Moonbound: Twin Flames

Aria's POV

The thing about being the Alpha’s daughter is this:

When you fail, everyone sees it.

When you run, everyone whispers.

And when you come back?

They all expect you to apologize for existing.

I spent the next two days buried in my room, painting.

Not wolves.

Not forests.

Not anything that felt real.

Just color, blurred, streaked, chaotic color that didn’t have to mean anything. I didn’t eat much and I barely slept. I ignored Selene’s knocks at the door, my mother’s cautious questions, and even Marek’s attempt to “talk things out” like I was some kind of broken weapon.

My wolf still hadn’t come to the surface.

She was quiet,dormant,sleeping or hiding from the weight of expectation.

“You’re not ready,” Father had said.

He hadn’t raised his voice as that wasn’t his style. But the disappointment was evident in his eyes. It was way worse than anything he could’ve shouted.

Maybe I wasn’t ready or maybe I wasn’t meant to shift at all.

Maybe I was a mistake written in moonlight and bad timing.

On the third day, I got dressed and walked into town like nothing had happened.

Thorne Hollow High, also called Prep because we were “elite” (aka wolves in plaid uniforms) was a private school built near the valley edge. Most of the pack kids attended, along with a few oblivious humans who had no idea their classmates could sprout fangs during full moons.

I kept my head down as I passed through the gates.

Some kids just stared while some didn’t bother hiding it.

“Did you hear?”

“She didn’t even shift, she just stood there like a statue.”

“Bet her wolf’s a bunny.”

I ignored them all, I had to. I couldn't let them get a reaction out of me as there was no point indulging them.

At least until I walked into first period Modern Mythology and froze.

There, in the seat by the window he was seated quietly.

Kai.

Same hoodie, same shadowed eyes. That same exact pull I couldn’t seem to understand or explain.

I blinked.

What the hell?

He looked up and met my gaze.

Something flickered across his face. Whether it was surprise or recognition... I couldn't quite tell. And then he smoothed it away like nothing.

“New transfer,” the teacher announced. “Kai Ashbourne. Welcome to hell.”

A few people laughed but I didn’t find it funny at least not with the current circumstances.

Kai didn’t look at me again.

But I felt it his awareness. Like he knew where I was at all times, even when his eyes were on his notebook.

I sat down three rows behind him and spent the entire class pretending not to care. But my senses betrayed me,I could feel his heartbeat and the rhythm of his breathing. I could sense his focus too. All of it pulled on me like a tether I hadn’t chosen.

And something about him still felt... wrong.

Not dangerous, exactly. Just… different.

As if he wore his human scent like a coat,a second skin not a truth.

Later, in the hallway between classes, I cornered him.

“You.”

He turned, eyebrows raised. “Me?”

“What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I live here.”

“Then I guess we’re neighbors,” he said, all innocence.

I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t play dumb. You saw me in the woods.”

“Did I?”

“You said you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“I haven’t,” he said easily. “Not a word.”

I stepped closer. “Then why are you here?”

He tilted his head, lips quirking. “Maybe I was curious.”

My stomach flipped.

“Or maybe,” he added, voice softer now, “I just wanted to see you again.”

And I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

Because despite everything my humiliation, the danger, the rules my heart reacted.

Like it knew him.

Like it had always known him.

The bell rang and I jerked back, with my pulse pounding.

He smiled, then turned and walked off, hands in his pockets, like he hadn’t just tilted my whole world sideways.

That night, I dreamed of him.

Except it wasn’t a dream.

It felt more like a memory I didn’t own,like it was from another lifetime.

We stood beneath the blood moon.

Both of us in our wolf form.

Not fighting,not fleeing. Just… standing still.

He looked at me. And I felt it again,

The tether,the echo,the pull.

When I woke up, gasping and drenched in sweat, my wolf stirred.

Just once. A flicker beneath my skin.

But this time, she whispered something I could actually understand.

“He’s one of us.”

I lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling as my breath slowed. The moonlight filtering through my window seemed to pulse with something alive, something watching.

I pulled the covers tighter, but the cold settled in my bones anyway.

I wasn’t sure what scared me more

That my wolf had spoken…

Or that she was right.

The words echoed long after I got up and walked to the mirror. My eyes looked the same dark, too serious but something behind them shimmered.

Not quite human,not quite a wolf but something else entirely.

Was that what Kai saw?

Was that what pulled him here?

Selene knocked again that morning, but softer this time. “Aria,” she whispered through the door. “I know you’re hurting. But you don’t have to go through it alone.”

For once, I wanted to open it. To let her in.

But something in me whispered: Not yet.

I wasn’t ready until I understood what I was becoming.

Not until I knew why my wolf had waited.

Why she’d chosen now to speak.

Because I had a feeling that whatever this bond was,whatever connected me to Kai…it wasn't just fate.

It was a warning.

And it had already begun.