WOLVES OF WINTER MOON의 모든 챕터: 챕터 31 - 챕터 40

The morning sunlight barely pierced the thick stone walls of the palace, leaving corridors dim and cold. Lyra Whitlock moved silently beside Rylan, her hand intertwined with his, heart still hammering from the bond’s surge the night before. The residual warmth from their private moment lingered on her skin, a fire she could feel even in the shadowed halls.Rylan’s golden eyes flickered constantly, scanning every doorway, every guard, every shadow. Even after their intimate encounter, even after the bond’s surge had burned white-hot through the castle, he remained alert, protective to the point of feral intensity.“The council meets at noon,” Queen Isolde said, appearing behind them like a ghost. Her silver hair caught the faint light, and her pale eyes held warning. “They will move quickly now that they know the truth. Veilborn blood… the Moonbound mark… it changes everything. You must be ready, Lyra.”Lyra nodded, but her thoughts kept straying to the memory of Rylan’s lips, his hand

The corridor beyond Rylan’s chamber was silent.Too silent.Lyra Whitlock moved through it barefoot, the stone cold beneath her feet, the air humming faintly with warded magic that bent around her without resistance. That alone should have frightened her.Instead, it confirmed what she already knew.The palace was no longer trying to stop her.It recognized her.The bond tugged at her with every step she took away from Rylan. Not violently—not yet—but with a low, aching insistence, like a living thing sensing abandonment. She pressed her hand to her wrist, to the place where the white-marked crescent glowed faintly beneath her skin.I’m doing this for you, she told it silently.For him.The council chamber doors loomed ahead, half-lit, guarded by two sentinels who stiffened as she approached. Their spears crossed instinctively—then halted, trembling.Lyra didn’t slow.The guards exchanged a look, unease flickering across their faces, before stepping aside without a word.Inside, the c

The seal screamed.Not in sound—but in pressure.Lyra felt it slam into her bones, the ancient magic surging as three forces collided in the chamber beneath the palace: her awakening Veilborn power, Rylan’s fractured bond, and the Winter Wraith’s restrained hunger.The light from the circle flared so bright it painted the stone walls white.Rylan staggered forward, clutching his chest as if something had reached inside him and squeezed. His eyes—once gold, steady, familiar—flickered violently between human and wolf.“Lyra—” His voice broke on her name. “What have you done?”She took a step toward him instinctively.The chains of light snapped taut.The Wraith’s presence surged, shadows tightening, not to stop her—but to test her.“Careful,” it murmured into her mind. “You are standing between anchors now.”Behind Rylan, King Kade stopped just inside the threshold of the chamber.He did not rush.He did not shout.He watched.His gaze moved from the seal, to the Wraith, to Lyra—and som

Lyra slept like the dead.Not the peaceful dead—the restless kind, caught between worlds, drifting through fragments that were not hers and memories that bled into one another until she could no longer tell where she ended and someone else began.She dreamed of snow falling upward.Of a woman with her eyes and her mother’s smile standing at the edge of a veil made of light, whispering a warning Lyra could never quite hear. Of hands stained with blood pressing a crown into shadow.And always—always—there was the feeling of being watched.When she woke, it was to silence.Not the quiet of night, but the unnatural stillness that followed something carefully erased.The chamber was dim, curtains drawn tight against the moon. Candles burned low, their flames steady—too steady. Lyra’s first instinct was that the wards had been reinforced. Her second was that someone wanted her calm.She tried to sit up.Pain flared, sharp and insistent, but it was different now—contained. Wrapped. Her shoul

Silence did not fall after the assassin was dragged away.It lingered.It clung to the council chamber like smoke after a fire, thick and choking, filled with things unsaid and truths newly sharpened. Lyra stood at the center of it, her palm still tingling where white light had burned through steel and flesh. The stone beneath her boots was cracked now, spiderwebbed from power she hadn’t fully meant to release.Rylan lay half-reclined against the black marble steps of the dais, his weight supported by King Kade’s arm and two frantic healers who had burst into the chamber with glowing hands and whispered incantations. His skin had gone ashen, lips drawn tight as if he were holding back a scream.Lyra felt it like a knife twisting in her own chest.The bond throbbed violently—no longer a hum or a pull, but a wound. Every labored breath Rylan took echoed inside her ribs. Every falter of his heart dragged against her own.This was what the council feared.This was what they wanted to seve