All Chapters of Bound by Moonfire: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Every breath felt borrowed now.Risa had always lived on edges—edges of trust, edges of belonging, edges of Crescent’s tight-knit circles where she never quite fit. But this edge was different. This edge was sharp, bloody, and she could feel herself slipping.Hale wanted more. Liora was watching. And Cael’s eyes had begun to linger too long.There was no room left to move.The summons came as fog curling under the walls, thick enough to choke the torches. She slipped away at the edge of patrol rotation, steps quick but quiet, her satchel pressed against her ribs like a heartbeat.The riverbank was darker than usual, the current swollen with rain. Hale stood waiting, motionless against the pale light of the moon. He looked carved from shadow, his copper eyes steady, hungry.“You’re late.” His voice was quiet, but it carried like a blade.“I had to wait,” she whispered. “Too many eyes—”“They should be watching you,” he interrupted, stepping closer. “If they weren’t, I’d question thei

Cael had learned long ago that most battles weren’t won with claws.A wolf could tear through flesh, but it was patience that decided wars. Who could wait the longest, who could hold the line without breaking? Shadowclaw had survived on that truth. He had survived on it.But patience was no easy thing when it came to her.And now, as he stood on Crescent’s northern wall, copper eyes tracking the yard below, he wondered just how long his patience could last.Risa was unraveling. He could see it.She moved through the camp like a deer that had already scented blood. Her satchel never left her side, her shoulders hunched too often, her gaze darting toward shadows. She spilled more than water now—she spilled herself with every glance, every twitch.Cael didn’t need Liora’s sharp instincts to recognize the truth. He had commanded warriors long enough to know when one of them was slipping. Risa was a thread pulled too thin, and the weave of her story was about to tear.The problem wasn’t if

Liora felt the weight of it with every step.Risa was slipping further each day. The mistakes were stacking, her satchel clutched too tight, her stories cracking at the edges. Crescent’s wolves had begun to notice—Maren whispering sharper questions, Kade’s eyes narrowing during drills. Even Cael, who said little, moved like a man circling the truth.The noose was tightening.And soon, Liora would have to pull it closed.But not tonight.Tonight, the fog was heavy, the camp quieter than usual, and her wolf ached for something other than suspicion. It ached for him.She found Cael on the northern wall, standing sentinel, his copper eyes fixed on the forest. He didn’t turn at her approach—he always knew when she was near. The bond hummed between them, steady, alive, carrying the tension that neither had spoken aloud.“You’re not resting,” she said softly, stepping to his side.“Neither are you,” he replied, his voice low, even.For a moment, they only stood there, the mist curling around

Risa was slipping.Hale tasted it in the air before he saw it—the sour-sweet edge of fear that clung to a wolf who knew every direction led to teeth. Fear had a cadence; it shortened breaths, made steps hurry on the off-beat, left a thin metallic tang on the back of the tongue. Risa wore it like a second skin now.Useful. For a time.He crouched on a ridge above the southern lane, cloak drinking the fog, eyes on Crescent’s wall where torches shivered and stuttered in the damp. He had sent Risa a dozen small tasks, each sharper than the last, and watched as she wobbled along the line he’d drawn. She had fetched schedules, marked rotations, described the cadence of Cael’s watches, and the places Elias chose to stand when he wanted to look unafraid. She had been careful, almost elegant, at the beginning.Not now. Not since Liora’s attention had settled on her like a hunting hawk.Patience had always been Hale’s weapon. But patience with a fraying thread becomes folly. Threads snap at the

Cael had kissed her before.By the river, under the pull of moonlight, when the bond was still new and burning hot. That kiss had been wildfire—reckless, sharp, the kind that stole breath and demanded surrender. He had felt her wolf then, crying out in recognition, fierce and wild as his own. It had rattled him to the core.But tonight was different.Tonight, when her mouth met his, it wasn’t a blaze—it was an anchor. Steady. Rooted. He breathed her in—pine and steel and the faint edge of something he couldn’t name, something sharp on his tongue—and it struck him harder than any wound: this was home. Not a place. Not a pack. Her.He remembered the first time he’d noticed her scent in Crescent’s camp—fainter then, threaded with the uncertainty of a wolf who didn’t quite believe she belonged. Now it filled him whole, threaded into his veins until he couldn’t separate where his wolf ended and hers began.But he also remembered her silence.“Risa,” he had said, and though her lips had not