All Chapters of BENEATH THE CRIMSON MOON : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Troy walked into Drak's territory alone.No backup. No weapon. Just him and the decision he had made standing under Tyra's dark window last night watching her candle go out and understanding with complete certainty that there was no version of this where he chose the pack over her.The safehouse was three miles out.He shifted to get there faster.The pain hit the moment he dropped to all fours, bones reshaping, spine cracking, his slim frame folding into something larger and darker and faster than anything human. He ran through it. Three miles of cold forest floor under his paws and the wind in his face and his wolf completely settled in a way it had not been settled since the last time he sat in Tyra's alley.He shifted back at the tree line.Stood in the cold breathing hard.Walked in.Drak was not alone.Marcus stood against the far wall with his arms folded and his face doing that thing it did when he already knew how something was going to end and wished he did not. Rena was bes

Troy was sitting on her front step when she got home.She stopped walking.He stood up.They looked at each other across the lamplit street and she told herself she was only here because she needed information and he was the only person in Grimwall who might have any."I need to show you something," she said. "That is all this is.""Okay," he said.She walked past him up the stairs.He followed.She lit the candle, sat on the edge of her bed and held the necklace out toward him without a word.He looked at it.Then he crossed the room, crouched in front of her and looked at it properly.His face changed.Not the careful managed shift she was used to. Something real. Something that moved through him fast and left him looking at the pendant with an expression she had never seen on him before.Not recognition exactly.Something closer to unease."Where did you get this," he said quietly."A woman at the market," she said. "Said it belonged to my mother. Said I deserved to know the truth.

She read for two hours without stopping.Eve's diary was not what she expected.It was not a confession. Not a message. Not something written for anyone except the woman writing it. It was just a person's private thoughts pressed onto paper day by day and Tyra read every word with the particular intimacy of someone looking through a window they were never supposed to find.Twelfth of March.I saw him again today. He was at the bread stall on the east road. He did not see me. Or he pretended not to which with him amounts to the same thing. He is very good at pretending.I am also very good at pretending.We would be terrible for each other.Tyra almost smiled.Fifteenth of March.His name is Aldrian.I found that out by accident. Someone called it across the market and he turned and I saw his face properly for the first time and I thought oh. Oh that is a problem.He has gold eyes.I have never seen gold eyes on a wolf before. Most of them are amber or brown. His are gold. Proper gold.

They came out of the south gate running.Not sprinting. Troy had taught her that sprinting in the dark told everyone within two streets exactly where you were and exactly how scared you were. So they walked fast. Purposeful. Like two people who had somewhere to be and were not afraid of anything.She was afraid of everything."Both worlds," she said under her breath. "At the same time.""Yes," Troy said."How does that happen," she said. "Wolves and vampires hate each other. They do not coordinate.""They do when the target is worth more to both of them than their hatred of each other," he said.She absorbed that while they turned left past the broken fountain."I am worth more than a century of supernatural war," she said."Yes," he said simply.She almost laughed.Almost.They cut through the tannery gap and came out on the river road and Troy pulled her into the shadow of the old bridge and stopped.He looked both ways.Listened."We have maybe four minutes," he said."Then talk fa

"Who," Tyra said.Troy opened his mouth.A howl split the night air before he could answer.Not distant. Close. Two streets over at most. Long and deliberate and nothing like the soft sounds Troy made in her alley at night. This was a signal. Pack communication. And whatever it was saying made Troy grab her arm and pull her into the nearest doorway hard enough that her shoulder hit the frame."Move," he said. "Now.""You did not answer me," she said."I will answer while we run." He looked both ways. "Go."They ran.She kept pace with him through the back streets, cutting left past the tannery, right through the gap by the river wall, her boots hitting wet cobblestones and her breath clouding the cold air and Troy's hand on her arm steering her through turnings she never would have found alone."Clark," Troy said while they ran. "Your mother's brother. Eve's blood. He has been in Grimwall for three days sending those messages.""He is family," she said."Yes," Troy said."Why did he n