Library

Search

Home / Fantasy / Born of Ash and Night / Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

All Chapters of Born of Ash and Night : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

69 Chapters

Chapter 39

POV VaeliraThe Wolf Kingdom smells like fear and iron.Not the clean, wild tang of wolves running through forests or the sharp heat of pack energy before a hunt. This is old blood—scrubbed too late, soaked too deep. Panic has a scent too, and it’s clinging to the stones of Moonfall Keep like a stain no amount of water can lift.The moment we cross the outer gate, my magic stirs.Uneasy. Prickling. The way it does after violence—after something unnatural has been through and left the world slightly… crooked. Like a room rearranged in the dark.Cain feels it.I don’t need to look at him. The bond hums low and coiled, a restrained snarl beneath his usual icy control. It presses against my spine, alert and watchful, like a predator that hasn’t decided whether to bare its fangs yet.He walks beside me, long strides unhurried, coat dark against the moonlit stone. Silver hair catches the light like a blade drawn halfway from its sheath. Anyone watching us would think he’s calm.I know bette

Chapter 40

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

Chapter 41

POV Vaelira The air changes before anyone announces her.One breath, Moonfall Keep smells like stone and blood scrubbed too late—iron soaked into mortar, fear lingering like a bad memory. The next, the scent shifts. Crushed herbs. Old fire. Rain heavy with promise, the kind that comes before storms strong enough to uproot trees.The torches lining the corridor gutter, flames bending inward as if something ancient and unimpressed has just crossed the threshold.Cain stills instantly, every line of his body going razor-sharp.Ashton’s wolf surges up hard enough I feel it through the bond—hackles raised, instincts screaming.I don’t bother hiding my smile.“There she is.”Maereth steps out of the shadows like she never learned how to arrive quietly—and never cared to. The darkness seems to peel away for her, not resisting, not welcoming. Just yielding.She’s wrapped in deep charcoal robes, the fabric heavy with age and magic, stitched through with sigils so old they don’t bother glowing

Chapter 42

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,

Chapter 43

POV Unknown-HybridI'm still around, walking in the shadows. I love the panicked, it's caused because of me. They will soon start to feel like I did. The pain of losing everyone around you and there is nothing you can do. Luckily for them, they are adults and not a scared child.I am no longer unable to do anything, I will do EVERYTHING instead. I feel it the moment the old witch speaks of me into the night.Not aloud.Not foolishly.Maereth knows better than that.Her magic ripples across the ley lines like a stone dropped into black water, and every ripple carries recognition. Understanding. Too much understanding.I snarl, fingers digging into the damp earth beneath me. She remembers.Of course she does.Maereth was always watching when she shouldn’t have been. Always listening. Always surviving.The firelight flickers against the ruins around me—what remains of a sanctuary that once sang with power. Now it reeks of ash and old blood. My blood. My family’s blood.They called it c

Chapter 44

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

Chapter 45

POV AshtonThe healers avoid my eyes.Every single one of them.They move quietly around Raine’s bed, adjusting wards, whispering spells that smell like desperation and failure. I sit beside her, unmoving, my hand wrapped around hers as if grip alone might keep her here.Her skin is cold.Too cold.“How long,” I demand, my voice rough enough to scrape stone.The head healer hesitates. That hesitation tells me everything.“Days,” he says finally. “Perhaps less.”My jaw locks.“And is there anything you’re not telling me?” I ask.Silence.I feel it then—a hollow ache beneath my ribs, like something missing that I hadn’t realized was there until now.“Leave,” I snapped.They don’t argue. The door closes, sealing me alone with the woman I love and the weight of every wrong choice I’ve ever made.I bow my head, pressing my forehead to her knuckles.“I’m here,” I whisper. “I won’t let you go.”I head back to my room, change and sit on the couch. My head in my hands praying she makes it thro

Chapter 46

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

Chapter 47

POV Valiera The moon rises like an accusation.Full. White. Unforgiving.It hangs over the clearing as if it has been waiting centuries for this exact moment, its light washing the ancient stones in silver and bone. The fire pit at the center crackles low, fed with ashwood and moon-oil, flames burning an unnatural blue-white that smells of iron and old magic.Rejection fire.I step into the clearing and feel everything tighten.The wolf bond is loud now—furious, panicked, pulling at my chest like a hooked chain. It doesn’t want this. It never did. The magic wants completion, not refusal. Union, not defiance.Too bad.Ashton stands opposite me across the fire.He looks wrecked.Dark circles bruise the skin beneath his eyes, his shoulders rigid like he’s holding himself together by sheer will. His gaze flicks to me once, then away, jaw clenched so tightly I can hear his teeth grind.Raine isn’t here. She can’t be. Maereth said her spirit is too fragile—this magic would tear her apart.

Chapter 48

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

PREV

NEXT

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP

DMCA.com Protection Status