All Chapters of SILVER IN THE SHADOWS: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Dawn’s fragile light seeped through frost‑etched windows. Inside Ryker’s hidden cabin, warmth curled around two bodies tangled in aftermath slow breaths, flushed skin, the fragile promise of a future unspoken.Trixie awoke first. Ryker’s arm draped over her waist, protective and still. Everything felt sacred until a hard rap shattered the morning hush.Ryker was upright in an instant, muscles coiled. Trixie mirrored him, heart pounding.Three authoritative knocks -signaling danger and dread.He motioned her down, then moved to the door, blade in hand. Silas, he thought. The Ridge Alpha. Trixie’s father. The memory crashed in banishment, betrayal, death.He opened the door: three figures framed in pale light two enforcers, and Silas, regal and cold.Silas’s voice was cutting: “Ryker. I expected courtesy from the usurper of my daughter’s bed.”Ryker stepped forward. “I’m not your pawn.”Silas’s eyes flicked past Ryker to Trixie’s doorway. “I know what went on last night and why.”He turn

Ryker slipped from the council chambers into the cool night air, each breath swirling in clouds of resolve. He walked the winding wooden paths of North Creek until he found Droco, perched on a stump by the outer fence, cleaning his blade under the moonlight.“Droco,” Ryker began, voice low but firm. The huntsman looked up, eyes reflecting both loyalty and surprise.“I need your help,” Ryker said, stepping close. “You brought Trixie to me that night and started everything. Now, that bond needs strength again.” He paused, meeting Droco’s steady gaze. “Silas is coming, his forces marching. We’ll need someone who knows Ridge terrain, their scouts, their camps. Someone who can move unseen and gather what they need.”Droco sheathed his knife slowly. “You want to know their moves before they make them,” he replied, nodding. “I can do that. I’ll slip across the ridge tomorrow night, blend with the trees. I’ll report back numbers, routes, supply lines. Anything that gives you the edge.”Ryker

They said Ryker was alive.Trixie didn’t believe them at first.Rumors had a way of haunting the edges of this war — whispers blown from lips cracked with grief, always promising more than truth could carry. But this time, the scouts had names. Faces. Wounds that told stories too brutal to fake.Ryker lived.And he was coming home.The moment the door shut behind the last messenger, Trixie sank into the edge of her bed. Not the throne room. Not the war chamber. Her room. The one place she didn’t have to be Luna. Just Trixie.Her hands shook.He was alive.And he’d stayed away this long.She walked the halls of Mooncrest like a ghost that afternoon. Not regal. Not calm. Just waiting.The last time she’d seen Ryker was a year ago, standing on the edge of the high cliffs before dawn, his hands trembling as he reached for her.“I love you,” he had said. “Even if it costs everything.”She remembered gripping his wrists.“It already has.”He kissed her like a vow. And then he left.He didn’

Trixie swallowed hard. “It was a bright morning. No warning. No omens. The kind of light you don’t notice until you realize it’s the last you’ll ever see without shadows.”She glanced back to the window. “We were in my sitting room. She was brushing my hair, humming something I’ve long forgotten. I had a new ribbon—pearl grey. I remember because she smiled when she tied it. And I lived for her smiles.”A muscle worked in her throat.“Then came the scream. A guard’s. Maybe two. And the air cracked in half.”Her voice softened, gaze distant. “I didn’t understand. I was thirteen. I didn’t know what it meant for someone to breach the southeast gate. I thought... maybe a horse had thrown its rider. Maybe it was nothing.”She blinked hard. “It wasn’t nothing.”She began to pace, barefoot, the stone cool beneath her feet. “Rogues. Three of them. They burst into the corridor—blood already on their axes. No mercy. No words. Just death.”Ryker stood very still.“She shoved me behind her. My moth

The first light of dawn crept through the frost‑rimmed windows, painting the cabin in soft, golden hues. Shafts of sun warmed the wooden floorboards and scattered across the bed where Ryker and Trixie lay tangled skin still slick with memory, breaths shallow but steady.Trixie stirred, eyelashes fluttering as she came awake in the familiar press of his body. Ryker held her gently, his chest rising and falling in rhythm with hers. Their night together had been both reverent and wild, a merging of hunger and safety, passion and devotion. Now, in the hush of early morning, their bond felt like something ancient being woven anew.He watched her sleep—observed the delicate rise of her shoulder, the stray tendrils of hair along her jaw and something in him rose too. A tide of certainty, gentle yet insistent, moved through him. This night had unveiled everything he felt for her, and as the dawn deepened, he knew he had to ask.Ryker shifted, careful not to disturb her too much. He curled a p