All Chapters of Born Of The Last Breath: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

The man beside me is cold. Not sleeping-cold. Not early-morning chill. Dead-cold. I know before I open my eyes. My body always knows first—my skin humming with the familiar, sickening quiet that follows. The silence after a heartbeat stops. The silence after I take something I never meant to claim. I lie still, staring at the ceiling of the rented room, counting my breaths like it might undo what I’ve done. One. Two. Three. The air smells wrong—iron threaded through sweat and cheap soap. My throat tightens. Don’t look yet, Lyra. Delay doesn’t save you, but it softens the blow. I turn my head anyway. His name was Edrin. He told me last night, voice rough with drink and loneliness, that he’d come south looking for work. That he missed the mountains. That I looked like someone who wouldn’t ask him to stay. He was right about that. Edrin’s eyes are open, glassed over, staring past me like he finally saw the truth and couldn’t survive it. His lips are blue. One hand i

I tell myself I won’t think about him.That it was a coincidence. A stranger in the woods with sharp instincts and worse timing. That the awareness crawling over my skin afterward is just leftover adrenaline, not the echo of a presence that felt far too right in all the wrong ways.I lie.By the time dawn bleeds gray into the sky, Caelan Ashford is still there—lodged beneath my ribs like a splinter I can’t dig out.I put distance between us anyway.The town I reach by midmorning is small, human-heavy, the kind of place that survives by pretending the forest doesn’t exist. Weathered buildings. A single main road. No visible pack markings, no Alpha pressure humming through the air.Safe enough.I take a room above a closed-down apothecary, paying in cash under a name I’ve used before. The woman at the desk barely looks at me, too busy complaining about the cold and the price of flour. Humans rarely notice what they aren’t taught to fear.I wash the blood from my hand in the narrow basin

The first thing that breaks is the silence.Not with sound—but with will.The pressure crushing my chest fractures as something inside me snaps awake, sharp and incandescent, like a star cracking its shell. I gasp, fingers digging into Caelan’s sleeve as the invisible tether between us tightens, pulses, recognizes.Alaric Mooncrest takes a single step back.That should terrify me.Instead, it enrages him.“You feel it now,” Alaric says softly, wonder and menace threading his voice. “The Moon Born stirs when threatened. Just as the texts warned.”I bare my teeth. “You don’t get to quote laws you helped twist.”Alaric’s pale eyes cut to me. “Careful, Lyra Noctis. You stand on the edge of execution.”Caelan finally exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for years without knowing why. His hand tightens around mine—not protective, not claiming.Anchoring.“What is he talking about?” Caelan demands. “What did I awaken?”I don’t answer him.Because answering would mean admitting what I’m

The howl doesn’t fade.It settles—low and vast, vibrating through bone and soil alike, as if the land itself has acknowledged something it has been waiting for far too long to see returned. The sound leaves my skin buzzing, every nerve lit with a recognition I don’t yet have words for.Caelan hears it too.I know because his breath stutters, his arms tightening instinctively around me like the world just tilted and he’s the only solid thing left standing.“What was that?” he asks.I swallow, throat dry. “Not a pack.”“That’s not comforting.”“It wasn’t meant to be.”The bond hums between us—steady now, no longer tearing or flaring, but present. Alive. It doesn’t feel like a wound. It feels like… alignment. Like something that was misfiring for years finally snapped into place.That scares me more than pain ever did.I pull back slowly, studying him the way the Council once studied me—with fear disguised as scrutiny. Caelan looks unchanged on the surface. Still human. Still unshifted.

The forest around us hums with life—or maybe it’s just the echo of the bond. My skin prickles as if the trees themselves are watching, waiting, leaning toward us with silent breath. Caelan’s grip on my wrist is steady, grounding me, but I can feel his pulse racing beneath my fingers. He shouldn’t be able to handle this. He shouldn’t be able to survive what’s coming. And yet—he does. I force my legs to move faster, scrambling over gnarled roots, ducking under low-hanging branches that scratch at my hair and arms. Every step I take sends the pulse of the bond through me like wildfire, and I know Caelan feels it too. It’s not just connection anymore—it’s a warning. Something is following us, something ancient and patient, moving with the silence of shadows. “Lyra,” Caelan hisses, voice low, sharp. “Do you feel that?” I glance back over my shoulder. Nothing. Trees sway in the cold wind. Moonlight fractures through leaves, silver shards dancing across the forest floor. Yet the sensation