Lahat ng Kabanata ng OBSESSED With The PLUS-SIZE LUNA: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

Alfredo's POV"She's asking for you."Fred appeared in the doorway of the war room where I'd spent the last two hours pulling Elder Crest's network apart with three of my most trusted men and a table full of documents that were going to end several careers before morning.I was already moving before he finished."How is she?" I asked, stepping into the corridor."Quiet," Fred replied, falling into step beside me. "Which with her means she's turning twelve things over in her head and not saying any of them out loud.""Lily?""Secured. Talking more than I expected. Gave up two more names inside the pack." A beat. "Lower level but useful.""Elder Crest?""Detained. His household staff has been told he's unwell." Fred glanced sideways at me. "He's been asking to speak with you since the moment we brought him in.""He'll wait," I replied.We moved through the east corridor toward the Luna quarters, the palace holding that particular stillness that comes after something breaks open and hasn

Mabella's POV"She's here."Fred's voice came through the door quiet and I set down the cup of water I'd been holding for ten minutes without drinking and stood up.Alfredo was watching me from across the room."You don't have to do this tonight," he replied."Yes I do," I replied.He looked at me for a moment then nodded and moved to the door and held it open and I walked through it.---The room they'd put Phebian in was on the ground floor of the east wing, bare and functional, two guards outside, one lamp burning on the table. She was sitting when I walked in, back straight, hands folded, wearing the composure of a woman who had decided dignity was the only currency she had left.She looked up when I entered.Her eyes moved over me the way they always had, that quick automatic assessment, that landing place she always found.Then they moved to Alfredo standing behind me and something in her face recalculated."Mabella," she said."Don't," I replied.I crossed the room and stood in

Mabella's POV"He kept his word."Dera set a fresh cup of tea on the table beside me and stepped back quietly, the way she always did when she could tell I was thinking.I was thinking.The sentencing hearing was in two days. The Rogue King was in the east holding room giving Fred everything he had. Phebian was in the north wing. Annabella was in hers. And I was sitting here with rope marks still fading at my wrists trying to understand why I felt so quiet.Not empty. Not numb. Just quiet. The way a room feels after a storm passes through and takes everything loose with it leaving the walls standing."My Luna," Dera said."Mm.""You haven't touched the tea," she replied.I looked at the cup. "I know."She hesitated near the wall, that particular hesitation she had when she wanted to say something and wasn't sure if she was allowed."Say it," I replied without looking up."You've been sitting there for an hour," she replied carefully. "You haven't moved and you keep looking at your wri

Mabella's POV"Lock the door."His footsteps were already fading before the click finished.I stood in the middle of the room and Dera appeared from the inner doorway, her face asking the question her mouth wasn't."Nobody opens that door except Fred or the Alpha," I replied.She nodded and sat and that was that.I sat back at the table.Nathan.I kept turning the name over. Not because I doubted it but because I was trying to trace it backward through everything I'd witnessed and find where he fit in the spaces nobody had been watching.The council hall. The wedding morning. Every moment Alfredo had been distracted or exposed and Nathan had been two steps to the left, covering, smoothing, making everything look completely ordinary.Two years.A knock at the door, sharp and fast."Who is it?" I replied."Fred. Alone."I opened it and Fred stepped inside and I closed it and one look at his face told me the footsteps in the corridor had meant exactly what I thought."He went to the hold

Mabella's POV"Put it down, Dera. And tell me who sent you."She stood there two seconds too long with the cup in her hands.That was enough.The Dera I trusted would have reacted. Would have asked what I meant. Would have done something human with her face. Instead, she set the cup down on the table and turned and the expression I had trusted every single morning just quietly wasn't there anymore."How long have you known?" she asked.Damage assessment. That was all it was."Long enough," I replied. "Who sent you?""Sit down, Mabella.""I'll stand." I held her gaze. "Who sent you?"Her eyes moved to the door behind me and back."Four men in the corridor," I replied. "Alpha is directly outside. Whatever you're thinking, stop."She let out a slow breath through her nose."I wasn't calculating an exit," she replied. "I was deciding how much to tell you.""Everything," I replied. "Name first."A long moment passed between us."Elmira," she replied.I stared at her."Elmira," I said."Yes