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Chapter 36: Between the Blades
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2025-08-16 11:30:31The battle's aftermath felt stranger than the battle itself. Where Draven's disciples had died, ash and the pungent scent of burnt nightmares lingered. The grove defenders moved through the injured in silent proficiency, but Aria sensed under the trained strokes the strain which existed. They had weathered the initial attack, but they were well aware it had been but a test of defenses.
Draven himself disappeared as quickly as he came, back into the trees after that terrible staring contest at Kale. His words lingered in the morning air like a curse: *I've been looking for you for so very long.*
Aria kneeled next to new scout young Tomás, whose side was torn across by claws that looked almost like acid. The cut was clean but deep, and she could see the fear in his eyes when she treated the injured tissue with herbs.
"Will I be alright, Luna?" he queried, little more than a whisper.
"It'll be okay," she reassured him, allowing magic from Luna to flow
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Crowned by the Moon, Rejected by the Alpha. Chapter 47: Draven's Shadow Bargain
Shadows peeled away as Draven prowled through those pitch-black corridors of his lair, boots thudding on stone that seemed to swallow up every other sound. The walls? Alive with blood runes—old as time, throbbing with this eerie red glow that twisted and jumped in the corners of his vision, almost like they were laughing at him. Even the air felt wrong, thick as grave dirt, and if you listened, really listened, if you were unlucky enough, maybe you could still hear screams echoing around—leftovers from all the souls he’d offered up, like the world’s most morbid echo chamber.His sanctuary was no cozy hideout, either. It clawed its way underground, deep beneath the Shadowlands—more like a dead god’s ribcage than any cathedral, really. Sharp stalactites hung everywhere, but forget water: these dripped some ooze collected from centuries of nightmares and misery. Right in the center squatted the altar, slick and glossy as obsidian, stained darker than any night, like it had soaked up ever
Crowned by the Moon, Rejected by the Alpha. Chapter 46:Ashes and Oaths
Dawn came like a reluctant witness to devastation.Aria positioned herself beside the sacred spring, which was now flowing clear once more yet appeared somehow diminished, as if the water itself retained a memory of corruption. Surrounding her, the grove exhibited scars that might remain unhealed indefinitely. Ancient oaks, having endured centuries of storms, now stood blackened and hollow, their bark split open like festering wounds. The ground where the blood of the pack had been shed resisted the growth of new grass, resulting in patches of barren soil that resembled open sores upon the forest floor.Seven died in defense of their sanctuary. Seven lives that would never again see the light of another full moon, never know again the freedom of passage these woods allowed, never know again the joys of pack relationships or home comfort. They were placed in the heart of the grove, covered in what was left of the holy flowers that once grew in luxuriant excess here.Sarah knelt beside
Crowned by the Moon, Rejected by the Alpha. Chapter 45: Wounds of the Alpha
The quiet that followed Draven's withdrawal felt even more foreboding than his attack.The broken grove was strewn around Kale indiscriminately, his chest rising and falling with short jerky gasps. The moon shield was gone, but Aria's sense of connection between them vibrated like the sound of a plucked lute. She touched her fingers to his shoulder before he fell."Kale!" The cry ripped from her throat as she fell to one knee beside him, her hands scrambling down his chest as she sought to comprehend why he was hurt. He was alive, his heart rate steady, but something was irrevocably broken. Black veins were creeping beneath the skin like ink on water, spreading outward from the three parallel gashes across his chest that she was positive she hadn't seen a matter of seconds before."The shadows," he whispered, hardly more than a breath. "When I held you.They marked me."Going-away gift. Although their escape had been worked out, the dark sorcerer had managed to injure them. Wounds were
Crowned by the Moon, Rejected by the Alpha. Chapter 44: The Child of Prophecy
The world divided into radiant patches.One instant, Aria was screaming as Draven's shadows wrapped around her belly. And the next, she was elsewhere, standing in a location between heartbeats, between the position of thought and reality. The vision hit her like a bolt of lightning, sudden and intact, yanking her mind off the battlefield even as her body remained trapped in mortal peril.She stood in a clearing that was and wasn't theirs. The trees were the very same oaks, but they burned with a light within them that seemed to indicate they were constructed of starlight. The earth beneath her toes throbbed with life so intense it made her weep. And there, laughing like silver bells, was a child.Her son.The small child couldn't have been older than three, Kale's moon-clutching hair and silver eyes, but the light took the wind from Aria's lungs. The girl didn't simply reflect light, she radiated it, like she'd consumed the moon and inhaled it within her. Each step she took brought sm
Crowned by the Moon, Rejected by the Alpha. Chapter 43: Breaking the Lines
The initial shadow cut like a knife across moonlight.Aria sensed it before she saw it, something that had misfired that had her spirit retreating in horror. The wall that had resisted three waves of Eclipse wolves shook, and she stood immobile in horror as tendrils of pure shadow started seeping between her pack's forms."Hold the line!" Kale's voice growled in the uproar, but even his alpha voice could not conceal the tension. His silver gaze met hers across the field, and in that brief moment of eye contact, she could read what he could not speak in words. The rites were having their effect. Black magic from Draven was undoing all that they had established.Rebecca broke ranks, and Aria's heart missed a beat as she looked to see why. A huge Eclipse wolf, whose coat was clotted with glyphs etched in something that looked like blood, had shredded a hole in the protection ward with blades that shone like obsidian. It attacked the young wolf, still not quite past his first full moon, a
Crowned by the Moon, Rejected by the Alpha. Chapter 42: Draven's Gambit
The change resonating within the grove's sorcery shouldn't have been mended. Aria felt it deep within her spirit—the dark imprisonment that had surrounded Kale for months gradually dissolving as other patterns emerged in its stead, patterns that complemented the thumping of her soon-to-be-born daughter's heart. The babe within her wasn't merely transforming Draven's sorcery; she was assuming it, warping it into something entirely unique.But Draven's original astonishment had already evolved into something much darker."Smart," he said, his voice that of a veteran tactician who had altered course due to unanticipated events. "You've gone and spoiled my bonding with your Luna essence, come up with something which doesn't quite work for both of you completely. But by doing that, you both hastened a plan which took shape with a timeline of years."The fighting around them went on unabated, but Aria sensed the change of mood. Shadow-beasts were coalescin
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