Or someone else’s.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It never does.”

He studies me for a moment longer. “You looked at me like you’d seen a ghost.”

“Maybe I have.”

He sits back, frowning. “So what, you think we’ve met before?”

“No.” I wipe the silver from my skin. “I think you once belonged to someone who used to be mine.”

He laughs once, low and disbelieving. “You talk like the world’s a story you’ve already read.”

“It is.”

“And how does it end?”

“With everyone dead.”

He shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. “You really don’t do optimism, do you?”

“Optimism is for mortals.”

“Well,” he says, meeting my eyes, “lucky for you, I’m stubborn enough for both of us.”

He smiles then. Tired, a little broken, but real, and the weight of centuries presses harder against my chest. I hate how that smile makes me feel. How it makes her stir inside me.

The part of me that remembers being loved. The part that got us all cursed.

I stand, needing distance. “We should move before more come.”

He grabs his cloak and falls into step beside me. “You know, most people would thank me for the pleasure of my company.”

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