All Chapters of The Professor’s Mate: The Moonborn Legacy: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

THIRD PERSON’S POV The great hall of Blood Moon Pack smelled of old blood and fresh fear. Torchlight flickered across stone walls scarred by claw marks and still bore the dark stains from Caleb’s final days. Marcus sat alone on the high seat at the far end, shoulders hunched beneath a fur mantle that once belonged to stronger alphas. His fingers drummed a restless rhythm on the armrest. The throne felt colder every hour.Below him the hall stood nearly empty. Only four guards remained at their posts—two near the doors, two flanking the dais—and even they shifted weight from foot to foot, eyes darting toward the shadowed corridors. The rest of the pack had vanished into the lower levels or slipped out through hidden passages. Word traveled faster than loyalty these days.Veron’s rebellion had ignited the moment Caleb’s body cooled. No formal declaration, no grand challenge under the moon. Just quiet, deliberate moves: whispered conversations in the armory, extra rations distributed to

THIRD PERSON’S POVMarcus tore the parchment open with shaking claws. The seal cracked like thin ice. Isabella’s handwriting stared up at him—sharp, unyielding, signed with that crescent scar imprint that mocked him more than any insult could. He read the words twice, then crushed the scroll in his fist until ink bled between his fingers.Alliance denied. They were coming.He hurled the balled parchment into the hearth. Flames swallowed it in seconds. He stood alone in the high chamber, chest heaving, the echo of his own ragged breathing the only sound in the cavernous room. Twenty-one years he had sat this throne. Twenty-one years he had crushed every whisper of rebellion, every flicker of Adrian’s name. And now his brother—his blood—refused him the one mercy that might have saved them both.Marcus slammed his fist against the stone walls as his knuckles split and blood smeared dark streaks across the gray rock. Pain barely registered but rage did.He stormed from the chamber, cloak

ISABELLA’S POV Four months slipped by the way a river moves over smooth stone—slow, steady, almost gentle. The keep no longer carried the sharp stink of blood and smoke. Someone had scrubbed the walls until the stone showed pale again. The courtyards were replanted with new grass and low herbs that smelled clean when you brushed past them. The old banners came down, and in their place went the crescent-and-claw sigil that used to hang when Dad was barely more than a boy. Blood Moon breathed easier now. Not the tense, watchful way it had under Marcus, but something quieter. Almost peaceful.Dad walked the halls every morning with that calm, certain stride of his. People straightened when they saw him coming. They called him Alpha without stumbling over the word anymore. They smiled when he answered their questions. Some mornings I watched from the high windows as mothers brought their little ones forward so the children could touch the scarred hand that had once fought for them. Dad

ISABELLA’S POV The crescent moon hung thin and silver above the keep that night, but the sky around it had turned the color of fresh blood. A true blood moon. The pack called nights like this a time of rebirth, when the Goddess showed her crimson face and the veil between the worlds thinned to almost nothing. They filled the central courtyard under that strange red glow. Torches snapped and spat sparks into the darkness. Low chants rose from every throat, deep and steady, vibrating through my ribcage like a second heartbeat.I stood next to Dad near the stone altar. My back ached from carrying the extra weight for seven full months now. The baby sat low and heavy, pressing down with every step. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, one hand braced under my belly, the other resting on Dad’s forearm for balance. He kept glancing at me, worry carved into the lines around his eyes, but he stayed quiet. He knew better than to hover in front of the pack.The elder shaman raised h

ISABELLA’S POVThe garden path felt colder under my bare feet than it should have in early summer. I carried Lunaria against my hip with one arm while the other pressed hard against my side to keep the ache from spreading. She had stopped crying on the walk back but her small fingers still twisted in the collar of my sweater, tugging every few steps like she wanted to turn around and run back to the hedge. I kept my jaw locked so tight my teeth hurt. Three years of this. Three years of the same questions, the same wide gray eyes searching shadows for a face she had only seen in a faded sketch, and the same stab in my chest every time I had to say the words out loud.We reached the side door as torchlight spilled across the threshold and painted long shadows on the flagstones. Lunaria lifted her head from my shoulder.“Mommy, he was really there. I touched his sleeve.”I swallowed the scream that wanted to climb out of my throat. Instead I pushed the door open with my elbow and steppe