Bound To Love You Again, My Luna

Dust kicked off Aria’s paws, dirtying the pale gray of her fur when she walked, a pack with her belongings secure over her back.

Head low, she wandered through the uneven streets of Amestris. Not for the first time, she wondered why no one ever bothered to pave the roads like the rest of the world. It was as if they deliberately kept the region in this perpetual state of untamed madness if only to create an element of fear.

“Aria!”

The sound of her name twisted her head dangerously behind her, nostrils flaring in preparation for a problem, but it was only Fred, rubbing his arms as he lounged in the doorway of one of the crumbling bars across from her last drop of the day. Baring her teeth, she continued onward, but he didn’t take the hint, rushing after her like the delinquent he was.

“Aria, wait!” Fred begged, but she didn’t slow down again.

Aria wanted to get home, the sun’s rays dipping brilliantly over the dusky horizon, casting an eerie pre-twilight glow on the streets. Not even she liked being out after dark—not that she couldn’t take care of herself on those occasions when she had no choice. But if she was given an option, Amestris was a place much better appreciated behind closed doors once dusk fully fell.

She growled, again flashing her fangs, but Fred didn’t get the hint—or he was far too sketched out to heed it.

“Do you think you can front me a bit?” he asked in a staged whisper, leaning closer to touch her head. “I’ll pay you back. Just a pinch to get me through—”

Without warning, she latched onto the flesh of his skin, his cry reverberating through the alleyways as she tore, relishing the taste of blood in her mouth.

“Let me go!” he wailed, ripping his hand back from her jowls until he freed his palm.

Red oozed along her jawline, and Fred stumbled dizzily as people flocked out of the shops to see what was causing the commotion.

“Dammit, Fred!” Mary Jones stomped over the boardwalk toward the center of the road, her heeled spurs clicking alarmingly as she glared at Aria. “How many times have I told you to leave the peddlers alone?”

Aria ignored the fae and quickened her pace, jutting into one of the quieter gangways. Ensuring that she was alone, she morphed back into her human form, pulling the easy-fit outfit from her pack while maintaining the integrity of the last drop-off.

Dressed in the same simple, black tracksuit she’d worn all day, she stuffed her feet into a pair of white sneakers and pinned her too-long tresses into a high, messy bun on top of her head before letting herself into an ajar fire door at the back of the gangway. A putrid comingling of ammonia and ash touched her overly sensitive nostrils, the scent still offensive after all these years.

Shifting the straps of her pack again, she shoved open the first door she encountered, startling the already jumpy occupant, who whirled around in his broken swivel chair to look at her guiltily.

“Aria,” he sighed, relief coloring his face. “I almost forgot you were coming today.”

“I always come on Fridays, Skye,” Aria reminded him, the routine like some bad, outdated comedy sketch. She was starting to have déjà vu—and severe annoyance. Gritting her teeth, she plopped the bag onto one of the filthy, overcluttered tables in front of her, causing half a dozen beer cans to clatter to the ground. Skye almost jumped out of his skin at the sound.

“Easy, baby, easy,” he sighed, rising to his feet and abruptly pivoting toward the far wall where she knew he kept the safe. It was hidden in a good spot. Despite being a bookie, Skye hardly lived the part in the condemned building where they stood. He called it his “man cave.” But no one would ever think to look for the hundreds of thousands of dollars he squirreled behind the walls from cheated bets.

But that wasn’t her business. Her business was unloading this score and getting the hell out of there before the fleas stuck to the velour of her tracksuit, and the rubber soles of her shores became one with whatever the sticky substance was on the base of the unfinished floors.

“Half a kilo,” Aria announced, pulling the product from out of her backpack.

Skye hurried toward Aria, a bony finger extended toward the sealed powder as if he’d never seen it before, but this, too, was familiar to him. He’d burned through his last personal stash and was onto his next batch.

“Here.” He tossed an overstuffed envelope toward Aria, and she caught it with her left hand, wrist angled slightly to avoid having it fall on the floor.

Without a word, she spun around, eager to be the hell out of his suffocating purgatory before he burned another hole into his nose.

“Watch yourself out there,” Skye said, startling her as the toe of her sneaker crossed back over the threshold.

Aria glanced back toward him, a stray strand of strawberry blonde hair slipping from her poorly fashioned bun to cross over her view. Impatiently, she waved it away, scowling at the unsolicited advice.

“Really?” Aria snapped, irritated. “Be careful?”

Skye shrugged, unfazed by Aria’s expression.

“It’s a full moon. Haven’t you noticed? It brings out all the crazies.”

Aria thought of Fred approaching her in the street earlier.

That makes sense—even for Fred.

“I can take care of myself, Skye,” she informed him flatly.

“No one’s ever questioned that, Aria,” he snickered, his attention fully fixed on his package now, dark eyes gleaming wildly as if he was already high.

That was her cue to see herself out.

Turning back, Aria let herself back into the uneven hall and back out the way she’d come. She didn’t bother shifting back into her wolf form for the trip to her house. The sun hadn’t fully set yet, and home wasn’t far. The streets were still relatively alive. However, even now, there were more members of Fred’s circle on the raised boardwalks outside the closing stores than families or businesspeople were combing through the avenues.

“You took a chunk out of Fred, huh?”

Choking back a gasp, she steeled herself from showing her surprise. Only Elle could sneak up on her like that, her waif-like demeanor and innocence never a threat to her hypervigilant nature.

The tiny fae beamed up at her, but concern clouded her vision.

“Are you okay, Aria?”

Flashing Elle a quick smile, Aria lowered her guard again and nodded, closing her hands around the straps of her pack. It always felt weird at the end of the day without any weight, like she was forgetting something.

“Was Mary shooting off her mouth again?” Aria grumbled, glancing over her shoulder. Fred was long gone from where she’d left him, Mary, too.

“You did leave him bleeding with half a hand in the middle of the street,” Elle tittered nervously. “Someone was bound to say something.”

“That guy should have known better than to approach me.”

Elle peered at Aria curiously, waiting for her to elaborate, but she pursed her lips together.

“Well?” she pressed. “What did he want?”

“It doesn’t matter, Elle,” Aria mumbled, quickening her stride across the dusty street. Here, there were fewer stores and more houses, the streetlamps tapering off with more distance between them. Her place was only a few blocks away, and she could almost taste the shower on her lips.

“Drugs?” Elle pressed.

Inhaling, she stopped and looked her dead in the eye.

“You know I can’t talk to you about this stuff, Elle,” she said firmly. “If you have business questions, you need to talk to Orion.”

Elle pouted, her sooty eyes shadowing to a cloudy gray. She ran a hand through her black bob and folded her arms over her chest.

“You know he doesn’t talk to me about any of that stuff,” she muttered begrudgingly.

And she knows Aria won’t, either, if she wants to keep her place in the hierarchy, she mused but maintained her smile.

She liked Elle, even if she was constantly trying to snitch on her romantic partner all the time. But she valued her position in the Black Society much more than she did any friendships.

It was the most stable relationship she’d ever had, after all.

“I know you feel disloyal talking about Orion stuff,” Elle told Aria pleadingly, her long lashes giving her a much more youthful appearance than her age. No one would guess that she was older than Aria with that barely lined skin and those naïve, blinking eyes.

“Elle,” Aria sighed, not wanting to bark at her. “I’m not supposed to discuss this stuff with you. You know that, and I know that. I wish you’d stop asking me. It’s putting our friendship at risk when you do.”

Elle drew back like Aria had slapped her in the face, her jaw slacking. “I don’t want that, either, Aria,” she breathed, pure contrition coloring her cheeks. “That’s not my intention.”

Aria’s face softened as Elle exhaled, lowering her eyes.

“I just feel like I’m at my wits’ end with him sometimes, you know? Orion only tells me what he thinks I want to hear. He does it to protect me, but it only makes me worry about him more, Aria. You don’t know what it’s like to be worried about someone all the time—” Elle abruptly stopped speaking, her face paling as the words left her lips. “Oh, Aria, I’m sorry. That was…”

Aria started walking again, keeping her stoic expression, although her insides flipped at the unexpected reminder. She hadn’t seen that coming.

How can it possibly hurt so much after all this time?! She needs to get over herself.

“I don’t know what you’re sorry about,” Aria lied, but even she heard the waver in her own words.

“I meant I’m sorry about your mate,” Elle explained.

Elle just didn’t have the sense to leave well enough alone.

“Who rejected me and is now dead,” Aria concluded for her. “For two centuries now. That’s old news, Elle. Nothing new to talk about.”

Inadvertently, Aria had put distance between them, her steps more akin to a jog now than a walk, and Elle rushed to keep up with her.

“Are you mad at me?” Elle yelled, finally giving up at reaching Aria’s side.

The last of the sunlight faded fully away to drape them in twilight blue tones. Drawing in a breath, Aria paused at the end of her skinny, unpaved driveway and peered back at her.

“No, Elle, of course not.”

Relief fell over Elle’s face. “Okay, good.”

Elle waved like a little girl before pivoting around to sprint in the direction of the house she shared with Orion, and Aria watched her, shaking her head at the fact that Elle was older than her.

Aria hadn’t lied to Elle. She wasn’t mad—at her. But she still harbored some mournful anger toward her lost mate, someone who had rejected her so long ago she shouldn’t have been able to remember his face.

Never mind Jericho, she snapped at herself. It’s nothing a shower won’t fix.