All Chapters of Luna's Reckoning : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Creek's POVThe howling from the eastern forest did not stop.I stood in the middle of Kael's study and listened to it and counted. At least thirty wolves from the sound of it, maybe more, spread across a wide area which meant this was not a small operation put together quickly. Someone had been planning this for weeks. Moving wolves into position slowly, carefully, in numbers small enough not to trigger Moonridge border alerts.This was organized. Professional. Patient.I respected it even as it made my skin crawl.The voice on my device was still there. Waiting. Letting me listen to the chaos outside and understand exactly how thoroughly I had been outmaneuvered tonight."You planned this before Voss arrived at Redwood territory," I said."We planned this before Aria invoked the Right of Truth," the voice said. "Her move just told us the timing was finally right.""Who are you," I said."My name is Bram Vale," the voice said. "Deron Vale was my older brother."I closed my eyes for e

Creek's POVRowan Steele lived forty minutes south of Moonridge territory in a lodge built into the side of a mountain that most people did not know existed. I had been there four times in fifteen years and every time I arrived unannounced he opened the door like he had been expecting me. That was the thing about Rowan. He was always prepared. It was what made him useful and what made him dangerous in equal measure.I reached his gate just before three in the morning. Two of his wolves stepped out of the shadows immediately with their hands on their weapons. I held up both hands slowly."Tell him Creek is here," I said.They looked at each other. One of them disappeared toward the lodge while the other kept his eyes on me without blinking. Three minutes later the first wolf returned and waved me through without a word.Rowan was sitting by the fire when I walked in. He was a broad man in his late fifties with silver hair cut close and pale gray eyes that never seemed to fully warm up

Creek's POVA signed confession from someone inside the regional council structure.I stood on the path outside Rowan's lodge and turned that information over slowly in my mind the way you turn a stone over to see what is living underneath it. My contact had said the authentication request described it as a living witness to events connected to the Vale murder. Not Voss. Someone else. Someone who had been inside the council structure for years.There were not many people that description fit.I ran through the list carefully. Every person who had ever been close enough to the council's inner workings to know anything worth confessing about the Vale murder. The list was shorter than most people would have assumed because I had spent forty years making sure it stayed short. Every loose end managed. Every potential witness either brought inside the arrangement or removed from the equation permanently.And yet someone had slipped through.I put my device back in my pocket and started wal

Creek's POVBy midday I had three of my four operations running exactly as planned and the fourth was close enough that I was not concerned.Rowan's procedural challenge had been filed and accepted for review, buying the forty eight hours I needed on Voss's testimony. Marcus had stood up in the session chamber and argued against it with everything he had and Rowan had sat there absorbing it with the calm patience of a man who knew exactly how much time he was buying and why. The other judges had voted to allow the review. Two to one with Rowan as the deciding vote. Victoria had looked across the chamber at Rowan with ice blue eyes that could have cut glass but she could not override a legitimate procedural vote and she knew it.The emergency override on Edmund Hale's confession was sitting unsigned on a desk belonging to a man who would not be reachable until tomorrow morning at the earliest.Damien had returned to Redwood territory three hours ago.And Kael was still out there somew

Aria's POVMira would not let anyone else in the room while she worked on Voss.She had been in there for two hours with her herb pouches spread across the table and her healer robes pushed up past her elbows and a focused expression on her face that meant she was using every single thing she knew. I sat on the floor outside the door with my back against the wall and my knees pulled to my chest and waited because there was nothing else I could do and I have never been good at nothing.Elena sat beside me. She did not try to fill the silence with reassurance and I loved her for that. Some people when they do not know what to say fill the space with words that mean nothing. Elena understood that sometimes the most honest thing you could offer someone was just your presence and your silence and the warmth of another person sitting close enough that their shoulder touched yours.Marcus was at the end of the corridor on his communication device, his voice too low for human ears but my wolf