Semua Bab Luna's Last Oath: Bab 41 - Bab 50

Dawn came cruelly.The first light didn’t slip in soft, it slashed through the curtains like a blade, cold and merciless, dragging me out of the half-sleep I’d been pretending to cling to. My body ached, every muscle heavy, skin marked with the undeniable proof of last night. His hands. His mouth. His teeth.I shifted, the sheets tangling against my legs, and the silence was the loudest thing I’d ever heard.Silas was still there.He sat at the edge of the bed, shoulders bent, back a tense line beneath the faint sheen of sweat that hadn’t yet cooled. His head was bowed, hands braced on his knees like he was holding the world up by force of will alone. The sight made something twist in my chest, something I didn’t want, didn’t dare name.For a long moment, I just watched him. The scars on his back caught the light, stark reminders of the battles he’d survived. Of the wolf who’d stood between me and everyone who wanted me gone. Of the man who’d destroyed me in quieter ways.I hated him.

The chamber hadn’t quieted, not really.Silence on the surface, yes but it was the kind that trembled, frayed, heavy with all the words no one dared to say. Every wolf here had heard her voice strike the last note. Every wolf had seen her stand unbroken.Nicole’s lungs burned with the weight of it. She kept her spine rigid, eyes forward, refusing to give them the weakness of trembling fingers or the soft curve of doubt across her mouth. Silas stood just off her shoulder, so close she could feel the heat rolling from him, but he didn’t move. Didn’t speak. If he did, she wasn’t sure if he would anchor her or snap in two.The council’s elders shifted restlessly, the scrape of wood against stone too loud in the charged stillness. And then—The doors groaned.Slow. Heavy. Like the chamber itself resisted.And into that hush walked a ghost she had sworn to bury.Amon.The air fractured. Whispers bled sharp and urgent, like knives sliding free of sheaths. Nicole’s chest clenched, breath seiz

Dawn pressed against the high windows, pale and unyielding, like the council’s judgment that still clung to her skin. The chamber was empty now, the echoes gone but Nicole couldn’t shake the weight of so many eyes, so many snarled words carved into her bones.She hadn’t slept. Not really. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw them, the elders leaning forward like carrion birds, the doubt flickering across wolves who had once bowed to her without question. She could still hear the scrape of chairs, the mutters spilling out into the night after her final word had cut the air.Silas had stalked the halls beside her after, silent, every step thunder. He’d left before dawn, claiming he needed to “rein in the pack,” but Nicole knew it was more than that. He didn’t want her to see the fracture lines spiderwebbing through his own command.Now she stood alone in the half-light, hands braced against the stone table where judgments had been made for centuries. Her heart beat too fast, too loud

NicoleThe chamber still smelled of secrets. Of Elara’s fear-sweat and Silas’s smoldering restraint. Nicole could taste it on her tongue, acrid and bitter, but she didn’t spit it out. She let it settle, burn her throat, fuel her lungs.By the time she moved, her decision was already iron.“Enough shadows,” she said, and the words weren’t for Elara alone they were for Silas too. For every wolf who would hear of this moment, whether whispered or roared. “If they want to test me, they’ll get no rumors to hide behind. We drag them into the open.”Silas’s jaw ticked. He looked like a man balancing on the knife’s edge between agreement and defiance. His silence wasn’t weakness it was calculation. But she didn’t need his calculations. Not now.Nicole strode across the room, every step purposeful, the fury simmering into something colder, sharper. The kind of fire that didn’t flare and burn out, the kind that consumed slowly, thoroughly, until nothing remained but ash.Behind her, Elara hover

The council chamber reeked of iron and smoke. Kaelen’s blood still streaked the stone where Nicole had pinned him, a dark reminder of how quickly the tide had shifted.No one moved until the oldest councilor. Marcellus, his white hair catching the torchlight finally rose. His cane struck the floor once, sharp, a sound that made every wolf flinch.“This chamber has seen trial,” his voice carried, dry and cracked with age, but steady as the bones of the mountain itself. “And trial has spoken. By claw, by fang, by the old law we swore under the Moon, Nicole Jackson has proven her right.”Murmurs rippled, uneasy, but none dared break over him.Marcellus turned his clouded gaze to Nicole. “You stand bloodied, but unbroken. Alpha not by claim, not by birth alone, but by victory. Do you accept the weight, the crown of ash and blood knowing it will never set you free?”Nicole’s chest still burned with every breath, but she lifted her chin, the taste of Kaelen’s blood still sharp at the back o