The moonlight spilled across the floor like a ghost.
Aria sat on the edge of the narrow bed Zara had prepared for her, hands limp in her lap. The cottage was quiet — the kind of quiet that vibrated under the skin. Outside, SilverCrest slumbered beneath the stars, but inside her mind, everything screamed.
She hadn’t shifted in days.
She couldn’t.
It wasn’t just the baby.
It was the grief that clung to her bones like frostbite.
Every time she closed her eyes, the bond whispered things it no longer had the right to say.
She could still feel him.
That was the worst part.
The severance should’ve destroyed the tether — the string that once bound her soul to Kael’s, forged by the moon, sealed by magic. But sometimes, in moments like this, her chest would seize up with pressure, with memory, with… phantoms.
Like now.
The pain pulsed behind her eyes. Her breath came shallow. The air in the room thickened.
Then came the ache — that old, raw ache in her ribcage, as if her heart were trying to call out to something that no longer answered.
Aria squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t do this. Don’t remember.
But the memories came anyway.
She was seventeen again, barefoot in the snow, chasing Kael through the frozen forest behind the Keep. He had shifted ahead of her, a dark blur between the trees, and her wolf had howled with joy at the chase. When she’d finally caught up, panting and flushed, he had shifted back — stark, unashamed — and laughed like the world had no weight.
“You were made for this,” he’d told her, cupping her cheek with a hand still warm from the run. “Made for me.”
The memory cracked like glass.
Her hands trembled. She bit the inside of her cheek until it bled.
“You were wrong,” she whispered aloud. “You were so wrong.”
A knock came at the door.
She startled, wiping her eyes.
“Come in.”
Zara entered, quiet as always, carrying a mug of something that smelled of chamomile and thyme. She handed it over without speaking.
“I heard you pacing,” Zara said gently. “Figured you needed something warm.”
“I’m fine,” Aria lied.
Zara sat beside her. “You’re not.”
There was no judgment in her voice, only certainty.
Aria stared into the tea. “It doesn’t stop. The bond is gone, I know that. But it still feels like… like it’s haunting me. Like it wants me to remember what I lost.”
“Maybe it’s not the bond,” Zara said. “Maybe it’s just you. Healing isn’t always quiet.”
Aria let out a brittle laugh. “This doesn’t feel like healing. It feels like drowning in a sea I already escaped.”
Zara rested a hand on her shoulder. “The body forgets faster than the soul. You loved him.”
“I trusted him,” Aria hissed. “I would’ve given everything—”
“You did,” Zara cut in softly. “You gave him everything. And now you’re still standing. That means something.”
They sat in silence for a long time.
Finally, Zara said, “Sometimes I think about what a bond really is. Everyone says it’s fate. But what if it’s just recognition? You saw him. He saw you. And for a while, that was enough. Until it wasn’t.”
Aria blinked hard.
That word — recognition — echoed deep.
She thought of Kael’s eyes that last day at the Council, when he said nothing. When he let them sever what had been sacred.
He hadn’t fought for her.
But he hadn’t walked away untouched either.
She remembered the flash of pain on his face, so quick most wouldn’t catch it. But she had. She always had.
That night, sleep took her in fits and fragments.
When the dream came, it didn’t feel like a dream at all.
She was back in the Alpha’s chambers. Not as the scorned Luna, but as the girl from before — arms tangled with Kael’s, laughter in her throat, no wounds between them. His fingers brushed her skin like reverence. He whispered things in that secret voice he used only for her.
“You are the thing I never thought I’d deserve.”
She wanted to believe it. She did.
But her dream-self blinked — and in a flash, he was gone.
The room was empty.
The sheets were cold.
And in the mirror across the room, she saw herself — not young, not untouched — but present. Scarred. Whole in a new way.
Her reflection met her gaze.
“You’re not his anymore,” it said. “You’re yours.”
She woke with a gasp, hand pressed to her stomach.
The baby kicked, sharp and strong.
Alive.
Real.
Present.
She smiled through tears.
“I’m yours too,” she whispered.
