Fat Can't Be Crowned Luna

Annabel's POV The bond hit me like a fist to the chest. One second I was standing in the back of the ceremony hall trying not to be noticed, the next there was something warm and golden wrapping itself around my ribs, squeezing — not painful, just present — and my eyes found him before my brain caught up with what was happening. Aldric. Alpha Aldric walked through the main doors and the room shifted the way it always did when he entered, three hundred wolves rearranging themselves unconsciously around his gravity. Broad-shouldered, dark-haired, jaw set like he'd been carved specifically to intimidate. The bond pulled taut between us and my breath caught. For one stupid, humiliating second, I smiled. I actually smiled. And trust me, I still hate myself for the smile. His eyes swept the room — and stopped on me. The change in his face happened fast. Too fast to hide. His chin pulled back, shoulders stiffening, the way you'd react if you reached into your pocket and found

Annabel's POV Three months. My knees knew it better than my mind did — a permanent ache ground into the bone from marble floors and cold stone and the particular punishment of scrubbing surfaces that were just going to be dirty again tomorrow. I'd cleaned three hallways, two staircases, and a sitting room that hadn't seen actual use since Aldric's father was alive. Now I was on the fourth hallway, bucket beside me, brush moving in the same circular pattern I could do half-asleep. Which was useful, because I usually was. I heard the heels before I saw her. That specific click — sharp, deliberate, the rhythm of someone who wanted you to know they were coming and wanted you to have time to dread it. I didn't look up. I'd learned that. Keep your head down, keep your hands moving, give them nothing to work with. The heels stopped directly behind me. I kept scrubbing. "You missed a spot." I closed my eyes for exactly one second. Then I opened them and kept working. "I'm

Kyrian's POVI run the border alone most nights now.Not because I need to. I have men for that — good men, trained men, men who would stand at that line until their legs gave out if I asked them to. But sleep and I have an arrangement these days where neither of us pretends the other is reliable, and running is better than lying in that bed listening to a house that's too quiet in all the rooms that used to not be.I smelled the blood before I saw her.Copper, sharp, laced under it something sweeter that made no sense against the wreckage of it — and every instinct I'd built over six years of ruling this territory told me to slow down, circle wide, treat it like a trap until proven otherwise. Rogues didn't bleed things out at my border and leave. Rogues didn't leave anything.I slowed down anyway. Circled wide anyway.Then I saw her at the bottom of the ravine and every strategic instinct I owned went quiet at once.She was in pieces — not literally, but close enough that the di

Annabel's POV The bond didn't ease when he walked in. It got worse. That pressure under my ribs pulled taut the second he crossed the threshold — not painful, just there, undeniable, the way a sound you can't unhear stays with you after the room goes quiet. I pressed my back against the headboard and told myself to breathe normally and failed at it quietly. Briony looked between us once. Read something in the air that I apparently hadn't hidden as well as I thought. She gathered her things with the unhurried efficiency of someone who'd learned exactly when to disappear. "I'll check the stitches this evening," she said to no one specifically, and slipped out. The door clicked shut. He didn't move immediately. Just stood there and looked at me — not the way Aldric had looked at me, not that slow disgusted inventory of everything wrong with my existence. Steadier than that. Like I was a problem he hadn't categorized yet and wasn't going to rush. I looked back. He was l

Lord Reynard's POV I heard about the woman over breakfast. Third hand by the time it reached me — which meant it had already passed through at least two servants, acquired embellishments at each stop, and arrived at my table wearing the particular shine that stories collect when they involve a king doing something unexpected. Maren, my personal attendant, delivered it with the practiced casualness of someone who knew I valued information and had learned to package it as conversation rather than report. "The King brought someone in from the border two nights ago," she said, refilling my cup without being asked. "A woman. Found her at the eastern ravine, apparently. Carried her in himself." I said nothing. "Healers have been in and out of the guest wing since. The King hasn't left the corridor for long, from what I hear." A pause calibrated to seem like an afterthought. "Magnus ran a name this morning. Annabel something." I set my cup down. "That's all?" I asked. "That'