Hour of the Moon

Chapter 24: Icarus

Waya

I was a liar, a cheater, and in the moments when my sister-in-law lay pale and trembling in a hospital bed, all I could think about was the rift I'd torn in Nani's heart.

She sat beside her sister beneath the hum of sterile lights, her devotion so steady it made me ache. And while she tended to blood and pulse and promise, I was thinking about another woman—the one who'd unstitched the discipline I'd built my life upon.

The shower hissed like an animal cornered. Steam crawled up the walls, and still, her scent clung to me—cedar, rain, skin. I pressed my palms to the tile and let the water scour the places her hands had been, but the heat only brought her closer.

Keiran.

Even the memory of her name made the air feel dangerous. Her eyes—deep brown, warm enough to undo me. Her voice—soft as smoke, curling through my ribs until my wolf stirred in recognition.

I wanted to claim her. To sink my teeth into the hollow of her throat and drink the sound of her surrender. Not from cruelty. From hunger. From the need to know what it would feel like if something finally fit.

I still loved Nani. God help me, I did. But my wolf ached for Keiran—a hunger that wasn't lust or tenderness but a calling, something older than fidelity, older than language. It was as if the first wolf had carved her name into the marrow of my kind, and now every breath I took was a reminder.

It wasn't love. It was recognition. The kind that tears you in half because it feels holy in all the wrong ways.

When the water cooled, I stood in the fogged mirror, watching a stranger's outline. The man who'd sworn himself to Nani looked back at me like a ghost squatting in someone else's body. I dressed quickly—red flannel, jeans, boots—and told myself the drive to the hospital was duty, not absolution.

The rain had thinned to mist, but it still clung to the glass as I drove. Each stoplight was a confession, each turn a lie.

Inside, the hospital smelled like bleach and mercy. A nurse waved me through with the same look people give to men who've already been punished.

Aiyana looked small in the bed, but her heartbeat filled the room. She was strong. Stubborn like her sister.

"How is she?" I asked, my voice too careful.

Nani didn't turn. "She can tell you herself."

Aiyana smiled weakly. "See? Still bossy. I'm fine, Waya. Your wife-to-be's just making a movie out of it."

"You could've lost the baby," Nani said, each word a quiet incision.

"Yeah, but I didn't. The doctor said we're fine."

"Where's Tokala?" Nani asked, and silence rippled between them. Aiyana's eyes dropped.

I'd seen this dance before—Aiyana's deflection, Nani's protectiveness. The sisters shared the same stubborn pulse, but Nani's love had always been heavier, more absolute.

"I'm staying until sunrise," she said.

"Do you need anything? Coffee? Food?"

"If you want." Her tone was polite, distant—the kind that forgives you without forgetting.

"I'll see you at home," I said quietly.

"Bye, Waya."

Their eyes followed me as I left, and shame followed too.

The night air outside was thick with the smell of asphalt and wet earth. I sat in the car for a long time, the engine humming beneath me, the phone lighting up with temptation.

Keiran: Everything okay with Nani and her sister?
Me: They're fine.
Keiran: I'll call her tomorrow. I'm glad.

I stared at the screen until it dimmed. The urge to type I miss you pulsed like an open wound. I turned the phone off.

If I fed that hunger again, it would stop pretending to be hunger. It would become need.

Home should've been a sanctuary. Instead, it felt like a confession booth. The trees leaned closer than usual, their branches heavy with secrets.

I stepped out of the car, and every hair along my neck rose. Something was wrong. The air was too still. Too sharp.

Then I smelled it: decay, faint but distinct. Death wearing perfume.

My wolf's senses sharpened, vision cutting clean through the dark. The shadows pulsed, and somewhere inside them, a memory began to move.

"Show yourself," I growled.

The forest exhaled. Then came a voice I hadn't heard in years.

"It's good to see you again, Waya."

I froze. The sound wrapped around me like barbed wire and nostalgia.

He stepped from the treeline, bathed in moonlight. White clothes, familiar stance, eyes like the aftermath of fire.

Wohali.

My brother. My dead brother.

"Hi, baby bro." His smile was soft, almost kind. "You didn't think you could bury me that easily, did you?"

The sight of him hollowed me out. He looked the same—strong, composed—but the scent was wrong. The wolf in him was gone. What stood before me was something else.

"You're not real."

"Not real," he repeated, tasting the words. "And yet, here you are trembling."

I swallowed hard. "Why are you here?"

He studied me, gaze calm, terrible. "Because you lit a match, brother. You forgot what happens when wolves play with fire. The moon doesn't forgive trespass."

"I didn't—"

"You didn't mean to?" he interrupted, his voice suddenly sharp. "You never do. You think fidelity is a human invention, but ours was older. You broke an oath written in bone."

"I didn't mark her," I said.

"But you wanted to." His eyes glinted gold, just for a moment. "And wanting is enough to wake the old gods."

He took a step forward, the earth beneath him untouched by sound. "Do you know what they called wolves before names? They called us the children of hunger. And you, little brother—you've remembered too well."

I felt my throat tighten. The air between us shimmered with the smell of wet pine and death.

"Tell me," he murmured. "Did she taste like redemption... or ruin?"

I wanted to look away, but his words pinned me where I stood.

"You're not him," I said.

"No," he agreed. "I'm what's left when guilt learns how to walk."

He smiled again, and it was the saddest thing I'd ever seen. "You loved me once."

"I still do."

"Then prove it. Stop what's coming."

"Stop what?"

His outline began to fade, body unraveling into the mist. Only his voice remained, low and final.

"The first hunger has smelled her on you. And she's coming."

I stood in the dark long after he was gone, the forest pressing its silence against me. The rain started again, soft and relentless.

Inside, I poured whiskey I didn't need. It didn't steady my hands. The glass trembled against my lips. Keiran's scent was still there—faint, defiant, unforgettable.

I set the drink down and stared at the window. My reflection stared back, eyes burning amber, then gold.

The wolf inside me whispered:
You can wash the sin off your skin, but not out of your blood.

And somewhere deep in the night, I swore I heard another voice—low, female, ancient as the moon—whispering my name as if tasting it for the first time.