He Thought I Became His Perfect Luna, I Had Only Stopped Loving Him Chapter 08

He Thought I Became His Perfect Luna, I Had Only Stopped Loving Him Chapter 08

In another city, in a hospital Stellan had never heard of,

the red light above the OR doors came on.

Aelwen lay on the table while the anesthesia moved through her veins like cold water rising,

Outside in the observation room, Iris stood with both fists pressed against her ribs, eyes red.

Please. Aelwen, please come back.

The surgery took twelve hours.

When the lead surgeon finally came through the doors and said it worked, Iris’s legs stopped working. She sat down on the floor in the hallway and cried until she had nothing left.

But the surgeon wasn’t finished.

“There’s something else.”

Iris looked up.

“The fragment had been compressing the memory centers for too long. Removing it caused some irreversible damage to those pathways. Her recent memory, specifically the last five years, may be

permanently gone.”

Three days later, Aelwen opened her eyes.

Her gaze was clear.

And completely unfamiliar.

“Aelwen?” Iris’s voice was careful. Like she was approaching something fragile. “Do you know who

I am?”

I looked at her.

“Iris.” It came easily. “My best friend. Also a healer.”

She exhaled, long and shaky.

“And…” She hesitated. “Stellan. Do you remember him?”

I thought about it.

Shook my head.

“No. Who is he?”

Iris reached over and took both my hands.

“Nobody important,” she said firmly. “You’re better off.”

Outside the window, the city sky was a deep, clean blue.

A new chapter was starting.

I spent a month recovering in that hospital.

The memory gaps didn’t bother me the way Iris seemed afraid they would.

“The things you’ve forgotten were bad things,” she’d say, almost every day. “This is better.”

I believed her.

I felt it deep down: not grief for what was missing, but something closer to relief. Like I’d been carrying something for a very long time and had set it down somewhere along the way.

One afternoon, I was reading in the hospital room when the door opened.

Iris came in looking faintly flustered.

“You have a visitor.”

Behind her stood a man in his mid-fifties, well-dressed, easy posture. He looked like someone who’d spent decades in high-pressure rooms and learned not to let it show.

“Miss Bramlock.” He extended a hand. “I’m Silvanor. Chief healer to the Royal Pack.”

I glanced at Iris.

“Silvanor!” she said quickly. “He’s one of the most respected healers alive. He was your

professional idol. And before your surgery, you made arrangements. Got a complete, corrected emergency protocol for the Alpha King’s procedure into his hands.”

Silvanor pulled a chair to my bedside.

“I came to thank you in person. If you hadn’t arranged for that corrected protocol to reach my team,

I would have walked into the Alpha King’s procedure with flawed information. The consequences

could have been catastrophic.”

He set a small envelope on the blanket beside me.

“Please accept this.”

Inside: two documents.

One was an offer: Royal Research Fellow at the Royal Pack’s medical division.

The other was an invitation to serve as guest professor at the Wolf Medical Academy.

I looked at them for a moment.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry I don’t remember the details. But I’m glad it helped.”

“Don’t apologize.” He smiled. “You are the most courageous, most capable healer I’ve encountered. When you’ve fully recovered, I would be honored to have you join my team. We can offer you whatever you need.”

He stayed a little longer, asked about my recovery, and then left.

After the door closed, Iris let out a long breath.

“Aelwen. This is genuinely incredible.”

I turned the appointment letter over in my hands.

“I just want to know how much of my knowledge I’ve still got,” I said. “Iris, will you help me test

it?”

“Obviously.”

The day I left the hospital, the sun was actually out.

I wore a simple white shirt. Too thin in the shoulders now, but I felt more like myself than I had in a

long time.

I was heading for the car when someone came out of nowhere.

“Aelwen!”

The voice was raw. Desperate. Like it had been sitting in a wound for a long time.

I stopped.

A man stood a few feet away, looking wrecked. Hollow eyes. Rumpled clothes. No badge where one had clearly been pinned before. But his face still held something, some ghost of someone who had

probably once looked formidable.

“Aelwen…” He stepped closer. His voice broke on my name. “You really don’t remember me?”

I turned to Iris.