All Chapters of Marked By Moonfire: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

The fire licked the sky like a living beast, painting the night in shades of orange and black. The smell of smoke stung Nova’s lungs as she stood before the burning convoy — wagons turned to twisted metal, supplies smoldering to ash. To anyone watching, it looked like devastation.But beneath the fire and chaos, every move was calculated.Through the faint hum of the mate bond, she felt him.Kilian?His voice brushed against her thoughts, low and steady. I see the smoke. The guards are clear. No losses?Nova’s lips twitched faintly. She kept her expression neutral, answering silently. No losses. Only the fire. The bait worked.Good. Let it burn long enough for Draven to believe it.His voice softened, that quiet growl that always steadied her. Be careful, Nova.

The room was dim, lit only by the dying glow of the hearth. Ashes shifted in the embers like whispers of what had been burned — or lost.Nova stood by the window, her fingers cold against the glass. The night outside was endless, silent except for the wind against the shutters. She could feel Kilian’s presence behind her — the weight of it, the storm held in check. Lyra sat across the table, legs crossed, arms folded, her gaze sharp and steady.No one spoke for a long moment. Then Lyra broke the silence.“So,” she said. “He wants me dead.”Nova turned, her throat tight. “He told me to kill you. He said it would prove my loyalty.”Kilian’s jaw flexed. The wolf beneath his skin rippled, restless. “He won’t stop until he gets what he wants. But he’ll never have you.”

The night had teeth.Nova could feel them in the air — sharp, cold, gnawing at her skin as the wind carried the scent of ash from Draven’s encampment. The moon above was swollen and pale, its light trembling as dark clouds began to creep across its surface. The eclipse was near.Draven had gathered his army on the plains that stretched beyond the forest — rogues, Hunters, outcasts from half a dozen packs. A thousand eyes gleamed in the torchlight, hungry, waiting.At the center of it all, Draven stood like a shadow carved from stone. His armor caught the firelight, glinting red as blood.“This is the beginning,” he said, voice carrying effortlessly over the crowd. “Tonight, the false Alphas will fall. The old laws will burn. And from their ashes, we will rise.”A roar answered him — wild, deafening, primal.

The night was a wound.The moon, half-swallowed by darkness, hung low and bloodless over the valley, its faint light devoured by the black clouds crawling across the sky. The forest below was silent — too silent — the kind that made even the wolves hesitate to breathe.Lyra stood beside Kilian at the head of the assembled pack. The soldiers — dozens of them, bloodied, bruised, yet unbroken — waited for his command. Their eyes burned with rage and fear, with loyalty and grief. They had already lost too many. But tonight, they knew it would end — one way or another.Kilian’s jaw was clenched tight, the veins at his temples pulsing. His golden eyes shimmered in the pale gloom, flickering faintly with the light of his wolf. He could feel Nova through the bond — faint, distant, but there. A trembling thread of silver in the back of his mind. Pain. Fear. Fire.

The battlefield was a graveyard of ash and blood.Steel lay broken, scattered like forgotten dreams. Armor was torn to shreds, splintered into fragments that glistened faintly in the pale moonlight. The earth itself was soaked through with the life of the fallen — warm blood mingling with the rain of dust and ash. Wolves lay still among warriors, their fur matted with grime, their breaths stilled forever. The air was heavy and suffocating, thick with smoke, the bitter scent of iron and sorrow pressing into every lungful. Above it all, the moon shone whole and unbroken — silver and cold, as if witnessing the aftermath of creation itself.Nova stood at the center, trembling like a candle about to be extinguished. Her body glowed faintly, silver veins of Moonfire still flickering beneath her skin, pulsing in rhythm with her strained heartbeat. Her chest rose and fell unevenly, breath ragged, each exhale a rasp of pain. Every m