Lunar And Killan

Chapter 1: The Man Who Didn't Believe in the Moon

Lunar didn't believe in love at first sight. She believed in tides, in myths that felt like memories, and in the kind of silence that happens just before midnight when the city finally exhales.

She lived above an old bookstore in the part of the city where the streetlights flickered on purpose. Her apartment had no curtains. She liked to be woken by the moon.

She was twenty-four, a painter who restored old myths for a living - not the stories themselves, but the murals that held them. Gods with cracked faces, goddesses with missing hands. She would spend hours on a scaffold with a tiny brush, bringing back the color of someone's forgotten devotion.

That night, the owner of the gallery called her.

"Lunar, we have a private client. He bought the Temple of Selene building. You know, the abandoned one on Whitmore? He wants the ceiling restored."

Lunar's breath caught. The Temple of Selene had been locked for ten years. Inside, the entire domed ceiling was a single painting of the Moon Goddess descending to meet her mortal lover. It was said to be so beautiful it made people cry.

"I'll be there tomorrow morning," she said.

The building didn't look abandoned anymore. The scaffolding outside was new. The heavy iron doors were open.

And inside, standing in the center of the dusty temple with his hands in his pockets, was a man who clearly did not belong in a temple.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a black shirt with the sleeves pushed up. His hair was dark, his jaw sharp, his eyes a stormy grey that looked almost silver in the dusty light. He looked at the goddess on the ceiling like she was a problem to be solved.

"You must be Killan," Lunar said.

He turned. And for a second, his eyes locked on hers, and he forgot what he was going to say.

"You're the painter," he said finally. His voice was low.

"I'm Lunar. You're the man who bought a temple you don't believe in."

A small smile touched his lips. "How do you know I don't believe?"

"Because you're looking at her like you want to argue with her."

Killan laughed, a real sound that echoed. He was twenty-seven, she had been told. An architect who built modern glass towers that touched the clouds. A man of concrete and steel.

"I bought it because the structure is perfect," he said. "The acoustics, the dome. I'm going to turn it into a private residence. But the city says I have to preserve the ceiling if I want the permit. So here you are."

Lunar felt a little sting of disappointment. Of course.

She set down her bag and looked up. The painting was worse than she imagined, and more beautiful. The Moon Goddess, Selene, was pale and luminous, her silver hair flowing down like a river. Her dress was slipping from one shoulder, her skin glowing. And below her, her mortal lover, Endymion, lay sleeping on a hillside, his chest bare, his body bathed in her moonlight, waiting for her kiss. The paint was peeling, the colors faded, but the heat between them was still there.

"She loved him so much she begged the gods to let him sleep forever, so she could visit him every night," Lunar whispered.

"That's a terrible love story," Killan said behind her.

She turned to look at him. He was much closer now.

"Why?"

"To love someone so much you have to keep them asleep. So they never leave, never choose, never speak back. That's not love. That's possession."