All Chapters of Luna’s Rebellion : Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

The roar wasn’t sound. It was pressure, a deep, crushing tremor that sank into bone and soul, making the very air bleed light. The cavern walls cracked under the strain, stone flaking like parchment as the breach widened. The First Hunger was coming. I could feel it before I saw it—a tide of oblivion, an appetite that wasn’t a creature but a concept, a hunger older than creation itself. And I was its invitation. Kael stood at my side, sword drawn, his jaw locked tight. “Don’t move,” he murmured. His voice was steady, but his knuckles were white on the hilt. “I think movement is the least of our problems,” I said, my throat dry. The air shimmered with heat and frost at once, swirling around me like a storm gone mad. Stardust flared beneath my skin, my veins glowing gold, silver, violet—the entire spectrum of power I didn’t ask for but now carried like a curse. The celestial side of me hummed in quiet command, but the wolf side howled in rebellion. Both wanted control. Neither

The ground wouldn’t stop moving. Not the way it did when Kael and I were kids, chasing storms across the cliffs and feeling the earth quake beneath the sea’s fury. This was different. This was a heartbeat—slow, heavy, and wrong—throbbing through the stone like the world itself had a pulse, and it wasn’t mine anymore. I stumbled, and Kael caught me, his arm a steel band around my waist. “Keep moving,” he gritted out. “I can’t,” I rasped. Gods, the words tasted like ash in my mouth. “Kael, I can’t—” “Yes. You can.” His tone cut like a blade, sharp enough to keep me tethered. But when I looked at him—at those obsidian eyes gone wild with fury and fear—I saw the truth beneath it. He was terrified. Not of the Hunger. Not even of the rift inside me. Of losing me. And that was what made it worse. Because I could feel it now—curled inside my ribs like a sleeping beast, too big for the cage of my body. It wasn’t silent. Not anymore. Feed, it whispered, soft as a lover’s sig

Kael I knew what was happening the moment her eyes went silver. Not bright, not soft, not the shimmer I’d seen when she was angry or afraid. This was something else—something bottomless. It wasn’t light at all. It was the kind of glow stars bled when they died. And it was eating her alive. The rift howled behind me, spitting creatures like rotten fruit, but all I could see was Elara. Her body arched, her hair whipping in a wind that didn’t exist, and power rolled off her in waves that blistered the air. Silver fire crawled up her arms like veins turned inside out. Gods. She looked like a goddess carved from the marrow of a storm. And it terrified me. “Elara!” I tried to grab her, but the force radiating from her burned like acid. Shadows peeled off me, melting in the heat before they could touch her. She didn’t even look at me. Didn’t see me. I’d lost her before she opened her eyes. The Hunger had her now. The ground cracked under my boots, veins of light spidering

Kael The fire was gone, but the smell of ash lingered like a scar across the night. I laid Elara down in what was left of the healer’s tent—just scraps of canvas hanging like torn skin from splintered poles. It wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough. Her breath was shallow, her skin slick with sweat, hair plastered to her temple in dark, curling strands. And still—still she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Gods damn me for it. She stirred when I brushed the soot from her cheek, her lashes trembling against pale skin. “Kael?” Her voice was smoke and glass. Fragile. And it gutted me, because I remembered what she’d sounded like when she wasn’t herself—when that thing spoke through her mouth like it owned her. I crushed the thought before it could bleed. “I’m here.” My throat felt raw, scraped hollow by everything I couldn’t say. “You’re safe now.” She opened her eyes. And for one, stuttering heartbeat, I wished she hadn’t. Because they weren’t the same. S

Kael didn’t speak for a long time after they left. Just stood there, hands braced on the edge of the table like he could hold the whole gods-damned world still if he pressed hard enough. The tent was too quiet. Too small. The smoke from the fires still curled faint in the air, bitter and sharp, and underneath it… Blood. Always blood. And something else now. Me. I could feel it, like a second heartbeat under my skin, heavy and wrong and alive. I pulled the cloak tighter around me, but it didn’t help. The glow bled through anyway, dim and soft but there—like starlight spilled on bone. “Kael…” My voice cracked on his name. He didn’t move. Didn’t look at me. “They know.” It was a whisper. A truth I hated. “You heard her. Veyra—” “I heard.” Sharp. Like iron dragged on stone. Finally, he turned. Gods. I’d seen him angry before. I’d seen him cut men down with a smile. But this—this was different. His face was carved from storm, all hard planes and shadow, ey