Semua Bab Ashbound Moon : Bab 31 - Bab 40

CHAPTER 31 The chains fell fast.Moon-silver links, cold and gleaming, snapping downward like a guillotine made of law.I moved on instinct.“STOP!” I shouted.Ash surged up, slamming into the falling chains, slowing them—just enough that they hovered inches from Dax’s throat, trembling like they were furious at being denied.Dax stood rigid, eyes blank, chest barely moving. The cage had taken him. He wasn’t fighting anymore.My stomach flipped. “Dax,” I whispered. “Please.”No response.Kieran’s coal-bright gaze flicked to Dax with mild interest, then back to me. The mate bond yanked again—harder now that my tether to Dax was gone, like the bond wanted to replace the missing chain with itself.“Aria,” Kieran murmured, voice smooth. “It’s only you and me now.”Rage flared through me. “Shut up.”Kieran smiled, and for a flicker—one agonizing flicker—his eyes flashed blue.

CHAPTER 33 My mouth opened.In the real chamber and the bond-space at once, every chain in every cage went perfectly still—like the world held its breath to hear what I would sacrifice.MOTHER.DAX.MATE.Pick one.The Moon’s pressure sat on my ribs like a hand. Not cruel. Not kind. Absolute. A law that didn’t care who cried.Kieran’s blue eyes—real Kieran for a heartbeat—were wet with panic. “Choose her,” he whispered, broken. “Please. Choose her.”Selah stood in that ash-nursery smiling with her hands on her belly like she owned every future I could reach. My shadow-self—my copy—leaned in close, eyes gleaming.“Choose,” she purred. “And watch what you become.”In the real chamber, I felt it too: my mother’s bloodscent pouring through the bone door, Dax locked in blank silence under falling chains, the Hollow King watching like this was church.My hands shook.But I didn’t sp

CHAPTER 35 Bone walls can’t stop scent.Even sealed, even locked, the first cage leaked bloodscent into the tunnels like smoke through cracks. Outside, the world moved toward it, drawn by hunger and fear and politics.I knew that because the cage let me feel it.Like it wanted me to understand how alone I was.Kieran was out there somewhere, the mate bond pulling like a rope through stone. I felt his desperation flicker—then dull—then sharpen again like the thing wearing him fought for control.Dax was out there too, farther away, his presence quieter now… but heavy. Like a lock that had accepted a key and hated itself for it.And then a new scent hit the cage’s air—sharp, familiar, poison in silk.Alpha Rowan Vale.The moment his scent reached the bone walls, the runes in the cage flared. Not afraid. Respectful. Like the cage knew him.My stomach dropped.Rowan had been here before.

CHAPTER 37 The first crack sounded like ice breaking on a river.A sharp, impossible snap through bone walls that were never supposed to bend.Every chain in the cage jerked in the same direction—toward the ceiling—as if something above us had grabbed the entire system and yanked. The floor trembled under my boots. Dust fell in pale sheets from the darkness overhead.My copy stumbled, catching herself against a hanging chain. Her eyes were bright with rage and something else—fear.“You shouldn’t have said it,” she hissed.My wrists still burned where moon-silver had bitten, but the chains around them loosened another fraction, confused, vibrating as if the cage didn’t know who it belonged to anymore.My mother swayed on unsteady legs, blood streaking her sleeves, her mouth still sealed by the cage’s earlier command. She pressed her hands to her chest again like prayer, eyes locked on mine, begging me to remember what sh

CHAPTER 39 Kieran stood half in shadow, half in torchlight, and his face looked like a battlefield.One eye blue—real, desperate, human.One eye coal—hungry, amused, inhuman.His mouth trembled, smile pulling in two directions like his skin couldn’t decide who it belonged to.My mate bond snapped tight, vibrating like a wire about to break. Pain stabbed my ribs. I sucked in a harsh breath and tasted iron.Rowan’s guards shifted uneasily. Even they felt it—the wrongness in the air, the way the first cage had changed the rules.Mara’s gaze stayed locked on me, expression sharpening like she was recalculating a plan mid-sentence. Vesper’s wrists strained against restraint as she watched Kieran with a predator’s focus.The Hollow King just smiled.“It’s beautiful,” he murmured. “A man split down the middle by desire and law.”“Shut up,” I hissed, but my voice shook.Kieran’s blue eye flashed w