All Chapters of THE DORMANT LUNA Book 1: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

NEAHThe training bag took the first punch without complaint. And the second. And the tenth. And the thirtieth.I hit it until my knuckles split. Until the leather was smeared with red. Until the pain in my hands was loud enough to drown out the pain in my chest. A temporary trade. Cheap and brutal. But it worked.Sort of.The moment kept replaying. A loop I couldn't stop. His hand on my shoulder. The growl. The drop. The way his fingers just fell away from me like I was made of nothing. Like three years of nightmares and bear hugs and sleeping in my room and finishing my sentences meant less than a three-day bond with a girl whose name I learned five minutes ago.Go after who?Two words. That's all it took to gut me.He didn't even know I left the room. He didn't notice. His twin. His first friend. The girl who was born eleven minutes before him. And he didn't notice her walking out the door because his wolf was too busy orbiting a woman with green eyes and a growl that rearranged hi

NEAHThe kitchen became a war zone in three seconds flat.Caleb stepped inside. His body was rigid. Every muscle coiled. His hazel eyes burned with something I had never seen directed at another person in his own territory. Pure, volcanic fury.Liam didn't move from the stool beside me. Didn't stand. Didn't shift. Didn't even blink. He just turned his head slowly and looked at Caleb with the calm, measured expression of a man who had faced things far more dangerous than an angry young Alpha in his own kitchen."I said get away from her." Caleb's voice was low. Tight. The words squeezed through clenched teeth."She's injured. I was helping." Liam's tone was flat. Unbothered. Which made Caleb angrier. Of course it did. You can't fight a wall."I don't care what you were doing. I care that you're doing it in my house. Near my sister. Without my permission.""I don't need your permission."The air changed.Not gradually. Not slowly. All at once. Like someone had flipped a switch and the a

NEAHI knew the pattern because I lived it.The walls going up. The distance growing. The slow, methodical withdrawal from everyone who cared. The smile that showed teeth but never reached the eyes. The laughter that was performance, not joy.Neah was doing exactly what I did when my mother walked out. Building a fortress inside herself. Brick by brick. Person by person. Shutting every door and bolting every window until she was alone inside her own head with nothing but her pain for company.I watched her pull away from Diane. From Caleb. From the packhouse itself. She moved into the warriors' quarters like it was a choice instead of a retreat. She ate alone. Trained alone. Sat alone at the edge of every conversation like a guest at a party she hadn't been invited to.Shane still made her laugh. But the laughter was hollow. Miles still brought her food. She ate it but didn't taste it. Theo still watched her back. She let him but didn't acknowledge it.She was disappearing. And everyo

THEOI sat with the footage for six hours before I made my move.Not because I needed time to decide what to do. I knew what to do. The question was how. Strategy wasn't about knowing the right answer. It was about knowing the right sequence.Option one: tell Neah immediately. Show her the footage. Let her see Liam's hands on her phone at 2 AM. Watch her cut him off like a dead branch and never look back.She would do it too. Without hesitation. The girl had been lied to by her mother, her aunt, and her best friend in the span of one week. One more betrayal and she wouldn't just build walls. She would burn the bridges on the other side of them.But that was the problem. If I told Neah without understanding why Liam deleted the message, I would be giving her a weapon without ammunition. She would know he lied. She wouldn't know why. And Neah was not a person who operated on incomplete information. She would spiral. Question everything. Pull away from the one ally who had the military r

LIAMI tried four times.The first time was at breakfast. Neah was alone in the kitchen pouring coffee. Her braids were pulled back tight and the bandage on her arm was fresh. She looked up when I walked in and something in her eyes softened. Just barely. Just enough to make my chest crack open.I opened my mouth. Caleb walked in behind me. "Liam, we need to talk about the alliance structure. My father wants a meeting."Neah's softness disappeared behind the wall. She took her coffee and left.The second time was after the meeting. I caught her in the hallway. She stopped. Looked at me. The hallway compressed the way it always did when we were alone in tight spaces. Her scent hit me like a wave. Lavender and honey. Stronger today."Can we talk?" I asked."About what?"Jax called. My phone buzzed in my pocket with the ringtone I'd assigned to emergencies only. Neah looked at the phone. Then at me. Then walked away.The third time was mid-afternoon. Diane called a family meeting about p