Moonlight After Goodbye Chapter 01

Moonlight After Goodbye Chapter 01

Right after graduation, my Alpha boyfriend, my best friend, and I went on a pack trip to Iceland to watch the northern lights.

This land belonged to no pack territory—just endless ice fields, black sand beaches, and a wind sharp and cold as moonlight.

When the wind blew Laura’s scarf off, Declan Ashford, my Alpha, shed his own scarf almost instantly, wrapping it tightly around her head and shoulders.

Then he turned to look at me.

“Celeste, go grab Laura’s scarf for her. It’s her favorite one.”

I froze in place for a second.

My name is Celeste Voss. I’m the daughter of a Beta family in Moonridge Pack, and everyone had long taken it for granted that I would become the future Luna of Ashford Pack.

Declan, meanwhile, is the heir Alpha of Ashford Pack.

We’d grown up side by side our entire lives.

My wolf had claimed his scent long ago.

Four years ago, on the sacrificial night of the Moon Goddess four years ago, he’d laced his fingers through mine and sworn he’d propose to me beneath the dancing northern lights one day. He said he’d let the entire sky witness our promise.

Yet that night, when the aurora finally blazed across the heavens, it wasn’t me he pulled tight against his chest.

I struggled against the strong wind for a long time before finally retrieving the lost scarf from a snowdrift.

When I turned back, the aurora had already faded to a faint haze.

They were gone from where we’d been standing.

A text pinged on my phone.

[You took too long. Laura can’t stand the cold, so I’m heading back to the hotel with her first.]

Stranded in a foreign country, I stood alone at that roadside for six full hours.

Wind and snow stung my face sharply.

Inside me, my wolf curled up and whimpered softly.

I tried to flag down over twenty cars before a local driver finally agreed to give me a ride.

It was the wee hours of the morning by the time I stumbled back to the hotel, completely frozen through.

I pushed open the door, only to find Declan and Laura tangled under the same duvet, huddled close as they flipped through photos they’d taken that day.

They chattered endlessly about photography, lenses, lighting, and the aurora—a conversation I could never join in on.

Declan frowned when he spotted me.

“What took you so long?”

He tilted his chin toward a mug sitting on the table.

“I made you a cup of hot milk to warm up with.”

I wrapped my fingers around the ceramic.

The milk had gone stone cold.

The weariness hidden in my heart welled up little by little.

So be it.

Some lights were never meant to be caught, no matter how hard you chased them.

I set down the cold mug and hung the retrieved scarf on the coat rack.

Laura wriggled out from under the covers and grabbed my hands in hers.

“Your fingers are ice cold!”

She rubbed my frigid palms between hers, then shot Declan a reproachful glance.

“Declan, I told you we should have waited for Celeste—you just had to rush off.”

Declan held up both hands in surrender.

“Fine, fine, my princess. It’s my fault.”

He gently tucked Laura back under the blanket, pulling the edges snugly around her.

“Your wolf is weak and can’t stand the cold, you know that? You shouldn’t be wasting your body heat trying to warm her hands.”

He tossed a towel straight at my head.

“Go take a hot shower if you’re freezing. Don’t rely on Laura to take care of you.”

The towel fell straight onto my head.

I pulled it off slowly, saying nothing, and slipped into the bathroom.

Hot water sluicing over my skin was the first thing that made me feel halfway alive again.

A cramping pain pulsed in my lower abdomen.

Declan and I had known each other since childhood.

Laura was my college roommate, an Omega with an exceptionally frail wolf. She suffered from silver fever as a child and has been in poor health ever since.

I was the one who’d brought her into our circle in the first place. I’d even told Declan repeatedly that Laura struggled with the cold, urging him to look out for her a little extra.

I never imagined his careful care would turn into romantic affection for her.

United by their shared passion for photography, they quickly became inseparable. Two people who usually kept to themselves found endless things to talk about whenever they were together.

I’d awkwardly tried to join them many times, but every question I asked only got them to exchange a smile.

“Celeste, how come you don’t understand anything about this?”

When I stepped out of the bathroom, the room was dark; they’d fallen asleep.

I felt my way to the edge of the bed and lay down.

Declan’s hand stretched out in the dark, settling right over my cramping lower stomach.

“Is your cycle here again? Let me warm your stomach for you.”

I’d wanted to pull away, but I held back.

I greedily absorbed the warmth from his palm.

For as long as I could remember, I’d trailed right behind him. He loved practicing archery at the forest’s edge and patrolling pack territory alongside the warriors—and I was always his little follower.

Five years ago, I’d worked up the courage to confess my feelings, and to my surprise, he agreed.

Everyone whispered that an Alpha heir would never truly settle for a daughter from a Beta household.

But he’d kept me in his heart.

He memorized my cycle dates.

He knew I hated the cold.

He always carried an extra hoodie in his bag.

But after Laura came along, I never got to wear that hoodie again.

The tears I’d held back all night finally fell silently.

He must have sensed my distress, because he rolled me onto my side against his chest.

“What’s wrong? Are you jealous?”

“Laura’s unwell, I’m just looking out for her like you asked me to. C’mon, don’t throw a fit over this.”

“Laura’s an early riser; if you sleep in, she’ll end up waiting around too long.”

My throat felt blocked. I spoke hoarsely.

“Okay.”

He soon fell into steady breathing.

I stayed wide awake, staring into the darkness the entire night.

Maybe Declan had long forgotten his promise.

Four years ago, he’d sworn he’d propose beneath the northern lights.

The aurora had finally appeared, yet I was not the one watching it with him.