All Chapters of Luna's Last Oath: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The morning broke pale and brittle, the kind of light that seemed too thin to hold up the weight of the camp. Nicole stirred before the others, her body restless even though exhaustion clung to her bones. Sleep had offered no peace just scraps of dreams where Brian’s face swam in the dark and Silas’s voice called her back, always just out of reach.She lay still for a moment, listening. The camp was never silent; there was always the creak of leather, the shuffle of feet, the distant crackle of fire. But today the sound that cut through was sharper—hushed voices just outside her tent. Not the usual chatter. Not the easy rhythm of packmates greeting the dawn. This was lower, tense, meant to stay unheard.“…he’s losing his grip,” one voice muttered. A man, older, with that gravel in his tone she recognized—Garrick, a wolf who’d been with Silas since the first winter. “Silas was never soft, not once, not until her.”Nicole’s breath stilled in her chest. Her. They didn’t have to name her

The morning broke in shades of cold grey, as if the sun itself wanted no part in what the night had left behind. The burial mound still showed raw earth at the far edge of the clearing, a scar upon the land no less than the scar upon the pack’s trust.Nicole woke before most, though not before all. The restless shuffling outside her tent told her she was already being listened to, measured by every sound she made. Even the snap of a twig carried an edge of accusation in the silence.She pulled on her boots slowly, refusing to show haste, though inside her chest her heart beat like it wanted to claw its way out. They’ll smell the weakness, she reminded herself. They always do.When she pushed aside the flap and stepped out into the weak dawn, eyes found her instantly. Wolves that had once met her gaze with loyalty or at least acknowledgment now watched with a narrowed, furtive suspicion. Some faces she had trusted most were the ones she could no longer read.It was Silas who stood in t

The morning broke raw and gray, clouds smothering the sun, the air thick with the promise of rain. The forest seemed to hold its breath, waiting.The pack gathered in the clearing, called not by choice but by command. Every wolf had heard the summons in Silas’s voice — low, lethal, impossible to ignore. They ringed the open ground in tense silence, their eyes flicking, restless. Suspicion still clung to them like smoke; every whispered accusation from the nights before still lingered unspoken but alive.Nicole stood at Silas’s side, chin lifted though her pulse rattled like a drum inside her chest. She could feel the weight of their gazes — sharp, hostile, tearing at her skin. Yet she refused to look away.Silas stepped forward. He didn’t roar. He didn’t thunder. His voice, when it came, was low and deliberate, every word like a strike against stone.“Enough.”The clearing stilled. Not even the wind dared move.“You whisper like cowards. You doubt like pups. You let fear fester becaus

Dawn came like a wound breaking open.The first pale light crawled across the valley and into the den, a colorless intrusion that should have felt like reprieve after the night’s turmoil but instead scraped at every raw edge left behind. The fire in the hearth had long since collapsed into cold embers. The air itself was thick, smoky, stale — as though the pack’s silence had a weight of its own.Nicole woke not from rest but from exhaustion that had given up pretending. Her body ached, her chest was tight, and her mouth was dry as sand. She had not truly slept, only drifted in and out of dark thoughts, caught between Silas’s voice in her memory and the sight of wolves’ accusing eyes.Now, in the bleak morning, everything felt sharper. Harsher. The suspicion she’d sensed the night before hadn’t burned away with the stars. It had steeped, dark and heavy, waiting for daylight to expose it.She stepped from her room into the main hall. The space that had once been noisy with easy chatter

The room hadn’t shifted. The night hadn’t loosened. The walls still held the echo of Nicole’s words—sharp, searing, unforgettable.Silas hadn’t moved from where he stood, rooted like a man struck through the heart, but his silence was a storm. His hands flexed at his sides, knuckles ghost-pale, as though he was holding himself back from tearing the world apart just to make sense of her fire.Nicole turned from him, not to retreat but to breathe. The floor felt unsteady beneath her steps, as if even the house itself recoiled at what had been spoken. She pressed her palms against the table’s edge, head bowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter but edged in steel.“Do you know what terrifies me more than our enemies, Silas? It’s this. Us. The way we keep cutting each other down, piece by piece, until there’ll be nothing left to fight for.”That dragged his gaze back to her, the rawness in her words pulling the air out of his lungs.“You think I don’t feel that?” His voice wa