Chapter 2 Blood Moon Girl

Chapter 2 - Blood Moon Girl

Lyra Thornveil wasn't allowed to cry. Not at funerals. Not during hunts. Not even the night her mother bled out in the courtyard after giving birth to a stillborn pup that had never shifted.

"She's always watching," the elders used to whisper. "You can't show weakness near the Blood Moon Girl."

She was six when she first heard that name. Blood Moon Girl. It wasn't said like a title. It was said like a warning. As if she might burst into flames if you stared too long.

And maybe, in a way, they weren't wrong.

Because Lyra did burn.

Not with fire-but with the ache of never being touched. Never being trusted. Never being seen for anything other than the red moon she was born under and the things people swore followed her like a curse.

She wasn't even allowed to shift until she was thirteen. And even then, it was done in secret-no ceremony, no pack howling, no run under the stars. Just her, naked and shivering in the forest, watched by her father from a distance like she might explode.

She remembered that night like a scar. The way her bones cracked. The way her skin tore like paper. How she curled into a ball after, covered in mud and fur and her own vomit-and he just stood there.

Cold. Silent. Distant.

"You lived," was all he said.

And then he left.

No blanket. No hug. No warmth.

Just the unspoken truth that she wasn't normal. That her birth had marked the beginning of bad winters, of failed crops, of stillbirths and sudden deaths. That every tragedy somehow traced its way back to her.

Even now, at nineteen, she felt it.

The distance.

The way pack members quieted when she entered a room.

How they moved aside in training fields. How no one ever asked her to spar.

How no man ever touched her skin.

Even her best friend Rhea had slowly stopped visiting after Lyra turned sixteen and her heat started early-and uncontrolled.

"I don't want to catch it," she'd said with a nervous laugh.

Like heat was a disease.

Like Lyra was.

So Lyra stopped waiting to be seen.

She carved herself into someone hard. Someone who trained at night. Who studied the Moon Scrolls in secret. Who climbed trees too high and ran too far and came home with blood on her arms and dirt under her nails.

She stopped asking for attention. Or affection.

But gods-how she still wanted it.

Just once, she wanted someone to look at her and not flinch. To talk to her like she wasn't fragile or cursed. To hold her hand without gloves. To ask her, "Are you happy?" and mean it.

She wanted to be touched.

She just didn't want to die from it.

"Lyra?"

The voice pulled her back. She blinked and looked up. Rhea stood in the greenhouse doorway, arms full of sage and feverroot. Her healer's apron was stained with drying herbs and sweat.

Lyra wiped the back of her hand across her brow. She hadn't realized she'd been crying again. Not tears. Just sweat. She'd been pulling weeds from the cracked soil near the edge of the garden, where nothing had grown in weeks.

"Did they send you to check on me?" she asked.

"No," Rhea said softly. "I came on my own."

That surprised her.

Most people didn't visit the garden anymore. Not since the sickness started. Not since the pups fell ill and Elder Rowan pointed to her blood like it was the source.

Lyra stood, brushing dirt from her skirt. "They think I started it."

"They're scared."

"They're always scared."

Rhea hesitated, then stepped closer. "You don't look well."

"I haven't slept."

"Nightmares?"

Lyra nodded. "Worse than usual."

She didn't say what she saw in them.

She didn't say that in every one, she stood in a circle of fire. That wolves with hollow eyes snapped at her heels. That a man with silver hair and blood on his chest called her wife-and then disappeared into smoke.

She didn't say the worst part: that she wanted to follow him.

"You should eat," Rhea said, placing a wrapped cloth in her hands. "Bread and honey. From the kitchen."

"Did anyone see you give this to me?"

"I don't care if they did."

That made Lyra's chest tighten.

"I missed you," she whispered.

Rhea's eyes glossed. "Me too."

They stood like that for a while, the silence warm for once.

Then Rhea asked, "Is it true?"

"What?"

"The marriage bond."

Lyra's hand tightened on the bread.

"So it's true," Rhea breathed. "They're giving you to him?"

Lyra didn't answer.

She didn't have to.

Rhea looked like she might cry. "That's not a marriage. That's a sacrifice."

"I'm not dying," Lyra said, even though she wasn't sure.

"You don't know that. No one touches him. They say his last mate-"

"I know what they say."

"They say he's cursed."

"So am I."

Rhea went quiet.

"I'm not afraid," Lyra said finally. "If he kills me, then at least I'll know. At least it will end."

"But if he doesn't?"

Lyra stared at the moon rising in the sky. Still red. Still swollen. Still watching.

"Then maybe," she whispered, "I'll finally find out who I really am."