Lunethra

LUCE.

My hands were entirely too red. The skin across my palms felt raw, itching with a fierce, burning sensation that was driving me absolutely insane. I had been forced to stand in this sweltering pit for the last hour, doing nothing but fire target practice. I was thirteen years old, exhausted, and thoroughly sick of it.

I stared at the long row of untouched targets down the range. Instead of aiming at them one by one like I was supposed to, I gathered every ounce of dark energy pooling in my gut and unleashed it all at once.

A massive, deafening shockwave ripped through the cavern. The entire line of targets instantly blew up in a spectacular wall of dark flames and raining debris.

I dusted off my palms, completely unbothered by the destruction, and walked right out of the training pit. My mentor, Gargon, stood there with his jaw practically hitting the ash-covered floor. I shot him a dark, warning glare, pointing a blistered finger right at his chest. I bluntly reminded him to keep his mouth shut. If he dared to say a single word about this to my father, I promised I would blow his ugly face off the next time we trained.

I wasn't bluffing, and he knew it. I wasn't scared of anyone in this miserable wasteland. I was a stubborn, rebellious brat, but more importantly, I was my father's ultimate favorite. He was a high-ranking demon, and he openly doted on me. Nobody else in this entire realm was ever allowed to lay a single finger on me. It wasn't that I never faced consequences—I did. But my father made it a strict, lethal rule that he was the only being in existence allowed to punish me.

Leaving the training grounds behind, I effortlessly leaped over a series of low-burning fire hurdles that separated the arena from the main fields. My boots hit the cracked, barren earth. The air here was constantly thick and suffocating. It perpetually smelled like crushed, burning coals and scorched earth. Demons naturally took immense pleasure in the scent of anything going up in flames, especially the sickeningly sweet stench of burning flesh. I never fancied it, but I was stubbornly adapting. I was getting used to the nightmares.

Just another boring, agonizing day in hell.

I kicked a loose obsidian rock, wondering when my father would finally take me out of here to see the other creatures again. His rare capacity to travel effortlessly between realms was the absolute only thing about him that held any interest for me. Whenever he dragged me along on his little excursions, I actually got to see the sky. I got to meet interesting, diverse beings instead of the same horrifying monsters that roamed these dark pits.

I adjusted my path, heading directly toward the sulfur hot springs. I planned to spend the rest of my free time soaking my sore muscles and pretending I was anywhere else. I was about halfway there when something entirely out of place caught my eye.

A strange, ethereal light was steadily glowing from behind a massive, ruined stone building. It was bright and continuous, looking as if a hundred modern lightbulbs had been secretly installed behind the crumbling pillars.

This realm had always been suffocatingly dark. The sudden, pure light made my demonic curiosity instantly spike.

I crept around the jagged edge of the ruins, keeping my footsteps entirely silent.

"Who are you?" I demanded, my voice echoing off the stone.

A female stood facing away from me. She wasn't holding a torch or any kind of magic orb, yet she was the undeniable source of the blinding light. She had glorious, impossibly shiny black hair that tumbled all the way down below her waist. The soft, radiant glow seemed to be literally radiating from right beneath her pale skin, illuminating the bleak ashes around her feet.

The female slowly turned around to face me.

My breath completely hitched in my throat. I found myself standing face-to-face with the most breathtakingly beautiful female I had ever laid my eyes on in my entire thirteen years of life. I had seen the Goddess of Chaos once before. She had been beautiful in her own sharp, terrifying way, but the woman standing in front of me was entirely different. She was beyond beautiful. She was perfectly ethereal, completely untainted by the rot of this world. She absolutely did not belong in the Underworld.

"Hello, little wolf..."

Her voice drifted through the thick, smoky air like a soft, soothing lullaby.

My eyes went incredibly wide. Panic instantly flared in my chest, and I immediately took a defensive step backward as her greeting fully sank in. *Little wolf.* Only a very, very select few knew about the hidden werewolf blood running through my veins. My father had gone to brutal, bloody lengths to make absolutely sure of that.

"How did you know?" I asked, my brows furrowing deeply as I prepared to summon my fire again if she tried anything.

"Because I know you..." she answered softly, her glowing eyes locking onto mine with an impossible gentleness.

"Who are you?" I pushed, keeping my distance.

"They call me Selene..."

The tension in my shoulders dropped just a fraction. "You have a beautiful name."

"And you have a beautiful one too..." she replied seamlessly.

I managed a small, hesitant smile, completely unsure of what else to say to a glowing being in the middle of a demonic wasteland.

"Do you like it here?" she asked. Her silver eyes carried a heavy, profound sincerity that made me want to tell the truth.

I narrowed my eyes slightly. "Did my father ask you to come here and ask me that?"

"No."

"Will you run and tell him my answer?"

"No," Selene promised gently. "It is a secret I will keep for the rest of my days..."

I stared at her for a long moment, scanning her relaxed posture. For some completely unexplainable reason, my instincts were screaming that I could trust her. The dark, paranoid demon side of me was entirely quieted.

"No," I finally whispered, shaking my head. "I don't want to be here. I hate it."

"I understand," she murmured. "Do you know who I am?"

I shook my head again, a new question forming. "Are you a friend of my father?"

Selene giggled. It was a soft, musical sound that made her incredibly long hair sway. With that simple movement, the dreary, ash-covered world around us instantly lit up even brighter. "Your father never liked me. But we are not exactly enemies... We just... don't get along."

"Oh..." I mumbled, trying to piece it together. "Are you one of the Goddesses of the Underworld? Did I miss a lesson?"

"No," she said, her voice dropping to a reverent whisper. "I am the Goddess of the Moon."

My jaw physically dropped open. I stood there, openly and foolishly staring at her. No wonder her name had sounded so incredibly familiar. My mother used to talk about her all the time in the quiet, desperate moments before bed. She was the divine Goddess of the moon and of pure love. She was the exact deity who had officially fated my mother and my stepfather together.

The tough, apathetic exterior I had carefully built over the years instantly cracked wide open.

"My mother and father..." My voice violently trembled, completely betraying me. "Are their souls... are they with you?"

My entire body shook uncontrollably for a few seconds. I aggressively swiped at my eyes, desperately trying to wipe away the stinging tears before they could trickle down my soot-stained cheeks. Demons were supposed to be completely unfeeling.

"I tried to find their souls here," I choked out, my voice cracking under the crushing weight of my grief. "I looked everywhere in the pits... I couldn't find them. I miss them so much."

Selene's expression softened into an expression of pure, unadulterated heartbreak. "Yes... They are safely with me."

A massive, suffocating weight instantly lifted right off my chest.

"Will you... will you tell them that I..." I swallowed hard, having an incredibly difficult time forcing the final word out of my throat. Demons intimately knew about raw lust, violent desire, and endless greed, but love was an incredibly rare, almost mythical thing in this realm. "Will you tell them I love them?"

Selene nodded her head slowly, flashing me a breathtakingly warm smile.

"Are they together?" I begged to know.

She nodded her head again. Moving with an effortless grace, the glowing Goddess bent down until she was exactly at my eye level. She reached out, and her incredibly warm, soft fingers gently traced the dirt on my cheeks. She dried my stubborn tears in an absolute instant.

"And they will seamlessly remain together," Selene vowed, "until the exact moment they are reborn to find each other all over again."

"Thank you..."

I completely lost my composure. Overwhelmed by a rush of profound gratitude and a desperate, tearful longing, I lunged forward, throwing my arms directly around her glowing neck.

Selene flinched back, clearly surprised by my abrupt, aggressive action. But it didn't take more than a second before she firmly wrapped her own arms around my small frame. Her divine warmth instantly enveloped my entire shivering body. It was perfect. It felt exactly like my mommy was hugging me again.

"I will always look after my wolves," Selene whispered softly against my hair, her voice vibrating through my chest. "Including their precious souls."

I pulled back just enough to look into her bright eyes. "Are you looking after me, too?"

Her smile turned incredibly sad. "I have tried, and I will keep trying... As long as you give me a part of your soul."

"I don't understand," I said, my brow furrowing again.

"Listen closely, little one," Selene instructed, her tone turning dead serious. "As long as there is still wolf blood actively running in your veins, I will always do my absolute best to look after you. But once... if your father ever successfully takes all of it away and purges your wolf side... I will not be able to do anything for you anymore. You will be entirely beyond my reach."

Fear spiked cold and sharp in my gut. "I don't understand..."

"One day, everything will make perfect sense," she promised, standing back up to her full height. "Just absolutely never forget that you once met Selene."

She turned her back on me, her bare feet hovering just an inch above the scorched earth, entirely ready to walk away and leave me in this hellhole.

Pure, unfiltered panic took over. I sprinted right after her and threw my arms out, directly blocking her path.

"Wait! Do I have a mate?"

Selene paused, looking down at me. "All of my wolves have a mate specifically fated for them."

"I am a wolf, too!" I shouted, desperate for her validation.

She just smiled a tight, cryptic smile at me.

My eyes immediately watered all over again. Why couldn't she just give me a straight answer? Why couldn't she just say yes?

"Are you not giving me a mate?" I demanded, my voice thick with fresh, angry tears.

"It all depends entirely on you."

"I don't understand what you want from me!"

"Remember my words," Selene said, her voice echoing with divine authority. "All wolves have fated mates. But if you are no longer one..."

The implication hit me like a physical blow to the stomach. "Then my mate would be left completely alone..." My young heart fiercely ached, not just for my own miserable future, but for the unknown, faceless wolf who was out there, meant to be perfectly fated to me. "But how can I ever find my mate if I am permanently stuck down here?"

"You will find your answers in due time." Selene lifted her glowing, pointed finger and slowly descended it until the warm tip tapped directly against the end of my nose. "Your fate depends entirely on you."

"But you are a Goddess," I pleaded. "You can see the future..."

"But I will absolutely never interfere with your free will," she countered softly. "And the future can always easily change, especially when the heart actively changes." She offered one last, brilliant smile. "I must go now. I only ventured down here to visit a very special person, and now my grand purpose here is officially done."

Defeated, I slowly nodded my head and shuffled to the side, moving completely out of her way.

I stood frozen in the ashes, silently watching as she floated away into the oppressive darkness. Every single step she took along the cracked, ruined path left behind a glimmering trail, as if she was casually spreading bright, starlight sparkles across the burning coals of hell.

The absolute terror of being left alone, of never being loved, violently gripped my throat.

"Selene!" I screamed out after her, the desperate sound tearing through the silent wasteland, forcing her to stop dead in her tracks.

I swallowed the massive lump in my throat, my voice dropping to a terrified, fragile whisper as I voiced my deepest, darkest insecurity.

"Do you think... do you think my mate... will ever actually like me?" I clutched my hands into tight fists. "Because I'm a... demon."

I practically choked on the last word. I said it in a very soft, shameful voice. My eyes flooded with uncontrollable tears because I violently remembered exactly how my mother had spent her final years doing her absolute best to aggressively conceal my true identity. Demons were universally hated. We were absolute monsters, strictly forbidden and completely unwelcomed in both the human and the werewolf realms. What possible guarantee did I have that any decent wolf would ever accept the horrific darkness living inside of me?

The Goddess didn't move for a long moment.

Then, she slowly turned her head back over her glowing shoulder and looked directly at me.

The sheer amount of pure, unconditional love flitting within her silver eyes was completely overwhelming for my young, damaged heart. It was a terrifying, beautiful look that violently planted a tiny, fragile spark of hope deep into my soul.

"You have to find each other to know the answer..."