Their Forgotten Luna

Another Confrontation

Dane:

I couldn’t stand it anymore.

The silence between us had become a prison, and every step I took behind her felt like shackles dragging me deeper into it. Her scent lingered in the night air, maddening in its familiarity, yet it slipped through my grasp like smoke when I reached for it.

She had said my name, but not how she used to—not with recognition, love, or the trust we once shared.

I had to make her remember.

“Cierra.”

Her steps faltered, just barely. Dominic’s head turned, golden eyes catching mine, a flicker of warning already sharpening there. But I didn’t care. I pushed forward, breaking the distance until I stood close enough to see the fine tremor in her hands where they clutched the dagger.

“Just—give us a moment. Alone.” My voice cracked, rawer than I intended.

Dominic’s jaw flexed, his body angling subtly between us. Not possessive, no—but protective.

Cierra looked between us, uncertainty tightening her brow. For a heartbeat, I thought she’d refuse. That she’d lean closer to him, let his steadiness shield her from me. And godess, it would have killed me.

But then she nodded once, quick and sharp, and Dominic stilled. His gaze lingered on me, heavy with unspoken threat, before he stepped back. Not far—never far—but far enough.

The weight of his absence settled over me like a fragile gift.

I swallowed hard. “Do you… Do you remember?”

Her eyes flickered, shadowed. “Remember what?”

“Me. Us,” I said. The word felt jagged in my throat.

“Before all of this. Before Dominic. Before everything broke.”

Confusion deepened across her face, mingling with something that twisted the knife deeper—pity.

“Dane…” The way she said my name—it wasn’t enough.

“You knew me,” I pressed, desperation clawing through my voice. “Not just as some fighter at your side. You knew me, Cierra: every scar, every laugh, every promise. I swore I’d never leave you, and I didn’t. I came back for you.”

She flinched, eyes darting away. “I remember pieces. Flashes. But it’s not whole. It’s not what you want it to be.”

The words landed like blades, each syllable cutting through the last shred of hope I clung to. My chest ached, breath stuttering. “Not what I want it to be?”

Her voice softened, but it didn’t soothe. “I don’t know how to explain it. You’re… familiar. Important. But when I look at you, it’s like staring through fog. I can’t reach it. I can’t reach you.”

I staggered back a step, fists trembling at my sides. My wolf howled inside me, the sound a hollow echo of what I couldn’t unleash aloud, and before I could stop myself, I closed the space between us and caught her mouth with mine.

It wasn’t gentle. It was desperate, reckless—everything I’d been holding back breaking free in a single breathless moment. For the span of a heartbeat, she froze. For the span of another, I swore she leaned into me. My chest roared with hope, wild and furious.

Then she gasped and shoved me back, her hand flying to her lips.

The growl that split the night wasn’t mine.

“Enough.”

Dominic’s voice was low, lethal. In the next instant, he was on me, fisting my shirt and dragging me half off my feet. His golden eyes burned like fire, his breath seething against my face.

“You don’t get to put your hands on her because you can’t stand what you’ve lost,” he snarled. “You don’t get to take what she hasn’t chosen.”

I shoved back, the wolf in me snapping, teeth bared. “She’s mine. She was always mine.”

“She’s not yours now,” Dominic hissed, shaking me so hard my teeth clacked together. “And if you ever try that again—if you ever take her choice away from her—I’ll end this before you can blink.”

“Stop!” Cierra’s voice cracked like glass, sharp enough to cut through both of us.

Dominic released me, though the fury in his eyes promised this wasn’t finished. My chest heaved, breath ragged, but when I looked at her—the way she held her lips, wide-eyed and stricken—I knew I had ruined everything.

“You don’t remember me,” I said hoarsely. “But you remember him.”

Her silence cut deeper than any blade.

Her hand trembled as she lowered it from her mouth. Her voice was soft when she spoke, but it cut deeper than Dominic’s threats ever could.

“Dane… you keep asking me to remember. But you’ve forgotten something yourself.”

My brows knit, confusion clawing at me. “What are you talking about?”

Her eyes glistened, sorrow heavy in them. “It’s my birthday.”

The words landed like a stone in my gut. I blinked, throat closing around the truth. I had forgotten. Once, I never would have. I used to mark this day with flowers stolen from forbidden gardens, with whispered promises under moonlight, with everything I was. And now… I had nothing.

“And more than that,” she went on, her gaze flicking to Dominic, steady, unshaken. “You can’t change what I’ve chosen. Dominic and I… we’re mates.”

The ground seemed to tilt under me. The word ripped through my chest like claws. Mates. A bond no vow, no memory could undo.

I staggered back, the breath I’d been fighting for finally shattering out of me. Dominic stepped closer to her, a wall of gold and fire, and when her shoulder brushed his arm—instinctive, natural—it told me everything her words hadn’t.

She hadn’t just forgotten me. She’d built something without me.

Cierra:

My chest ached long after his footsteps faded into the dark.

I wanted to chase him. Godess, I wanted to. To grab his arm, to demand he stop looking at me like I was something lost, something broken that he couldn’t put back together. But the truth was crueler—I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember.

The fragments I carried of Dane were sharp, jagged pieces that cut when I tried to fit them into place. A laugh here, a promise there. The warmth of his hand in mine when we were young. But the rest—the whole picture—was missing. And in its absence, Dominic had become the gravity holding me steady.

I turned, finding him watching me quietly, not demanding and not questioning. Just… there.

My throat tightened. “I don’t know what to do. He deserves more than this. More than my confusion.”

Dominic’s gaze softened, but there was steel in it too.

“You don’t owe anyone what you can’t give. Not even him. What you feel, what you choose—that’s yours. No one else’s.”

I wanted to believe that. I wanted the weight of choice to feel like freedom, not a chain. But as I looked into Dominic’s steady, honey gold eyes and thought of the storm in Dane’s, I realized something that made my stomach twist.

My heart wasn’t free at all.

It was already tangled, caught between the shadows of a boy I had once possibly loved and the unshakable presence of the man who stood before me now.

And I didn’t know which part of me would survive choosing between them.