All Chapters of SAVING ALPHA THORNE: THE MOONBOUND PACT: Chapter 41 - Chapter 44

Ian’s POV Before I could utter a word, the door creaked open and Kaelric strode in, Shabari trailing behind like a foul shadow. "My prince... I know you care for him, but he should be buried immedia–" Shabari's words twisted and died in his throat the moment his gaze fell upon me. He froze. His eyes ballooned from their sockets, popping out like two boiled eggs hurled into hot oil, and for a split second, he looked like a bald chicken that had just been baptized in fire. His entire body stiffened, as if every muscle had signed a ceasefire agreement. Kaelric saw me, and he gasped. "Small wolf!” Alarm lanced through me like a javelin. They’d seen something. No, someone. Ashval.My head snapped sideways, heart slamming against my ribs. But he wasn’t there. Not beside me. Not behind me. Not anywhere. The panic rose, fast and raw, a roaring tide that swallowed sense and breath and thought.Where had he gone?Before I could scream his name through the bond, it flared – warm, sudden, a

Ian's POV “TUEHH!” I spat full in his face, the act raw and feral, defiance boiling so hot in my veins it burned away my fear for a heartbeat. “Go to hell, you moron!” I shouted, my voice cracking the chamber open like a curse hurled at the gallows. Even standing at death’s edge, I would not bow. I would not beg. Shabari’s face went still. Too still. Then it shifted, not like flesh, but like a puzzle wall grinding inward, rearranging itself with malicious intent. The black energy coiled around him surged upward, unfurling from his sides and spine, rising high and wide until it loomed over him like a living nightmare, a towering, grotesque silhouette of a vast, winged abomination clawed from shadow itself. My courage withered instantly, shrinking like a candle drowned in sudden rain. Selene! My breath stuttered. Was that a bat? The shape loomed and twitched, wings stretching, leathery, stirring the air with a stench of rot and old magic. Its shadow crawled along the walls,