Page 3 of Moonlit Desires

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.”

Lyra laughs, the sound thin and brittle. “Don’t I know it.”

Maya leans in again, urgency sharpening her features. “I mean it. People around here—some of them hunt for magic. Sell it. If they think you’ve got something rare, they’ll rip you open to get at it.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

“I’m serious.” Maya’s gaze flicks to the end of the hall, where the emergency exit opens onto the alley. “If you need an out, you take it. You call me, you hear?”

Lyra nods, though she doesn’t mean to. “Yeah. I hear you.”

Maya studies her for a long beat, then nods and heads back to the main floor, leaving Lyra alone in the hum of the fluorescent light.

She checks her reflection one more time. The crescent is still there, but softer now—more like a bruise again, the silver all but gone. She exhales, shoves her hands in her pockets, and follows the hallway back to the bar.

The rest of the night is a blur. She moves through it on muscle memory, serving drinks, breaking up minor arguments, flashing her practiced smile. She’s acutely aware of the mark on her back, the heat of it, as if it might flare to life at any second and burn through her shirt. Every time someone bumps her in the crush of bodies, she tenses, half-expecting the world to split open and reveal her for what she is.

She makes it to the last call. The bar is thinning now, only the diehards and the freshly heartbroken lingering over their empties. Lyra begins the closing rituals—wiping tables, upending chairs, sweeping the sawdust-strewn floor. Maya handles the register, counting the night’s take in slow, careful increments.

When the last patron shuffles out, Lyra closes the door, flips the sign, and bolts it. She turns to find Maya staring at her, a question written in the furrow between her brows.

“You sure you’re alright?” Maya says, keeping her voice low. “I can walk you home if you want.”

Lyra shakes her head. “I’ll be fine. Got to clean up first anyway.”

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