143
Kieran's POV
Four weeks.
That’s how long it’s been since Maeve died in my arms and then rose again, remade in a white light.
Four weeks since the world ended and began again, and I haven’t slept a full night since.
Watching Maeve, She’s different now. Everyone sees it, but no one says it out loud. Not Rowen. Not Brinley. Not even Lucien.
I noticed when she started losing her appetite, and when she would come back from the woods with dirt on her knees and a hollow look in her eyes.
The way she avoids sunlight, like it burned her.
The way she stares at her hands like they’re foreign things, trembling when she thinks no one sees.
The way she shrank, literally, from the tall, defiant girl who once stood just at my chin, to this smaller, paler version. 5’5 now. Hollowed cheeks. Thin wrists.
And yet… There are changes she hasn’t noticed, or maybe she’s noticed and refuses to admit or acknowledge.
Her breasts are fuller. The faint swell of her stomach. The nausea that makes her run from meals, gagging, pale as parchment paper.
At first, I thought it was the aftermath of dying and returning. But it’s not fading. If anything, it’s sharpening. It should have gone away..
Maybe her body was still adjusting to Selene’s gift, still burning through the remnants of shadow and flame. But every night, when I sit too close, when her scent has threaded through the air, it hit me.
She still smelled like me.
Not like my clothes or the memory of our bond. Like me. Even stripped of power, she carries it.
It should have been Impossible.. unless
I choke on the thought every time it rises.
Unless she’s pregnant.
The Moon Goddess’s Price
Why would Selene do this?
Maeve gave everything. She sacrificed her power, her flame, her bond, her life. Wasn’t that enough?
I pace my room every night asking the same question, fists clenched..
“Was this her price?” I whisper to the dark.
Onyx rumbles inside me, low and steady. Selene never gives without taking.
“She took everything already.” My voice cracks. “Her magic. Her strength. She made Maeve small. Different. She stripped her of the mate bond. What else could she possibly take?”
Her choice.
I stiffen. “What do you mean?”
Maeve chose to return. That always comes with cost. Maybe Selene gave her more than she asked for as a gift.
“A gift?” I spit the word. “You think this is a gift?”
Onyx’s voice is like claws scraping stone. Life is always a gift. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. Just like love.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands.
“If she’s carrying my child,” I whisper, “then Selene’s twisted. Maeve begged to save us, not damn herself. Not chain herself to something she isn’t ready for.”
Or maybe, Onyx says, softer now, this is the balance Selene spoke of. Maeve lost her power, her bond, her fire. But she gained something else. A future.
The word feels too big in my chest. Future.
Maeve walks the grounds, pale as bone, hair silver in sunlight, wolf pure as snow.
It’s wrong. It’s beautiful. It’s terrifying.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s even Maeve at all.
Sometimes I wonder if the Moon Goddess herself is walking the earth in her skin.
When she runs in the woods, Stormi howling, she looks untouchable.
But then she trips, or she clutches her stomach, or she flinches when Rowen reaches for her hand, and I know it’s her. My Maeve.
Changed. But still her.
I haven’t told anyone my suspicions.
Not Brinley, though she watches Maeve with maybe the same suspicion, her seer’s ability has been gone since Maeve died. Or maybe she just is still confused how Maevryn was allowed to come back to us..
And than theres Rowen.. he’s been pacing like a caged beast since Maeve’s return, restless and angry.
If I’m wrong, I’ll be the cruelest bastard alive for suggesting it. If I’m right…If I’m right, then everything has changed again.
The three of us are still bound to one another, even without her. The bond hums, thin but alive. But with Maeve gone from it, there’s a hollow ache that doesn’t heal or feel right.
If she’s pregnant, if she carries a part of me, then maybe Selene didn’t strip the bond after all. Maybe she reforged it. In blood. In flesh.
And I don’t know whether to scream or thank her.
I sit in the courtyard one night, Onyx prowls inside me, restless.
Tell her, he urges. She needs to know.
“She’s fragile,” I snap. “You’ve seen her. She barely eats. She barely talks. If I ask her now, she’ll break.”
She’s stronger than you think.
“She died,” I bite out. “She died, and Selene remade her into something fragile. Smaller. Skittish. You call that strong?”
Onyx snarls. She died, and she came back. That is strength.
I press my hands into my eyes, shaking. “I can’t lose her again.”
Then fight for her.
“I don’t even know what we’re fighting,” I rasp. “Selene? Fate? Or just the mess we made at Nythera’s coven?”
Onyx goes still. That night. When you marked each other. And mated properly.
I stiffen.
Ask her about it. See if she remembers. If she felt the same shift you did.
The memory burns through me. Maeve’s mouth against mine. Her teeth at my throat. My bite on her shoulder, sealing her to me. Shadows crackling, not binding us but freeing us. The way it felt to be inside her a feeling Ive never forgotten.
And then everything after had ripped it apart.
Maybe that’s the key. Maybe Selene honored that night more than any prophecy. Maybe that’s why Maeve’s scent clings to me even without the mark.
I swallow hard.
“I’ll ask her,” I whisper.
Good. Onyx’s growl is low, pleased. Because if we’re right, then she isn’t lost to us. Not truly. Not ever.
Rowen and I's eighteenth birthday was less than a month away. By then, I'd find our mate. We know already becasue of our wolves that it is Brinley and Maeve.. AndI wanted to remark her, If she'd let me..
Reclaim what was lost.
If she didn’t…
I looked over at her bed, where she curled in a tight ball, her breathing uneven. She looked... So breakable.
But when she stirred, her hand went instinctively to her stomach, fingers pressing as though to guard something unseen.
My chest started to ache.
I didn’t bother bringing it up to Rowen or Brinley. And I definelty didn’t dare tell Lucien. Not yet.
Because if she didn’t know yet.. maybe I had to wait to for her to tell me..
But until she was ready, until she let me close enough to hold her again without flinching, I would carry the truth and possibility alone..
“Onyx, If she is… if she’s carrying a piece of us… then she’s still mine. Ours. And I’ll fight the Goddess herself before I let her forget that.”
Maybe this was the moongoddess plan all along.