All Chapters of Moonbound: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The sky over Elaris was the color of wet steel when the car dropped Evelyn at the Cross mansion. Morning sat on the marble steps like frost; the fountain in the front courtyard coughed thin ribbons of water that sounded colder than they looked. Staff held the door, faces polite and blank, and she moved through them like a shadow.The world had already decided what last night meant. She could feel it buzzing in her phone, see it in the way the gate camera turned with a soft mechanical whine, in the way a delivery drone paused a beat too long before drifting on. But inside her, nothing was decided. Something new pressed against her heartbeat, a steady second rhythm that didn’t belong entirely to her.She went straight upstairs, past the pale portraits and the places where her mother insisted the lilies go every spring, and closed her bedroom door. The click of the latch let her lungs expand again. She leaned her forehead to the wood, eyes shut, breathing until the tremor in her hands fa

The first time Evelyn felt the echo, it was almost gentle.A faint pressure under her ribs, a flicker that wasn’t hers—like someone had brushed a finger along the inside of her chest. Then it was gone.She told herself it was exhaustion, or stress, or caffeine, but none of those things made her hand tremble when she poured her coffee. None of them explained why, every few minutes, her pulse stuttered out of sync—hers, then not hers.She knew whose heartbeat it was.Across the city, Lucien Valehart stood in his office with his palms braced against the table, every muscle tight. The reports from his security chief lay untouched beside him; the lines of text blurred whenever the rhythm under his skin shifted. It was subtle, but constant—like a whisper he couldn&rsq

The morning after the mirror shattered, the apartment felt like it had grown a second heartbeat.Every surface held the memory of what had happened—silver dust along the baseboards, hairline cracks spidering out from the empty frame, a thin metallic scent that clung to the air no matter how many windows Evelyn opened. She kept finding slivers of glass in the oddest places: the spine of a book, the cuff of her sleeve, the hollow of her palm when she forgot to unclench her hand.Lucien stood by the window with his coat still on, as if he hadn’t decided whether he was staying. Dawn had erased the storm from his eyes but not the strain from the set of his shoulders.“You should let maintenance handle this,” he said, nodding toward the ruined mirror.“Do

The Valehart estate did not sleep.It never had.Even when the rest of the city hushed into silence, the mansion breathed—an old, patient creature built from marble and bloodline, its windows gleaming like watchful eyes.Evelyn had learned the rhythm of that breath.How it shifted when Helena crossed the corridors.How it faltered whenever Lucien entered a room.That night, it faltered twice.She had not seen him since the dinner three nights ago, when he’d left early under the pretext of business. In truth, she knew what business meant: a war between instinct and duty, both of which had her name carved somewhere on the blade.