Lahat ng Kabanata ng Moonbound Heart Saga: Shadowed Veil (Book Two): Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

Baylee wasn’t used to being watched by her own pack.But that was what it felt like now.Every time she walked through the center of Silverveil — slow, steady, wrapped in Collin’s old hoodie because she still ran too cold — wolves paused what they were doing to look at her. Not in judgment. Not in pity.In awe.Respect made her itch.Respect made her feel like she wasn’t allowed to fail.Heather said it would fade. Melody said it wouldn’t. Collin said nothing.That, lately, was the problem.The quiet between them was getting sharper.Day by day.Thread by thread.By the end of the seventh week since she’d woken, it finally snapped.—It started at breakfast.Jessica had made venison stew and flatbread and something sweet that tasted like honey and clove. Melody had set out a row of tonic cups like she always did when she thought Baylee wasn’t getting enough rest. The triplets hovered by the stairs doing a terrible job pretending not to eavesdrop. It should’ve been peaceful.And it alm

The house felt too small.It was noon and already Silverveil felt wrong — tightened, drawn in. Patrols had doubled. Liam was barking quiet orders out back. There were people in wolf form circling the lodge like silent shadows. Melody had locked herself in the small study with two tomes and a bowl of water that smelled like ash.And Collin was in Alpha mode.Not protective. Not sweet.Cold.Baylee hated it.He’d listened when she told him about Ash. He’d listened when she said someone had crossed over. He’d listened when she’d said this Hollow King existed — whatever He really was — and that He was hungry.He’d listened.He hadn’t reacted.Not at first.He’d sent Liam to put Ironclaw and Frostfang on alert. He’d called Nyra through the stone-link Melody had left and told her Nightshade scouts were to slit anything that smelled wrong before it sucked air. He’d ordered no one past the third ward ring without Beta clearance, Beta presence, or Collin himself.But the whole time he’d been…

The clearing at the scar didn’t look like a place anyone should stand.Even in daylight, the air there didn’t behave like normal air. It bent. It shimmered, very faint, like heat above stone — even though the dirt underfoot felt cold, colder than Silverveil soil should feel in early spring.The trees around it grew wrong, too smooth and too tall, their bark pale and faintly veined like bone. Melody had said that was residue — “the Veil bleeding sideways into the world.” Heather had said that was disgusting and also she was going to set the trees on fire if they looked at Baylee weird.Now those same trees stood silent, watchful. The thin seam of the scar itself hovered a few feet off the ground, a vertical line of pale light, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat you could almost — not quite — hear.Everyone felt it.No one talked about it.Melody moved in slow circles around the ground, laying the ritual. She worked with salt first: hard, coarse crystals of moon-salted rock that looked al

They moved slow.Collin insisted on it.Baylee would’ve run.Her body wanted to run. Her wolf wanted to sprint down that hall, take the stairs two and three at a time, crash through the door and see. Just see.But her legs were unsteady from crying and from the ritual and from the Hollow King pushing at her skin earlier, and she couldn’t afford to face what was waiting downstairs shaking so hard she might fall.So Collin held her in against his side and set the pace, controlled and steady. Zane stayed on her other side, a step ahead, one hand out just in case. Heather walked backward in front of them like a guard dog that had learned how to smirk.“Okay,” Heather said softly, voice pitched just for Baylee, “quick rules of engagement, because this is going to be a lot.”Baylee sniffed, eyes still red and bright. “You’re giving me rules?”Heather clicked her tongue. “Uh-huh. Rule one: your mom is very out of it. Melody gave her something for pain and because her body is wrecked and I me

Melody had warned everyone ahead of time.More than once.She’d said it in her “I’m pretending to be casual so nobody panics yet” tone, and then she’d said it again in her “no, I’m deadly serious and if you ignore me I’m biting you” tone.“If anything looks at me while I’m looking up that thread,” she said, wrapping copper wire around her wrist, “you do not reach for me. You yank me backward and you kick salt between me and whatever is trying to crawl in, and if I start saying things that don’t sound like me you knock me out, are we clear?”Heather nodded instantly. “Copy.”Liam just said, “Yes.”Collin said nothing, which in Collin-language usually translated to, “There is no version of this where I let anything touch you, so why are we talking like it’s optional.”Now they were all jammed into what used to be Derik’s old office — a narrow, reinforced side room off the main hall that Jessica had once called “the boring room” and then quietly stuffed with medical supplies and weapons