All Chapters of Rise of the rejected Luna : Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

RyderThe world is quieter when you know it might be your last day in it. The sunrise was barely up when I stepped out onto the training grounds. The air was cold, wet with dew, the kind that clings to skin and makes the world feel heavy. For once, I welcomed it. I wanted to feel the weight of everything as a whole. I wanted to feel the weight of loss, of guilt, and of the love I could not protect.The steel in my hand felt too familiar. I had not touched a sword in weeks, not since Brandon’s funeral. But the rhythm came back easily. The grip, the balance, the slow and steady sweep through the air. My body remembered what my heart wanted to forget. The violence of the sword. Brandon’s face still haunted me. The way his eyes went distant even as he smiled. The blood that wouldn’t wash off my hands no matter how hard I tried. Kiara’s scream still echoed in my chest like a wound that refused to close.And now she was carrying my child. My heir. The moment the doctor told us, I fel

RyderI had always believed compassion was weakness. A drawback. My shortcomingIt was what my father said before he died as I watched him fall to men who did not flinch when they killed. “Compassion is what breaks a warrior,” he told me. “Reluctance gets you consigned to the grave.”And maybe for a while, I believed him. Perhaps I became exactly what he warned me against.But now, standing over Eaton with my sword pressed to his throat, I did not feel strong. I felt sick.His blood was on my boots, warm and thick, and my own shoulder burned where his blade had kissed my tissues. To me, the crowd was gone. Their voices were nothing but a dull howl behind the storm in my head. All I could hear was her.Please, don’t lose yourself. Kiara’s voice, soft and breaking, threaded through my mind like light through fog.It should not have been enough to reach me, not after everything Eaton had done. Not after Brandon. Not after being a threat to Kiara. Not after the nights I had sp

KiaraI did not know when I fell asleep last night until I was greeted by the golden light of the morning which reflected through the window blinds. I stretched out my hand to Ryder’s spot on the bed and it was empty. I had forgotten he was out of the manor since yesterday for the bimonthly Alpha conference. The wooden box was the first thing my eyes landed on as I tore them open. It sat on my desk like it was breathing. Each time my gaze brushed over it, I swore I felt something shift inside, not a movement, but remembrance. It was early. The sunlight bled through the curtains in soft golden ribbons, and the manor had long since fallen quiet like it had for months now. Even the creatures outside seemed to hold their breath.Ryder had wanted me to rest. He had seen the exhaustion written in the lines of my shoulders, the faint tremor in my hands when he video called me. But I could not, not yet. Not after what I had found last night. Brandon’s words still rang in my ears, sha

KiaraThe wind changed. It always did when something dark and sinister was coming. We had begun our search for Erina. Just Ryder and me since she disappeared into the mist. I knew Erina’s scent better. She was my sister after all so I used my senses to try to track her down her path. The path she had taken before led her to her destination I stood at the edge of the forest, the last trace of Erina’s scent sharp in the air; smoke and blood coupled with the soft metallic sweetness of corrupted energy. The trees stood still, as if afraid to move, their shadows stretching long and brittle under the fading sun.Ryder was beside me, he was silent. His presence was steady, but beneath it, I could feel the quake of his rage through the bond. It pulsed like a second heartbeat, echoing against my own.“She is heading east,” he murmured, squatting to touch the dirt of the earth. The mark of her steps was faint. It felt like a deliberate trail, like she wanted us to follow. “The seal,”

ErinaNo matter how much I try, Eaton’s blood would not come off my hands. I had washed them until the water ran pink, until the skin on my palms burned raw, but still, I could see it in the cracks, in the spaces between my fingers. Like he was still here, mocking me for failing.After the duel and his downfall, his body was left on the fields, abandoned for the beasts of the earth to feed on. He was a dangerous man after all. One who showed no mercy therefore he received no mercy at the time of his death. I stood at a corner, waiting and watching until the final person left the field before I could take his body out. Although I warned him against this duel, I can’t stand by and watch him being torn up by beasts and eaten up by saprophytes from within. I had thought I understood loss. I thought I had made peace with it. But I was wrong. There is a difference between losing something and being defeated. One hurts. The other humiliates. I lost Jason but I was defeated by the Eaton