บททั้งหมดของ Born of Ash and Night : บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

Moonfall Keep doesn’t settle after the meeting.It pretends to—guards snap back into formation, torches are relit, voices drop to respectful murmurs—but beneath the surface, the castle hums wrong. Not loud enough to trigger alarms. Not obvious enough to name. Just a low, persistent vibration, like a note struck slightly off-key and left to rattle through bone and stone alike.Trauma does that to places.So does something unfinished.I feel it immediately.Not through the bonds—those are already screaming matches I don’t have the patience for—but through my magic. Through the part of me that was born misaligned and learned early how to recognize its own kind. Wrong recognizes wrong.Cain and Ashton fall into argument behind me almost the second we leave the council chamber. Low voices, clipped words. Alpha dominance and royal entitlement crashing together like they’re physically incapable of not measuring themselves against each other.I get three steps down the corridor before I stop

POV VaeliraThe room reeks of iron and crushed herbs—blood layered over magic layered over fear so thick it coats the back of my throat.I feel it the moment I cross the threshold of Raine’s chambers.Not pain.Not death.Something worse.Absence.It presses in on me from every surface, a hollow where something vital used to be. Like stepping into a room where a fire burned for years—and was ripped out while still alive.Raine lies on the bed like a porcelain doll someone shattered and tried to piece back together with trembling hands. Too pale. Too still. Her white hair fans across the pillows like frost, stark against sheets stained darker than they should be. Her chest rises, but barely—each breath looks like a decision she doesn’t quite want to make anymore.She’s alive.But she’s already halfway gone.Ashton stands at her side, unmoving. Rigid. His hands are clenched so tight I can see blood bead where his claws bite into his palms. His wolf is screaming beneath his skin, pacing,

POV Vaelira The chamber empties too slowly.Maereth’s words still hang in the air—anchor taken, hybrid, tomorrow night—all of it pressing against my ribs like a second heart that beats only dread. Raine sleeps again, barely breathing, Ashton planted at her side like a man daring death to try again.I don’t stay.If I do, I’ll scream. Or worse—I’ll beg.So I turn and leave, boots echoing against cold stone, my hands shaking just enough to piss me off. I make it three corridors down before I feel it.That pull.Not the wolf bond—quiet, simmering, resentful—but the other one. The one that never learned how to mind its damn business.Cain.I slow despite myself. Idiot.He steps out of the shadows like he’s always been there, like the dark parts of this castle know him well enough to part without complaint. Tall. Still. Silver hair catching torchlight like a blade edge. The scar down the left side of his face looks deeper in this light, more brutal—like it was carved by something that mea

The day feels wrong.Not dark—worse. Bright. Too bright. The sun hangs high in the sky like it doesn’t understand what tonight is going to cost us, like it has the audacity to keep shining when everything in me is bracing to burn.I sit on the stone ledge outside my room, boots dangling over the edge, watching dust drift through sunlight. My hands are steady, which is suspicious. I should be shaking. Panicking. Dramatically spiraling.Instead, I feel… clear.That scares me more.Maereth said the ritual has to happen at moonrise. Full moon. Blood. Fire. Rejection so absolute you’d rather burn than accept the bond.Very on-brand for my life.I roll my shoulders, feeling the magic under my skin—wolf heat braided with vampire shadow, restless and sharp. It hums like it knows something I don’t. Like it’s waiting to see which part of me survives tonight.I close my eyes.Cain’s face comes uninvited, as usual. The way his voice drops when he says my name. The way the bond flares when he’s ne

The night doesn’t loosen its grip after the ritual.It tightens.The clearing still reeks of scorched blood and ancient magic, embers pulsing weakly in the fire pit like a dying heart. My hands burn—skin blistered, raw—but the pain barely registers compared to the hollow quiet inside my chest.The wolf bond is gone.No pull.No pressure.No invisible leash wrapped around my ribs.I sway, the aftermath finally crashing into me——and Cain is there.Not grabbing. Not claiming.Steadying.His hand closes around my forearm, solid and grounding, and the moment his skin touches mine something ignites—low, deep, dangerous. Not a chain. Not a command.A current.“You’re shaking,” he murmurs.I let out a breath that’s half a laugh. “Yeah. Turns out defying gods has side effects.”His gaze doesn’t leave my face. “You’re free.”I look up at him. “So are you.”That’s when the bond between us moves.It doesn’t snap into place or scream its arrival. It settles—like embers finding oxygen, like a blad