Semua Bab The Luna’s Revenge : Bab 41 - Bab 50

She got to her feet, her legs were unreliable and the cold had gotten into everything and her coat was soaked through and heavy, the bank was uneven beneath her boots, none of it mattered, she got to her feet and she walked.Caelum saw her coming and stepped back without being asked, the rogues stepped back, and nobody said anything. They understood without being told that the distance between where she was and where he was belonged only to her right now.Thirty feet of cold mud and river bank and everything that had just happened, she crossed it.She dropped to her knees beside him and he turned his head and looked at her with those green eyes and she looked at him for one moment, just one, just long enough to see that it was really him and he was really here and the river had really given him back, and then she stopped looking and closed the last of the distance between them and kissed him.Not gently, not carefully, not with the controlled precision she brought to everything else s

They left at dawn with just the core group: Caelum, six senior wolves, and three of the rogues including Garrett. It was enough to make a statement when they arrived but not so many that it looked like they were bringing an army. Theron wanted the council to see strength, not desperation.Nyx rode beside him in silence.She’d slept barely, a few hours of restless nothing that left her feeling more hollowed out than rested. She’d woken to find Elara at her door with a travel pack and a look on her face that said she knew exactly what kind of night Nyx had just endured but wasn’t going to ask about it.“Eat something before you go,” Elara had said, setting bread and dried meat on the table. “You’ll need it.”Nyx had eaten because arguing would’ve taken more energy than she had. The food tasted like dust but she got it down and packed her things and met Theron in the courtyard as the sky was starting to lighten. He’d looked at her with those green eyes that were bright again, clear again

The silence held for three long breaths after Theron asked if anyone objected. Nyx watched the council from her position beside him, watched the Alphas in the tiers calculating and recalculating what this meant for them, for their positions, for the careful alliances they’d spent years building. Some looked relieved, like they’d been waiting for someone to finally do what needed doing. Others looked uncertain, caught between acknowledging the Alpha King’s return and maintaining whatever political stance they’d taken during his absence. Darius was the one who broke the silence. He stood in the presiding seat, still holding the interim authority he’d claimed when Theron disappeared, and looked down at the Alpha King standing in front of the empty throne with the emerald crest gleaming on the seat beside him. For a moment Nyx couldn’t read his expression, couldn’t tell if he was going to support this or fight it, and then something in his face shifted and settled into something that l

The first week as Luna was harder than Nyx expected. Not the politics exactly, though there was plenty of that, but the constant presence of eyes watching her every move and judging whether she belonged in the position Theron had given her. She felt it everywhere she went in Ashville, in the council hall and the Alpha King’s residence and the streets when she walked through them with Caelum at her side. Wolves bowing because they had to but looking at her with expressions that ranged from curiosity to skepticism to outright hostility. The mate mark on her neck helped. It was visible proof that Theron had chosen her and claimed her according to pack law, and no one could dispute that without disputing the Alpha King’s authority. But it didn’t stop them from wondering why he’d chosen someone the moon goddess had rejected, didn’t stop the whispers that followed her through corridors and across courtyards, didn’t stop the careful distance most of the council maintained when she spoke.

The integration of the rogues into the Northern region took three weeks to formalize, though the real work had started the moment Theron sat back down in the Alpha King’s chair. Nyx spent most of those weeks in council sessions that felt more like negotiations than governance, watching Alphas who’d spent their entire lives believing rogues were beneath consideration try to reconcile that belief with the fact that their Alpha King had just given half the Northern region to wolves they considered outcasts. Some of them adapted quickly, seeing the political advantage of having loyal wolves in positions that had been held by corrupt ones. Others fought it with every procedural objection they could find. Aldric was the loudest of the objectors, which surprised no one. “This sets a dangerous precedent,” Aldric said during one particularly contentious session, standing in the tiers with his arms crossed and his expression set in the careful neutrality of someone who’d been losing polit