LOGINShare
Chapter 21: Whispers of the Pack
publish date:
2026-09-16 13:54:06
Latest chapter
THE LUNA’S FORBIDDEN ECHO Chapter 60: Midnight Confession
MalakaiWe stopped pretending to sleep around midnight.Kaelen had gone to put guards he trusted on the doors. Tamsin was still in the cellar, fighting with the locked file. Zephyrine and I had agreed to stay close, in case anyone tried something, and neither of us had said what close meant. We ended up in the old observatory at the top of the east tower, because it had one door, a thick one, and because nobody had climbed those stairs in years.It was cold. A broken brass telescope sat under a dust sheet. Zephyrine had found a moth-eaten blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, and she sat on the window ledge with her knees pulled up, looking out at the dark. Moonlight lay across her face. I tried not to stare. I failed in small, quiet ways, the way a man fails at holding his breath.I sat on an overturned crate, a few feet away. A safe distance. I had been measuring distances around her for months."You've gone quiet," she said, without turning her head."I'm thinking.""About t
THE LUNA’S FORBIDDEN ECHO Chapter 59: The Human Resistance
MalakaiKaelen wouldn't say a word until the study door was locked.He checked the windows twice. He pulled the curtains. Then he stood in the middle of the room with his satchel against his chest, a wiry man with a scar through one eyebrow and a face that always looked like it was about to argue with you. Right now he looked like someone who hadn't slept in two days and had found out why he shouldn't."Sit," I told him."I'd rather stand.""Kaelen."He sat.Before he could start, I turned to Zephyrine. She was standing by the fireplace with her arms folded tight over her coat, and she hadn't spoken since we left the hall. I could feel her through the bond, a thin, brittle thing, like ice on a puddle."You said later," I said quietly. "It's later."She looked at Kaelen. Then at me. Then she told us all of it, fast and flat, as if reading a list. The collar. The scent. The greenhouse and the padlock that wasn't locked. The brown bottle. Cora's silver spoon turning violet. The word alch
THE LUNA’S FORBIDDEN ECHO Chapter 58: Standing firm
ZephyrineI hadn't planned to stand. My body just did it, the way you pull your hand off a hot stove.The chair screeched behind me. Every head in the hall turned. Ten elders and one mother, all looking at me, and the silence was so complete I could hear the tea tray ticking as it cooled.I had spent twenty years being the quiet one in rooms like this. I was good at it. Smile, nod, fold your hands. Let the men argue and the women pretend they weren't running everything from behind the curtain. Nobody expected me to speak. That was the whole point of me.Beside me, Malakai's mouth was still half open. His eyes were fixed on something I couldn't see. Through the bond, I felt it, a terrible pull, like he was sinking. I knew that look. I had worn it myself, the night of the Rite.I stepped around the chair so I was standing between him and the council."The Alpha asked for a night," I said.My voice came out thinner than I wanted. I cleared my throat and tried again."He asked for a night
THE LUNA’S FORBIDDEN ECHO Chapter 57: The council’s pressure
MalakaiI knew something was wrong before Zephyrine reached the corridor.The bond told me. It had been quiet for an hour, a flat grey line, and then it jumped like a held breath let go. By the time she rounded the corner, I was already walking toward her. Her face was pale and her coat was buttoned wrong, and she wouldn't look at me."Later," she said, before I could ask. "I'll tell you everything. Just not here.""Is it what I think it is?""It's worse." She lowered her voice. "Don't eat anything in there. Don't drink anything. Cora said so."I didn't ask why. I had learned over the last few weeks that when Zephyrine trusted someone that much, I should too. I put my hand lightly at the small of her back and felt her flinch. Then, slowly, she leaned into it. Only an inch. But I felt it all the way up my arm.We walked into the great hall together.Ten elders sat in a half circle on the raised dais, in their dark ceremonial robes. A long table stood in front of them with a tray of tea
THE LUNA’S FORBIDDEN ECHO Chapter 56: Poisoned Roots
ZephyrineI didn't go back to the kitchen. Malakai would be waiting there, and I had nothing I could say to him yet. Not until someone told me I was wrong.So I went down to the east basement, to the little room behind the still room where Cora had lived for as long as I could remember. The corridor smelled of soap and damp stone. I knocked twice, the way I had since I was six, and heard the slow shuffle of her bad hip crossing the floor.Cora opened the door in her dressing gown, her grey braid hanging over one shoulder. She took one look at my face and stepped aside without a word."Sit," she said."I can't.""Then stand, but stand somewhere I can see you."Her room was small and warm. A kettle sat on the little stove. There was a faded quilt on the bed, a shelf of chipped teacups, and a window that looked out at the ankles of people walking past in the yard. As a child, I had thought it was the safest place in the world. Looking at it now, I understood how small her whole life was,
THE LUNA’S FORBIDDEN ECHO Chapter 55: The Scent of Betrayal
ZephyrineI told Malakai I needed to walk the second scene again before I said anything.He didn't push. That surprised me. A week ago he would have demanded the whole truth right there in the kitchen, with his Alpha voice on. Instead he looked at my face, read whatever was on it, and said, "I'll come with you.""No. Alone.""Zephyrine.""If I'm wrong, I don't want anyone watching me be wrong."That was only half the truth. The other half was that if I was right, I didn't want anyone watching that either.He let me go. He stood at the kitchen door with the torn collar in his hand and said nothing, and the bond hummed with worry he was trying not to show. I took a coat from the hook and left before I could change my mind.The second crime scene was out past the old mill road, where the pack's land thinned into scrub and fence posts. The guards' bodies had been taken away, but the earth still carried them. Flattened grass. A dark patch near a tree root. Someone had left a small bundle o
You May Also Like
The Broken Warrior's Daughter
Cooper2.0M viewsThe Hidden Princess At All-Boys Alpha Academy
Caroline Above Story547.7K viewsMy Secret, My Bully, My Mates. Series
Miss L2.7M viewsThe Forbidden Alpha
JP Sina680.9K viewsThe Mundane’s Alpha
KL Williams116 viewsThe Cruel Alpha's Replacement Bride
Yuna Xaxel 154 viewsThe Alpha’ s Unwanted Bride
DebbyAnn24 viewsApocalypse Reborn: My Second Life As The First Female Alpha
M U N A H 19 views
