Lahat ng Kabanata ng Moonbound Hearts: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

The pack believed confinement would make Lyra smaller.They believed isolation would weaken her.But solitude did not quiet the storm inside her; it gave it room to grow.By midday, the settlement had become a constant echo of preparation. From her cabin window, Lyra watched wolves repaint ritual markings, drag ceremonial stones into position, and string pale cloth between poles like funeral banners disguised as tradition.Every movement outside reminded her that Silvercrest wasn’t waiting to test her.It was waiting to end her.Lyra stepped away from the window and tightened the leather straps around her wrists. Her cabin felt too small, the air too still. She could not sit and wait while the council built a noose out of stone and prayers.If she was going to survive, she needed control.Not the fragile control she had forced during gatherings.Real mastery.The kind that could withstand provocation, humiliation, hatred, and fear.Lyra slipped out through the back of her cabin, where

The barrier held, but Lyra felt it straining.It wasn’t stone. It was willpower forced into shape, trembling beneath the weight of something that should not exist. The air around her palms vibrated, hot and tight, and every breath scraped through her lungs like smoke.The creature circled slowly, claws cutting grooves into the dirt. Its pale eyes never blinked. It stared past Lyra, locked on the injured scout behind her as if Lyra were only an obstacle.The wounded wolves were barely moving now.One lay twisted near the shattered border post, blood soaking the earth beneath him. Another dragged himself weakly toward a tree, leaving a dark trail. The third stood hunched, clutching his stomach with both hands.Calder.Lyra’s pulse jumped.He had been one of the wolves who wanted her restrained. Now he looked at her with fear and disbelief, as if he couldn’t decide whether to hate her or beg her.The creature lunged.Not straight at Lyra.Around her.It moved with a warped speed, twistin

Tobias did not take Lyra back toward the surface.He led her instead into a space beneath the council hall, a place even most elders never walked.They passed through a narrow storage room that smelled of dried herbs, crushed bark, and old ink. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with ordinary supplies meant to hide what lay behind them. Tobias stopped at the far corner and pressed his palm against a faint carving in the stone.A hidden seam answered.The wall shifted with a grinding sigh, revealing a narrow passage swallowed in darkness.Cold air breathed outward.Lyra hesitated only briefly before stepping in.The stairwell was carved from raw rock, descending in tight spirals. Each step carried them further from Silvercrest’s noise, until the world above became nothing more than a distant memory of voices, movement, and judgment. Here, there was only silence, damp stone, and the faint scent of something older than memory.Tobias walked ahead, steady and familiar with the path, as if h

Morrigan did not need claws to kill.She used mouths.She used whispers.She used fear sharpened into certainty.By morning, Silvercrest no longer spoke of the beast as a threat in the forest. They spoke of it as a sign. The story had already shifted overnight, twisted into something easier to understand than truth.A creature like that could not simply exist.So the pack gave it a cause.They gave it Lyra.Lyra heard the rumors before she even stepped outside her cabin. Voices carried through the settlement in careful fragments, quiet enough to pretend innocence, loud enough to spread.“She summoned it.”“She called it with that strange aura.”“I heard she used forbidden magic.”“That’s why the trees bent. That’s why the ground shook.”Lyra stood still behind her door, listening, feeling her wolf press against her ribs in fury. Every sentence felt like a stone thrown at her spine. The worst part was not the cruelty.It was the ease.The pack accepted the lie because it fit the story

The silence after Ronan’s touch did not bring relief.It brought a verdict.Lyra could feel it in the way the pack stared, in the way their fear sharpened into something uglier than panic. They had witnessed her power erupt. They had watched the earth respond. And they had seen Ronan stop it with a single embrace.Not as Alpha.As mate.The clearing remained still for only a few breaths before the elders reclaimed control.Elder Soren stepped forward, his robe brushing against the dirt, his eyes fixed on Lyra as if she were no longer a wolf but an omen.“This cannot continue,” he said.Elder Mavis followed, her voice colder. “The pack has been endangered. The trial must proceed without delay.”A murmur rippled outward, spreading through the gathered wolves like a tide.Some nodded.Some whispered prayers.Some looked at Lyra as if she carried the plague.Lyra’s breath trembled in her chest.Ronan loosened his hold slightly, but he did not release her. His arms remained around her wais