You Smell Like Moonlight

You Smell Like Moonlight

Selena Maeve · Completed · 13.0k Words

274
Hot
316
Views
0
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

With her terminal diagnosis, Maya fled to Urvik in the north. She didn’t want treatment; she just wanted to find a quiet place to spend her final days.
Then she met Erik. This taciturn man always had burning-hot palms. He fed her wild berries, took her running, and taught her to row. Strangely, her pain faded away, even her painkillers gathered dust.
The days were calm until the night of the full moon when Erik stood in the moonlight, naked, with a lingering silver-gray sheen visible on his shoulder blades.
Maya saw him and ran.
If he was a wolf, then what were all the miracles she had dared not to question over the past two months?
Was their fate redemption or another kind of abyss?

Chapter 1

Maya folded the medical report in half and slipped it into a compartment of her canvas bag. She didn't look at it again.

The doctor had said a lot: Percentages, cycles, possible side effects, and plans for family support.

She sat there, nodding, offering a polite smile during his pauses.

Then, she stood up and walked through the disinfectant-scented corridor to push open the hospital doors. A July breeze from the south hit her face, carrying the faint, salty scent of the harbor.

This was the last time she would ever set foot in this place.

She repeated this to herself, then stopped thinking about it.

She had given up her apartment three days ago.

When the landlady came to collect the keys, she gave Maya a lingering look, probably noticing that she had cleared out all the furniture and left only a backpack.

Maya didn’t explain. She had lived in this city for six years, yet her belongings wouldn't even fill the trunk of a taxi. There was nothing in this city worth holding onto.

A colleague asked her in the group chat where she was going. She replied:, Travel.

She set the group chat to "Do Not Disturb" and slipped her phone into her coat pocket. Inside the pocket, she found a ferry ticket to a place she’d never been: a small town called Urvik at the far end of a northern fjord.

When she found the town on a map, she saw that it was nestled at the end of a narrow stretch of water with mountains looming behind it, their contour lines crammed together. Far enough, she thought to herself.

The ferry’s horn blared through the fog for a long time.

She stood on the deck with her elbows on the railing and watched the city to the south shrink bit by bit into a gray outline.

First, the colorful wooden houses in the harbor became indistinguishable, then the church spires, and finally, the entire landmass turned into a line, melting into the seam where sea and sky met.

The farther north the ship sailed, the steeper the coastline became. No longer were there flat tidal flats and sandy beaches, but rather black cliffs that rose straight from the sea as if split by an axe. The cliffs were covered in bright, glowing green moss. Set against the white foam splashed up by the sea, the moss looked like ancient runes.

There weren’t many passengers on board.

Few people travel north at this time of year anyway. A middle-aged man in glasses stood next to Maya for a moment, holding up his camera, before retreating back into the cabin, saying the wind was too strong.

Maya didn’t move. She turned up the collar of her coat, zipping it all the way up and letting the wind pour in from every direction.

It was a clean kind of cold, not like the air from a hospital’s air conditioner that has been filtered and recirculated countless times.

The boat rounded a bend, and suddenly, the snow-capped mountains on both sides emerged from the clouds.

These were real snow-capped mountains.

The snowline on these mountains was low. Everything above it was white—a white tinged with blue, like a giant beast lying in slumber.

Glaciers squeezed down from the saddle between two peaks, their ends stretching into the sea. Layers of blue shone through their fractured surfaces.

Maya looked at the blue and thought to herself, It wouldn't be so bad to see mountains like this as my last sight.

She didn't push the thought away. She let it stay there.

The ship arrived in Urvik in the evening.

Technically, there is no true evening in the northern summer.

The sun had merely shifted behind the mountains, and the light took on a honey-and-ash hue, dyeing the entire fjord a blend of deep gold and cool blue.

The small town stretched along the water’s edge. Its houses were built of dark wood and had thatched roofs dotted with small yellow and white wildflowers. The wooden pier creaked slightly underfoot and was covered in moss.

Only three people were on the pier.

An old man sat on a mooring post, smoking a pipe. A young woman carried a bag of belongings toward the town.

A man of indeterminate age dressed in dark blue work clothes was loading boxes onto an old pickup truck. The old man glanced at Maya, took his pipe out of his mouth, and pointed toward the hillside.

"Hytte," he said.

She didn’t understand. He pointed again, and in the direction of his finger stood a small gray log cabin with a thicker thatched roof, like a fuzzy hat.

She nodded. Later, she learned that "hytte" meant cabin.

People in the north called their vacation cabins by that name, no matter how humble they were. Hers was indeed humble: a bed, a table, a chair, and a small wood-burning stove. The window faced the fjord, and opening it revealed the entire expanse of water.

When the landlord handed her the key, he said something through the door that roughly meant, “Don’t go into the mountains alone at night.”

She heard him but didn't take it to heart.

She had nothing left to lose anyway.

She sat down at the only place in town where the lights were still on.

It was a small restaurant with reindeer antlers hanging at the entrance. Inside, there were only a few empty tables. The owner was a plump woman with her hair braided into a thick plait wound around the top of her head.

Without asking Maya what she wanted, she simply brought over a cup of black coffee and placed a plate of thinly sliced brunost beside it.

"Brunost," the owner said, smiling gently. "It's delicious."

Maya picked up a slice and examined it.

It was brown with a texture like soft cheese and smelled of caramel.

She took a bite. First, the flavor was sweet, like caramel. Then, the tang of goat’s milk spread across her tongue. Finally, an indescribable saltiness lingered in her mouth. The three flavors refused to yield to one another, battling in her mouth.

She furrowed her brow. Then she picked up a second slice.

By the third slice, she realized this taste was unlike anything in the South.

Down south, the flavors were uniform and standardized. No matter which shop you walked into, you knew exactly what you’d get. But brunost wasn’t like that. It was so strange that it made her want to try it again.

She finished the entire plate.

That night, she lay in the small bed of the log cabin.

The quilt smelled of sun-dried wood with a hint of camphor.

The light outside the window was slow to fade. During the northern summer, there is no true night, only a gray-blue twilight that softens the outlines of the mountains and transforms the surface of the fjord into a leaden-gray mirror.

She stared at the ceiling, listening to her own breathing.

Then, she heard it coming from the direction of the mountain ridge—a long, piercing howl.

It wasn’t a bird; birds don’t have that much breath. Nor was it the wind; the sound of wind passing through a pine forest is rustling and fragmented, never so complete. And it certainly wasn’t a dog. She had heard stray dogs barking late at night downstairs, and their barks were short, urgent, and full of purpose.

This sound was not like that.

It was long and slow, starting on a high note and sliding down bit by bit before rising again halfway through—like an ancient song. It was like something pouring out its heart to the sky, needing no reply.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

Goddess Of The Underworld

Goddess Of The Underworld

919.6k Views · Completed · Sheridan Hartin
Left at a pack border with a name and a stubborn heartbeat, Envy grows into the sharpest kind of survivor, an orphaned warrior who knows how to hold a line and keep moving. Love isn’t in the plan…until four alpha wolves with playboy reputations and inconveniently soft hands decide the girl who won’t bow is the only queen they’ll ever take. Their mate. The one they have waited for. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, and Noah are gorgeous, lethal, and anything but perfect and Envy isn’t either. She’s changing. First into hell hound, Layah at her heels and fire in her veins. Then into what the realm has been waiting for, a Goddess of the Underworld, dragging her mates down to hell with her.

When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armour, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of an orphan pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to be better. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.
From Substitute To Queen

From Substitute To Queen

1.7m Views · Completed · Hannah Moore
For three years, Sable loved Alpha Darrell with everything she had, spending her salary to support their household while being called an orphan and gold-digger. But just as Darrell was about to mark her as his Luna, his ex-girlfriend returned, texting: "I'm not wearing underwear. My plane lands soon—pick me up and fuck me immediately."

Heartbroken, Sable discovered Darrell having sex with his ex in their bed, while secretly transferring hundreds of thousands to support that woman.

Even worse was overhearing Darrell laugh to his friends: "She's useful—obedient, doesn't cause trouble, handles housework, and I can fuck her whenever I need relief. She's basically a live-in maid with benefits." He made crude thrusting gestures, sending his friends into laughter.

In despair, Sable left, reclaimed her true identity, and married her childhood neighbor—Lycan King Caelan, nine years her senior and her fated mate. Now Darrell desperately tries to win her back. How will her revenge unfold?

From substitute to queen—her revenge has just begun!
Where The Ice Gives Way

Where The Ice Gives Way

34.4k Views · Ongoing · Sheridan Hartin
Charlotte Pierce is used to surviving in motion. New towns, new schools, the same old house on the edge of nowhere, and the same rule that keeps her standing. Keep her twin brother, Charlie safe. Keep his hockey dream alive. Keep her own needs quiet. She works too much, sleeps too little, and saves the one thing that still feels like hers for the middle of the night, when she can lace up her worn skates and carve freedom into dangerous frozen ice. Charlotte and Charlie shifted once, years ago, and never understood what it meant. They had no pack, no guidance and no protection. Just two twins clinging to each other and pretending the voice in their heads was stress, imagination, or loneliness. Then they move to Wellington.
Blake Atlas scents his mate the moment Charlotte arrives. The bond hits hard and unmistakable, but Charlotte doesn’t recognise it. She doesn’t know why her chest keeps pulling toward the one boy she absolutely cannot afford to want. Blake is Charlie’s new hockey captain. Charlie’s chance at making something good. Charlie makes it clear; his sister is off-limits and Blake tries to do the right thing, but secrets don’t stay buried forever. Rogues prowl the edges of town. The ice cracks. The bond tightens. Then Charlotte’s rare white wolf awakens, the very thing that makes her powerful, also makes her a target.
Shanti needs Shakti. (Peace needs strength.)

Where the Ice Gives Way is a slow-burn YA paranormal romance filled with fated mates, protective alpha energy, fierce sibling loyalty, found family pack bonds, hurt/comfort, and quiet, aching tension. It’s a story about first belonging, learning to be cared for, and what happens when the girl who has always held everyone else up finally falls, and someone catches her.
Offside With You

Offside With You

2.3k Views · Ongoing · Eanie Ruth
For eighteen years, Aveline Carter has lived in the shadows, forgotten by a mother who only seems to see her identical twin brother, Asher Carter, whose heart disease demands constant care. She resents him until the night she finds him lying unconscious on his bedroom floor.
At the hospital, Asher falls into a coma. His scans reveal bruises, internal bleeding and signs of prolonged physical abuse. Broken and furious, Aveline vows to expose the cruelty hidden behind the prestige of Crestwood Academy.
Cutting off her hair and disguising herself as her brother, Aveline infiltrates Crestwood Academy and fights her way onto the hockey team determined to unmask those responsible. Revenge should have been simple until she meets Kieran Hampton, the team’s arrogant and sharp-eyed star player. From their first clash, tension ignites. Aveline is certain he’s guilty and has no problem making his life miserable, but their undeniable chemistry only draws them closer with every confrontation.

While Aveline focuses on the wrong target, the real threat stands closer.

Cassian Thorne seems strange at first, his interest in her uncomfortably personal yet he gradually becomes her friend. Meanwhile, Kieran despite believing Aveline is male finds himself drawn to “him” in ways he can’t understand. When he uncovers her true identity, he chooses to protect her at all costs even as she refuses to trust him.
Revenge turns to grief when Asher dies, leaving Aveline drowning in guilt for falling for her brother’s supposed tormentor. Questions remain unanswered, and the truth is far darker than she imagined because Asher Carter was never just a victim. The bullying wasn’t just random.
As secrets unravel and loyalties shatter, Aveline must face one devastating question: what happens when the brother you were ready to destroy the world for isn’t who you thought he was?
Rise of the Banished She-Wolf

Rise of the Banished She-Wolf

436.1k Views · Completed · Lily
"White wolf! Kill that monster!"
That roar stole my eighteenth birthday and shattered my world. My first shift should have been glory—blood turned blessing into shame. By dawn they'd branded me "cursed": cast out by my pack, abandoned by family, stripped of my nature. My father didn't defend me—he sent me to a forsaken island where wolfless outcasts were forged into weapons, forced to kill each other until only one could leave.
On that island I learned the darkest edges of humanity and how to bury terror in bone. Countless times I wanted to surrender—dive into the waves and never surface—but the accusing faces that haunted my dreams pushed me back toward something colder than survival: revenge. I escaped, and for three years I hid among humans, collecting secrets, learning to move like a shadow, sharpening patience into precision—becoming a blade.
Then, under a full moon, I touched a bleeding stranger—and my wolf returned with a violence that made me whole. Who was he? Why could he wake what I'd thought dead?
One thing I know: now is the time.
I have waited three years for this. I will make everyone who destroyed me pay—and take back everything that was stolen from me.
Omega Bound

Omega Bound

2.5m Views · Completed · Veronica White
Ayla Frost is a beautiful, rare omega. Kidnapped, tortured, and trafficked to rogue clans and corrupt alphas to do with as they pleased.  Kept alive in her cage, broken and abandoned by her wolf, she becomes mute and has given up on hope for a better life until one explosion changes everything. 

Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life. 

Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
Reborn To Rule: I Will Seize The Throne!

Reborn To Rule: I Will Seize The Throne!

2.3k Views · Ongoing · Khira
"Aveline Ashkaar." Rhaedon's voice was low as his golden eyes held mine. "The moment you offered yourself to become my Luna, everything about you became mine. Your life, your obedience, your blood... including the abilities that flow through it."

He paused, his gaze never leaving mine.

"And I don't share what's mine."



I died on my son's death anniversary, betrayed by the man I'd devoted my entire life to, and the woman who stood by, smiling as I took my last breath… was my very own sister.

When I opened my eyes again, I was five years in the past—before the betrayal, before my death and before the beginning of it all.

This time, I refused to marry the man who destroyed me.

Instead, I walked straight into the arms of the only man the entire Empire feared—Crown Prince Alpha Rhaedon Ashkaar.

Rhaedon was everything Lucien wasn't.

Dangerous. Competent. Powerful.

And the perfect weapon for my revenge.

He wanted the throne. I wanted vengeance.

It should have been the perfect alliance, but revenge was never that simple.

With every step I took toward my revenge, another secret from my first life came to light. The deeper I dug, the more I realized I wasn't the only one playing this game.

And by the time I uncovered the truth...

Walking away from Rhaedon Ashkaar was no longer an option.
Taste of Fate: The Vampire King's Human Mate

Taste of Fate: The Vampire King's Human Mate

4k Views · Ongoing · Miranda Carr
I never knew my blood could kill a king—until I met one. Sebastian, the ruthless and immortal King, rules with precision. For centuries, he's ruled with ruthless precision, his heart as cold as the stone throne beneath him. One moment, I'm nothing. The next, I'm his obsession. His touch burns like ice fire. His stare follows me through shadows. And when he feeds from me—God help me—it feels like drowning in darkness and craving more. He tells me my blood is unlike any he's tasted, that my scent drives him to the edge of madness.


He reached for the back of my head and pulled me up just enough to reach my neck. When his fangs slid into me, the pain was instant, electric. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. My hands found his shoulders, clawing for something to hold. My legs kicked. Tears streamed down my cheeks.

He moaned against my throat as he drank, and the sound was devastating.
The Last Tribrid: Hunted & Hollow

The Last Tribrid: Hunted & Hollow

1.5k Views · Ongoing · Dancingpen
Hera is dead.
That’s what the blood in the woods says.
That’s what Astrid saw with her own eyes.
And that’s what should have ended it.
But it didn’t.
Because her death wasn’t the beginning of justice.
It was the beginning of the hunt.
As grief fractures their world, Astrid and her friends are forced to confront a terrifying truth—someone isn’t just killing.
They’re choosing.
Marking.
Watching.
And now, the circle is closing.
What started as a single investigation quickly unravels into something far more dangerous, pulling them into a web of ancient forces that have been waiting… watching… and are no longer willing to stay buried.
Enemies rise from places they never thought to look.
Allies become something else entirely.
And survival begins to demand impossible choices.
Because some lives can only be saved by sacrificing others.
As power awakens inside Astrid—wild, unstable, and willing to burn everything in its path—she’s pushed to the edge of what she can control… and what she’s willing to lose.
Even if it costs her everything.
Even if it costs them.
Because this time, they aren’t just being hunted.
They’ve already been marked.

(this is a continuation of 'the last tribrid')
The Deadly Mafia Princess

The Deadly Mafia Princess

9.4k Views · Ongoing · Tonje Unosen
Ro was taken from her real family when she was 1 year old. Those she believed is her parents have been abusive towards her do years. Despite she being a very feared gang leader of a well known gang, she can’t find it in her to stand up against what she think is her parents. The little girl in her wants their love which she never will get.
Her gang take the matter in their own hands, to try to save their leader from the horror of her home. What none of them know, they wasn’t her real parents, and now Ro will be sent away to live with her real family. That makes her closest members in her gang pack up and move as well. They don’t want to be far away from their leader.
King of the Underworld

King of the Underworld

114.1k Views · Completed · RJ Kane
In my life as a waitress, I, Sephie - an ordinary person - endured the icy glares and insults of customers while trying to earn a living. I believed that this would be my fate forever.

However, one fateful day, the King of the Underworld appeared before me and rescued me from the clutches of the most powerful Mafia boss's son. With his deep blue eyes fixed on mine, he spoke softly: "Sephie... short for Persephone... Queen of the Underworld. At last, I have found you." Confused by his words, I stammered out a question, “P..pardon? What does that mean?”

But he simply smiled at me and brushed my hair away from my face with gentle fingers: "You are safe now.”


Sephie, named for the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone, she's quickly finding out how she's destined to fulfill her namesake's role. Adrik is the King of the Underworld, the boss of all bosses in the city he runs.

She was a seemingly normal girl, with a normal job until it all changed one night when he walked through the front door and her life changed abruptly. Now, she finds herself on the wrong side of powerful men, but under the protection of the most powerful among them.
The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)

The Family Books 1-3 (A Mafia romance)

2.1k Views · Completed · Emma Mountford
Saints and Sinners- She was the light to my dark.
The saint to my sinner. with her innocent eyes and devilish curves.
A Madonna that was meant to be admired but never touched.
Until someone took that innocence from her.
She left.
The darkness in my heart was finally complete.
I avenged her, I killed for her, but she never came back.
Until I saw her again. An angel dancing around a pole for money.
She didn’t know I owned that club. She didn’t know I was watching.
This time I won’t let her escape.
I will make her back into the girl I knew.
Whether she likes it or not.
2/ Judge and Jury- I can’t stop watching her.

I’m not even sure I want to.

Taylor Lawson, blonde, beautiful, and totally oblivious to how much dangers she’s in.

She’s also the one juror in my upcoming murder trial that hasn’t been bought.

The one who can put me behind bars for a very long time.

I know I should execute her.
After all that’s what I do.

I am the Judge.
I eliminate threats to The Family.
And Taylor is a threat.
But I don’t want to kill her.
Possessing her, making her love me seems like a much better plan for this particular Juror.

3/ Rags and Ritches-