Bound By Moonlight to My Mates (by Sofange Daye) novel Chapter 97

Chapter 97

Aelara

The city never sleeps. It just hums, softly and endlessly, like a machine that forgot how to stop.

We find shelter in a building that looks half–abandoned, half–forgotten, sitting between two towers of glass that swallow the stars. If only I could see the stars here. The lights of the city have dulled the night sky, leaving it looking like nothing but a black curtain. The door to the building hangs crooked on its hinges. The stairwell smells of dust and rusted metal.

Caleb flicks on his flashlight and leads the way up. “A place like this? No one’s going to look for us here.”

“No one’s going to look for anyone here,” I mutter.

“Exactly my point.”

We reach the fourth floor. The hallway is long and dim, lined with numbered doors covered in graffiti and peeling paint. He pushes one open, room 4B, and steps inside.

The air smells of rain and disuse. There’s an old couch near a boarded window, a cracked mirror leaning against the wall, and a mattress on the floor with its springs showing through.

It’s pathetic. But it’s shelter.

Caleb drops his bag with a sigh. “Home sweet home.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You have low standards.”

“I’ve been homeless. This is luxury.”

He crosses the room and tugs at the blinds. The view reveals the city stretched below us. Thousands of lights are glowing like artificial stars. “Kinda beautiful, isn’t it?”

I wrinkle my nose at the city below. “It’s loud.”

“You don’t like noise?”

“I don’t like chaos pretending to be life.”

He chuckles and drops into the couch, kicking off his boots. “You’d hate daytime then.”

I stand near the window, watching the cars move far below. The red and white lights look like veins, arteries carrying life through something that doesn’t have a heart.

“You’ve lived through worse,” he says behind me.

“Did I tell you that?”

“You didn’t have to.” He stretches his legs out, tilting his head back. “You talk about the world like it’s already

ended.”

“Maybe it has.”

He studies me for a moment, then sighs. “We should rest. You look ready to collapse.”

“I don’t sleep.”

“You say that like you never even try.”

“Because I don’t.”

He pats the couch. “Come on. Just sit. Pretend. Close your eyes for five minutes.”

I hesitate, then move closer. The couch creaks under my weight.

“See?” he murmurs. “Not so bad.”

He leans his head back and closes his eyes. Within minutes, his breathing evens out, slow and rhythmic. Mortals fall asleep like they trust the world to hold them. I envy that.

I tell myself I’ll just sit until dawn. But the rhythm of his breathing pulls me under.

And for the first time in centuries, I dream.

*The Past*

The air smells of incense and salt. I’m standing in a marble hall, moonlight streaming through tall glass windows. The world is new again, whole. My sisters laugh somewhere behind me, voices bright as bells.

And he’s there.

Not Caleb, but Cael. His armor gleams like sunlight, hair a shade too bright to be mortal, his grin the same reckless curve I know so well.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I tell him, even as I step closer.

He smirks. “Neither should you.”

“If the Goddess finds you…‘

39

“She’ll turn me to dust? Maybe. But it’ll be worth it.”

I try not to smile. I fail.

He reaches for my hand, bold as ever. “Tell me you don’t feel it.”

“I feel many things,” I say, though my pulse betrays me.

He pulls me closer until our foreheads touch. “Then feel this.”

The first kiss was softer than I expected. Mortal warmth against divine stillness. The moment it happened, I knew we were doomed.

Love was forbidden to us, especially for me.

The memory fractures, voices shouting, light shattering, my sisters‘ screams echoing across the temple. Then Cael’s voice, broken, begging.

“Aclara, run.”

*Present*

I jolt awake. The city hum replaces the sound of crashing stone.

Caleb’s sitting beside me, worry etched into every line of his face. “Hey, easy. You were thrashing.”

My pulse is racing. Sweat slicks my palms. “I was dreaming.”

“Nightmare?”

“No.” My voice catches. “A memory.”

He studies me, quiet and patient. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Liar.”

I glare at him. “You say that word too easily.”

“Only when it’s true.”

I push off the couch, pacing to the window. My reflection stares back, my black eyes glowing impossibly in the glass. “You died in my arms,” I whisper.

He goes still. “What?”

“In another life. Another name. You were Cael.”

He’s silent for a long time. Then he stands slowly, crossing to me. “You said that name in your sleep.”

“I remember his face now. Yours.”

He exhales shakily. “And how did it end?”

I meet his gaze. “Badly.”

He steps closer until I can feel the heat of him. “Then maybe we write a different ending this time.”

I want to believe him. But I can still taste ash from the last one.

“You don’t understand,” I whisper. “We were punished for loving each other. The Goddess made sure it would never last. Every time we find each other, one of us dies.”

He reaches out, fingers brushing mine. “And if I said I’d die a thousand times just to find you again?”

Something inside me trembles.

“That’s the kind of thing he used to say,” I murmur.

“Maybe I still mean it.”

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