All Chapters of Moonbound to a Human: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

AsherThe house trembled. Not violently like we were under attack. This was different.Older.Deeper.The kind of tremor that moved through the stone because something beneath it finally remember how to breathe.The box. My mother's box.The thing that had laid silent on my desk for years like a paperweight carved with grief. A relic. A warning. A memory made solid from cedar shavings, resin, and ash.Her ash. And not it was awake.Excitement tore throughme so fast my breath was stolen. For a moment, I wasn't an Alpha. Not the man with enemies pressing in on all sides or a Bloodborn bleeding somewhere beyond the trees.I was a son. A son hearing his mother's voice in the only way she had left. She approved. Of Savannah.Of my choice.Of the human woman standing in Mabel's medical wing with one hand pressed to her chest lieks he could hold the glow inside herself by force. Dread soon followed though.Because approval wasn't protection.If the box truly had awakened for Savannah, th

SavannahThe study was dark except for the fire. And the box?It sat on Asher's desk exactly where I remembered it, small and carved and ordinary enough that it should not have been able to make the entire house tremble.But it wasn't ordinary now.Golden light seeped through the seems in the wood. The lid had just barely cracked open. A thin line of warmth spilled out across the desk, catching on papers, the ink bottle, the edge of Asher's abandoned coat.Cedar hit my nose next, followed by smoke and something soft beneath it. Lavender maybe. Asher went very still beside me. Mabel stopped at the doorway and did not come farther in.I glanced back."You're not coming?""No, hun.""Why?""Because that," she said, nodding toward the desk, "is not calling me."The warmth in my chest pulled again.My feet moved before I gave them permission to move.Asher stayed beside me, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine. I could feel the restraint in him. Every instinct wanted me to allow

AsherFor a moment, I heard nothing beyond the blood rushing in my ears.Little Luna.The words replayed in Savannah's voice, but they belonged to him.This stranger from her vision. The thing that had somehow reacher her through my mother's pendant. "But how? How did it reach her?" I thought to myself. A growl rolled through my chest. Low. Uncontrolled.Nero pressed hard against my skull, furious enough that my fingers curled against my sides."He KNOWS her...""I know.""He called her Luna... before we did...""Nero... I know.""He doesn't get to call her that. He will die.""Working on that..."Savannah patted my hands as I stood, removing them from her face. As I looked away from her and back to Rowan, I noticed his face had gone still.Not confused, but recogition. Which was way worse."Rowan?"His eyes met mine."The thing you are describing, Savannah. Sounds like the man I fought outside. But first how did she know that if she was inside?""I'll explain in detail later but t

AsherMabel's expression changed. Only slightly. But just enough that I saw it."You've heard that name from her..."The room seemed to shrink around us. Savannah's hand tightened around mine."What did Valtheris have to do with my mother?" I asked.Mabel looked away. "Mabel. Please."She swallowed, then lifted her eyes to mine."Your mother knew that name too."No one moved.The words lingered between us, both terrible and impossible.My mother knew Valtheris.My mother, whose ashes had awakened for Savannah. My mother, whose pendant had shown Savannah the face of the Bloodborn that was now testing our walls.Suddenly, none of it felt separate anymore.Not the box awakening.Not Savannah.Not Valtheris.Not my mother's death. I looked at Mabel."Tell me everything."For the first time since I had known her, Mabel looked like she wanted to run.And that frightened me more than Valtheris.Mabel stood in the center of the medical wing with blood on her hands and fear in her eyes.S

AsherIf the box wakes, it means he has found the next Luna.The words sat on the page in my mother's hadwriting, dark, sharp, and impossible to ignore.Savannah stood beside me, her shoulder brushing mine, her breath caught somewhere between fear and disbelief. Behind us, the cedar box pulsed softly on the desk, like a third heart had been placed inside the room. My mother had known.Not everything.Well, maybe not enough.But she had known enough to hide this beneath the hearthstone. Enough to leave a warning behind cedar and ash. Enough to lock it where only myself and my future Luna could open.My fingers tightened around the page until the edges bent."Asher," Savannah said quietly, noticing my hand. She placed hers over mine and I loosened my grip. The paper trembled anyway."I hate this..." I grumbled out, though I could feel tears forming, "I hate that my mother's final secrets are sitting in my hands and I still feel like the boy who watched his father carry her body home."