Semua Bab Born of Ash and Night : Bab 31 - Bab 40

POV VaeliraMaereth looks up the second I walk through the door.Not startled.Not reaching for wards.Just… exhausted. The kind of tiredness that seeps into the bones.“Well,” she says, setting her cup down with deliberate care, “you’re still breathing. That’s encouraging.”I shut the door harder than necessary. The wood rattles in its frame. My boots hit the floor by the wall with a dull thud.“I went to the Wolf Kingdom.”Her brow arches, unimpressed. “I gathered.”“I demanded to see Ashton,” I continue, pacing like a caged thing. “Instead, I ran into Raine first.”Maereth hums softly.“She’s exactly what you’d expect,” I say. “Golden hair. Perfect skin. Eyes that scream I’ve never been told no and survived it. Very convinced the universe personally owes her a happy ending.”“And Ashton?” she asks.“Oh, we had a wonderful conversation,” I snapped. “Growling. Posturing. A little light emotional disembowelment. Really leaned into tradition.”She studies me, sharp eyes missing nothing

POV Vaelira It hits me like a pulled wire snapping inside my chest.Not pain—tension.The kind that hums under the skin, tight and vibrating, like the world is holding its breath and daring me to blink.I’m standing in the kitchen pretending to listen to Maereth lecture a kettle into boiling faster when the first surge rolls through me. My fingers curl around the counter as heat blooms under my ribs—sharp, possessive, furious.Cain.I don’t need a name. I know him the way storms know the sky before they break.Then—another pull.Different.Heavier. Earthier. Like claws digging into soil.Ashton.“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” I mutter.Maereth pauses. “You felt it.”“Unless indigestion has decided to grow fangs and a tail, yes. I felt it.”The bonds twist, overlapping but not merging—two forces yanking at opposite ends of my spine. Cain’s is all fire and blood, sharp-edged emotion slamming into me in waves: rage, jealousy, something dangerously close to fear.Ashton’s is worse.

POV Prince CainI feel her everywhere.Not just through the bond—though that thing is alive now, coiled tight around my ribs, pulling me toward her like gravity with teeth—but in the way the air shifts when she breathes, in the heat bleeding through the narrow space between our bodies.She smells like smoke and night and something sharp that makes my instincts bare their fangs.She doesn’t move away.That’s my first mistake.Her eyes flick to my mouth, then snap back up, defiant even as her pulse betrays her, jumping hard at her throat. I could trace every place she’s trying not to react—the tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers flex like she’s resisting the urge to touch back.I’ve always been good at spotting weakness.With her, it doesn’t feel like weakness.It feels like reverence.“You’re staring,” she says quietly, voice steady even as the bond hums like a live wire between us.“I’m memorizing,” I answer.Because I don’t trust fate not to rip this from me too.I lift my

POV — AshtonI wake to screaming.Not the sharp, disciplined alarm of battle horns or the barked precision of guards calling ranks—this is raw. Uncontrolled. The sound of throats tearing themselves open because no one expected to die tonight.My wolf detonates awake inside me.Pack. Pack. Pack.The bond slams through my chest like a blade, ripping me out of sleep and into motion before thought can catch up. I’m on my feet, claws tearing free, heart hammering so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs.Moonfall Keep reeks of blood.It hits me the moment I step into the corridor—thick, coppery, clinging to the air like fog. The torches flicker, their light catching on bodies sprawled across the stone. Guards I trained with. Wolves who swore their lives to this kingdom. Twisted where they fell, throats torn open, chests ripped apart, expressions frozen in shock.Thirty.I feel every single one.The pack bond snaps and burns with each step, a series of invisible hooks dragging through m

POV UNKNOWN They screamed beautifully.Not together—that would have been crude. No, the music came in waves. A sharp cry cut short in a corridor. A choking gasp behind a barracks door. A howl that rose instinctively toward the pack before shattering into silence. Each sound found its place, layering into something almost orchestral.Wolves believe unity makes them strong. They believe their bonds will warn them. That their senses will save them.Belief is such a fragile thing.Moonfall Keep wore its confidence openly. Ancient stone. Old wards carved by ancestors who thought permanence was a promise instead of a challenge. The magic was loud—throbbing, territorial, arrogant. It announced itself to the dark like a challenge.I stepped through it anyway.The wards screamed once—confused, offended—before I folded them inward and left them choking on their own echoes. Magic that relies on recognition is so easily fooled when you give it nothing to recognize at all.The first wolf died wit