Page 2 of Moonlit Desires

Halfway through her shift, the flow of customers spikes.

A group of junior city clerks crowds in, still in uniform, voices climbing as their drinks disappear.

Lyra splits her attention between the bar and the mercenaries, whose “negotiation” is now openly hostile.

The tattooed one slams his palm on the table, sending their bottle spinning.

“I did my part,” he snarls. “You got paid, same as me. Don’t try to short me now.”

“Check your memory, old man. I took the first shift on watch. You owe me two nights, and you know it.” The second mercenary is goading, voice oily with pleasure.

A hush ripples through the nearby tables. Lyra steps in, feigning a casual air, but her hands are poised—one on a bottle, the other braced behind her back where she keeps the heavy mallet for stubborn keg taps.

“Trouble?” she asks, letting the word hang. Her gaze dares them to test her patience.

The tattooed man turns, and for a moment Lyra sees something raw and ancient in his eyes—an old scar, or maybe just an echo of the woods from her dreams. It makes her shiver, and she hates herself for it.

“No trouble,” he mutters, but the lie hisses through his teeth.

She glances at the bottle between them. “Might want to pace yourselves. House policy says if you bleed on my floor, you mop it up yourselves.”

The moment stretches. The mercenary with the black eye laughs, shrill and brittle. He swipes the bottle, drains the last finger, and sets it down with a bang.

“Fine,” he says. “We’ll take it outside.”

Lyra nods once, not breaking eye contact. “I appreciate your restraint.”

They stand. The tattooed man is a head taller, built like a cathedral. The other slouches, hands hidden, smile gone. As they shoulder past, Lyra keeps her eyes fixed on their hands. The slighter man’s fingers twitch at his belt. A flash of steel—a knife, quick as a snake’s tongue.

The air snaps with movement. Lyra is over the bar before she thinks, one boot on the stool, the other on the sticky floor. “Not in here,” she says, voice low, threaded with iron.

But the slighter mercenary is already lunging, the knife aimed not at his partner but at Lyra.

Instinct tightens her muscles, but she’s half a second behind.

She pivots, grabbing for his wrist, but he’s faster, fueled by a cocktail of spite and desperation.

The blade slashes through the air, catching her shirt at the seam of the shoulder.

She feels fabric give, then a slice of heat as the edge kisses her skin.

Adrenaline tunnels her vision. She grabs the man’s arm, twisting hard. The wrist snaps, the knife clatters to the floor. The tattooed mercenary curses, shoving the smaller man hard enough to send him crashing into the bar’s foot rail.

Lyra tastes blood—hers, she realizes, trickling from the shallow cut at her shoulder.

She clamps a bar towel to it, eyes tracking the mercenaries as they stagger toward the door.

The crowd erupts in a riot of shouts and jeers, emboldened by violence and proximity.

She ignores them, focusing on the pain, which is hot but manageable.

Then the second pain hits.

It is nothing like the first. Not a knife, not even fire.

More like a lance of molten silver driven straight through her spine.

It starts at the spot between her shoulder blades and spreads outward, searing nerves, crawling up her neck and down her arms in a rush of blinding agony.

She gasps; the sound strangled and drops the towel.

For a moment, the world blurs. The shouts and breaking glass recede, replaced by a high, crystalline ringing. Lyra’s vision fragments at the edges—slivers of white, of forest, of moonlight, overlaying the bar in fractured double exposure.

She clutches the counter, knuckles white, determined not to fall.

The pain pulses, fading and returning in waves.

Each time, it leaves her a little weaker, a little less sure of the boundaries of her own body.

She can feel eyes on her—not the mercenaries, not the clientele, but eyes from somewhere deeper, older, hungrier.

The fight is over before she regains full control. Someone, maybe the seamstresses, has called for help; the bouncer appears, herding the bleeding mercenaries out the door. The crowd surges with gossip and excitement, already mythologizing the scuffle into legend.

Lyra fakes composure, wiping her shoulder with a fresh towel, but her hands tremble.

The pain between her shoulder blades is a star, burning and growing, impossible to ignore.

She tries to breathe it away, but the agony only sharpens her awareness: the stink of the bar, the taste of iron in her mouth, the memory of a thousand eyes watching from a dream.

She fumbles for the bottle of cheap vodka kept under the counter for emergencies, pours two fingers, and slams it back. It does nothing for the pain, but the ritual steadies her. She runs a hand across her face, flinching as her fingers brush the sweat at her temple.

In the mirror behind the bar, she catches a glimpse of herself—pale, bloodless lips, eyes rimmed in a green so bright it could be a trick of the light. For an instant, she swears she sees something glimmering at her back, a shimmer that vanishes as soon as she blinks.

Lyra pulls her shirt higher, ignoring the way the fabric sticks to her skin. She busies herself with the mundane: stacking glasses, mopping the spill, resetting the order of the world one motion at a time. But the pain won’t let her forget, not even for a second.

The bar resumes its rhythm, laughter and stories rising to fill the void. Lyra floats through it, anchored only by the counter beneath her hands and the certainty that nothing will ever be simple again.

____________

She waits for the next rush of pain, but it doesn’t come. Instead, the agony contracts to a sharp, hot knot beneath her shoulder blades, as if someone has embedded a coal there. Every time she flexes, it pulses. Every time she breathes, it glows.

Lyra holds her post through another round of drinks, answering to shouts of “Hey, red!” and “Another over here!” with deadpan efficiency.

Her composure is a lie, but she wears it well—only her hands betray her, trembling faintly as she stacks glasses or wipes the counter clean.

Each movement grinds the knot deeper, igniting sparks that flash behind her eyes.

She can feel the looks, too. The regulars glance over with that curious blend of pity and amusement reserved for anyone caught in a bar brawl.

A few ask if she’s all right, and she answers with a brisk “Never better.” But the glances linger too long, as if some part of her has changed and they’re waiting for her to notice.

The break between the lunch crowd and the first wave of night drinkers is only ten minutes, but it’s enough.

Lyra slips away, past the stench of the kitchen’s battered fryers, up the narrow staff hallway, to the employee washroom.

The door is painted over in six different shades of beige and never quite shuts all the way, but she forces the lock with a sharp twist, then slumps against the sink.

The mirror is a ruin: cracked in two places, permanently fogged at the edges, the glass itself warped from years of cleaning with cheap spirits.

But it’s enough to see her own face—pale, sweating, pupils blown wide.

She curses under her breath, shrugs off the bar vest, and yanks her shirt over her head, pausing as the fabric peels away from her shoulder.

She turns, twisting awkwardly, and cranes her neck.

At first, it looks like a bruise—purpled, mottled, radiating out from a single point between her shoulder blades.

But as she watches, the bruise shifts, resolves into a precise shape: a crescent, impossibly fine, outlined in silver that shines even in the room’s dying fluorescent light.

She tries to touch it, fingers hovering just above the skin. The heat is intense, not a surface burn but something alive, a presence burrowed in deep. It pulses under her hand—once, twice, a rhythm like a second heartbeat.

“Fuck,” she whispers, louder than she intended.

A knock rattles the door. “You okay in there?” The voice is familiar: Maya, the only other bartender she halfway trusts.

Lyra grabs her shirt, pulling it over her head with a hiss of pain. “Fine. Just needed a second.”

Maya’s silhouette looms in the milky glass of the door. “You want me to get the boss?”

“No,” Lyra snaps. Then, softer: “No. Just… hang on.”

She inspects the crescent again. It’s fading now, the silver receding, but the skin around it is flushed, almost feverish.

With shaking hands, she buttons her vest and ties her hair back tighter, making sure every inch of the mark is covered.

Only when she’s certain does she unlock the door and open it.

Maya is waiting, arms crossed. She’s taller than Lyra, shoulders squared with an athlete’s poise, but tonight she looks small, hunched against the bright hallway. “You look like shit.”

Lyra forces a smile. “That’s what you say to a lady in distress?”

“I’m not known for my bedside manner.” Maya glances up and down the corridor, then leans in. “You want to tell me what really happened back there?”

For a moment, Lyra considers lying. She could tell Maya about the knife, the adrenaline, the pain—leave out the rest. But Maya’s eyes are sharp, and she won’t believe it anyway. So Lyra just shrugs. “It’s nothing. Just got… spooked, I guess.”

Maya hesitates. “I saw it, you know. When you turned to grab the towel. There was—” She stops, searching for the word. “—something on your back. Glowing. Like a damn tattoo, but brighter.”

Lyra goes still. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Didn’t want to in front of the customers.” Maya’s voice is a near-whisper. “You should be careful. That kind of thing attracts attention. Not all of it good.”