The Banished Luna Returns! のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 71 - チャプター 80

•CATHERINE• The morning sunlight felt warmer than usual as it broke across the parking lot of The Haven Hospital, painting the pavement in shades of gold. I took a moment before getting out of the car. I stepped out of the car and looked at the hospital with amazement. Seeing its open doors filled me with joy and pride. My stomach twisted when I remembered that Elias wasn't here. He still wouldn't say a word to me after I told him I called Viktor to pick me up from Crescent. But nonetheless, I held my head high when I walked toward the hospital, happy to see the one thing that brought me joy and made me feel fulfilled. The nurses and the admin staff greeted me when I walked through the sliding doors. I was happy to see them at work after a long break. But even when I found myself in the hospital with loud machines and people pacing up and down, I found myself thinking about Viktor. I kept replaying the way he had looked at me in the car. And how it was so easy to share parts

•CATHERINE• [15 YEARS AGO] The forest always felt like home to me, but that afternoon, its shadows stood long and stiff as if the whole territory had turned its back on me. My pulse was still hammering from the pack run, though it wasn’t the satisfaction of victory that left me breathless. It was the disturbing tension that had swept across the clearing the moment I crossed the finish line. I hadn’t meant to outpace Killian. I never set out to prove anything. But my legs had carried me like lightning, and before I realized what had happened, his heavy footsteps had vanished somewhere behind me. The murmurs had risen immediately and were almost impossible to ignore. “She’s fourteen… how is she that fast?” “Killian’s losing his edge.” “Outrun by a girl without a wolf yet.” Every whisper slithered over my skin like frostbite. When I reached the end of the path where Aisha usually waited for me, I expected her familiar proud smile, or at least her warm teasing. Instead, sh

•LEO•“Did she respond?” I asked Rylan.He was busy tapping on his computer and my laptop, trying to locate the device that was sending money to a private account.He looked calm, but his scent was tense.“No, Alpha. She didn’t.”I sighed and felt as if my heart was being squeezed from the inside. I realized that if she didn’t want to acknowledge the apology gift I sent her, maybe I needed to send another gift myself.“She threw the box in the trash bin,” he added. “She didn’t stay with the box for long before throwing it away. What should we do? Do you want me to arrange another apology to her?”“No, don’t worry about it,” I answered, sighing. “I will take care of it myself after I meet with the elders.”Rylan continued tapping on the computer quietly, while my mind wandered off to how I had been so blind all this time to get Catherine banished without tangible evidence of the allegations against her.I promised Brian earlier that I would find Catherine. But I didn’t know how I was g

•LEO•I kept waiting for Dr. Vale to call me, hoping she’d scold me and tell me not to invade her privacy again, but there was nothing.I had left my cell phone number on the card I left her when I went to drop off another apology gift in her office.“Alpha, may I come in?” Xander’s voice came from outside the door, and I rolled my eyes before I told him to come in.“Yes, Xander.”He opened the door quietly and closed it behind him. “I was hoping we could talk about Dr. Vale,” he said as he sat on the chair across from me.“What about Dr. Vale?” My heart skipped a beat, and I furrowed my brow, wondering what he was up to, because whatever he wanted to say was probably influenced by his sister.“We can’t trust her, Alpha,” he started. “Rumors are going around the pack that she uses dark magic to heal people, and you know those kinds of things exist. What’s more suspicious about her is that there’s nothing on the web about her. She doesn’t have a history, sir. Isn’t that suspicious to y

•MARY•‘Oh, no. He’s getting suspicious,’ Maya murmured. ‘We can’t slip up, Mary. Leo isn’t stupid. One wrong move, and we’re done.’I forced my face to stay calm even though my pulse was hammering. Leo’s fingers tightened around my wrist, and for a heartbeat, I saw something dangerous in his eyes.“How dare you ask me such a question?” I yanked my hand away. “I am your wife, Leo. Your wife. Do you even hear yourself?”He didn’t flinch or back down. That alone made my stomach twist.“I don’t care if you’re my wife. If you knew about this and kept quiet, then you would answer my questions.” His jaw locked. “Catherine was wrongfully banished because of this.”There it was—her name. It always came back to her.I folded my arms and looked at him, controlling my breathing. “How long are you going to make me feel like I’m the third wheel in my own marriage? If you’re not talking about Dr. Vale, you’re talking about Catherine.”“You know that isn’t true.” His tone lowered. “We need Dr. Vale