The Creature We Found in the Moonlight

Deep in the Thornwood, far from the village that cast her out, a healer lives alone with the quiet weight of failure. Her magic has never worked the way it should. Her past is marked by loss she could not undo. She has learned to survive by expecting nothing and touching the world as little as possible. Then, under a full moon, she finds a dying creature in a forest clearing—something made of shadow and starlight, empathy and pain. It was never meant to survive. It was created to be a weapon, discarded when it chose kindness instead. As she shelters the creature and tends wounds no magic can force closed, something long-broken in her begins to stir. The creature does not heal because she fixes it. It heals because she stays. Because she listens. Because she accepts what it is instead of trying to make it into something else. When a hunted knight stumbles into their fragile sanctuary—carrying guilt, blood, and enemies close behind—their quiet refuge becomes something more. A family forms between three broken beings who have all been thrown away for refusing to be what the world demanded. But the forest remembers the creature's origins. And something from the past is watching. The Creature We Found in the Moonlight is a slow-burn fantasy romance about found family, gentle magic, emotional healing, and the quiet defiance of choosing love over purpose. It is a story for readers who believe that some things cannot be fixed—only held, protected, and loved until they become whole on their own.