Romans de tracytowor7

The next morning, Black Moon felt different. Not louder. If anything, quieter. The kind of quiet that comes after a storm has knocked a tree loose somewhere in the dark and everyone is waiting to see where it will fall. Lisa noticed it the moment she stepped out of the healer’s den with a bucket of rinse water in one hand. Wolves in the yard were speaking in lower voices than usual. Conversations paused when certain people passed. Eyes lingered too long, then slid away. The air itself seemed full of held breath. Last night had changed something. Adrian shoving Tony against the post in the middle of the dining hall had been too public, too sharp, too strange to dismiss as ordinary pack aggression. Not when it had happened over a joke about her. Not when the Alpha had walked in and seen enough to know the shape of the problem, even if not its name yet. It won’t stay small. Mary’s words had followed Lisa into sleep and back out again. She crossed to the side trough and dumped the

By sunset, everyone knew something had happened in the west shed. Not the truth. Not clearly. But enough. That was how Black Moon worked. A dropped look, a broken rhythm, one moment held a second too long under too many eyes — that was all it took. By the time the work crews were dismissed, the story had already begun to spread through the pack in pieces. Lisa could feel it moving around her like smoke. Adrian caught her when the floor gave way. Adrian touched her. Adrian forgot himself. No one would say it so plainly. Not yet. But the meaning was there, hiding under every sideways glance and sudden silence. Lisa carried the last bundle of cloth back to the healer’s den with her jaw clenched and her shoulders stiff. She kept her gaze straight ahead, though she felt eyes following her through the yard. The bond had gone quieter since Adrian left the storage grounds, but it had not disappeared. It never really did now. It lingered beneath her skin like a pulse she couldn’t slow.

The next morning, the summons came before sunrise. Lisa had barely slept. She had spent most of the night turning Mary’s warning over in her mind, listening to the wind scrape against the healer’s den and wondering which was worse — Adrian’s cruelty when he felt in control, or whatever might come if that control finally cracked. By dawn, her thoughts felt bruised. She was grinding fever root in the back room when a knock sounded at the door. Mia glanced up from the herbs she was sorting. “Get that.” Lisa wiped her hands on her skirt and crossed the room. When she opened the door, one of the Alpha’s messengers stood on the step, shoulders dusted with frost. “The south patrol came in injured,” he said. “Mia is needed at the lower barracks. And so is she.” He jerked his chin toward Lisa. Mia appeared behind her before Lisa could answer. “How many?” “Three with cuts. One with a shoulder out. Nothing fatal.” Mia nodded once. “We’ll come.” The messenger hesitated, then added, “Alp

The dining hall never fully recovered after Adrian left. Even once the noise returned, it came back unevenly, scattered and too bright, like people were trying to sound normal while listening for the next crack in the floor beneath them. Lisa kept her eyes on her food, even though she had no appetite left. Around her, spoons scraped bowls, benches shifted, cups knocked softly against wood. Every ordinary sound seemed exaggerated by the tension still hanging in the room. She could feel the whispers moving. Not words, not clearly. Just fragments. Her name in someone’s mouth. Adrian’s in another. A hush, a glance, a half-laughed question. Mary rose first. She set down her cup without finishing it and looked directly at Raymond . “You know you talk too much right?.” Raymond gave an awkward, defensive smile. “I just said one thing.” “Yes,” Mary replied. “And it was so stupid.” The table fell silent around them. Raymond ’s grin faltered. “What is your problem?” “You are

The cold outside the dining hall should have calmed her.But It didn’t. Isla stood on the stone steps with stew drying on her skirt and the night air cutting through the heat of her humiliation. Her whole body was shaking — not with weakness, not exactly, but with the effort of holding herself together. Behind the heavy wooden doors, the sound of the hall had already started up again, muffled now, the pack swallowing the scene whole and moving on as if nothing had happened. As if she had not just been made into a spectacle. Again. She wrapped her arms around herself and started walking. The path between the hall and the healer’s den curved through the center of camp, lit by low lanterns and the pale spill of moonlight over the roofs. Wolves crossed here and there in pairs and small groups, their voices low, their eyes sliding to her and then away again. Some had seen what happened. Some had only heard the tail end of it. Either way, she could feel the story moving faster than she

Lisa stood frozen, the shattered jar at her feet leaking thick blue salve into the dirt Adrian was still in front of her, close enough that she could see the tension in his jaw, the slight flare of his nostrils, the unnatural stillness in his shoulders. He looked as if every part of him had locked into place by force. “Well,” he had said, voice cold and cutting, “that’s unfortunate.” The word sliced through the shock still burning in Lisa’s chest. For one wild second, she could only stare at him. Not because she did not understand what he meant, but because she understood it too clearly. He knew. The same way she knew now. The same way her body had known before her mind could catch up. Mate. The bond pulsed faintly beneath her skin, an unwanted awareness that made the air between them feel charged. She hated it instantly. Hated the heat in her body . Hated the trembling in her hands. Hated most of all that it connected her to him. Adrian glanced at the broken jar, then