All Chapters of The Blood Moon Prophecy : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Kaelen"He's calling again."Asgard held the phone out toward me and I looked at it for a moment before I took it. The second call from Riven Nightfall in twelve hours. I had spent those twelve hours doing three things: preparing my soldiers, trying to locate the exact position Anara was being held, and failing to sleep for longer than forty minutes at a stretch because every time I closed my eyes I heard three words in her voice.*Don't give him anything.*I answered."You've had time to think," Riven said."I have," I said."And?""I want confirmation she's unharmed before this conversation goes any further."A brief pause. Then, "She's unharmed. She's also, for what it's worth, considerably more difficult than you led me to expect."Something moved through me at that. Relief first, sharp and immediate. Then something else underneath it that was almost fond, which was infuriating given the circumstances."The crystal," Riven said. "Yes or no."I looked at the Blood Moon Crystal lyin

Kaelen’s povShe fell asleep in under ten minutes.I knew because I was watching. Not in a way I was particularly proud of, just sitting in the chair beside her bed in the low lamplight, watching her breathing slow and her hands loosen against the pillow and the tight, careful expression she wore when she was awake gradually release itself into something younger and softer and completely unguarded.The crystal was on the table beside her. She had not let go of it until she was almost entirely asleep, and even then her fingers had uncurled from it slowly, reluctantly, like she was afraid it would be gone when she woke up."You're staring," Nyx said."I'm watching," I said. "There's a difference.""Is there.""Yes. Staring is purposeless. I am watching because she was in a dungeon twelve hours ago and I would like confirmation that she is actually resting and not just performing it."Nyx made the sound he made when he found something I said technically defensible but fundamentally disho

ANARA I didn’t mean to fall asleep.After we left the library, I went back to my room to change. Liora showed up with food and sat with me while I ate, filling me in on everything that had happened in the pack house while I’d been gone. Somewhere in the middle of her story about Vexa’s dramatic reaction to the formal hall events, I leaned back against the pillows. The warmth of the room and the solid, comforting presence of Seraphis inside me did the rest.The dream started quietly.I found myself in a room I knew instantly the private sitting room attached to the queen’s chambers in Nightveil. It was the same place my mother used to read in the evenings, with just one lamp glowing on the side table and her feet tucked under her on the wide chair by the window. I hadn’t been inside that room since I was eleven, but every detail was burned into my memory: the blue curtains, the worn patch on the arm of her chair where she always rested her elbow, and that particular warm, slightly flo

KAELEN I ended the tournament at breakfast.Nothing dramatic. I simply walked into the dining hall while everyone was still eating, told Elder Thorne to clear the room, and when he gave me that look he always saved for decisions he didn’t like, I told him again. He cleared the room.Then I sat down and told the remaining elders that the selection was over. No more trials, no more scoreboard, and no more pretending I was going to stand in the formal hall at the end of it all and pick a Luna from a lineup of women I’d barely spoken to in three weeks.“The pack requires a Luna,” Elder Thorne said in that formal tone he used when he wanted to remind me the council had opinions.“The pack requires stability,” I replied. “And I’m working on that.”“And the matter of a mate bond?” he pressed.“Also being worked on.”He stared at me for a long moment, then closed his tablet with a sharp click, gave one nod, and left. The others followed without a word.I sat alone in the empty dining hall fo

ANARAThe news came in the middle of the night.I woke to hurried footsteps in the hallway and found Kaelen already sitting up beside me, wide awake. His hand rested firmly on my shoulder, like he was trying to keep me anchored even before I was fully conscious.“Stay here,” he said.I didn’t.By the time I’d thrown on his shirt and stepped into the corridor, he was already down at the far end talking with Asgard. The two of them stood close, tense, the kind of body language men get when they’ve just heard something they really don’t like. Neither of them told me to go back to bed when I approached. That alone told me how bad it was.“Alpha Malachar is dead,” Asgard said quietly.The hallway felt suddenly too still.“When?” Kaelen asked.“The message arrived an hour ago. He collapsed this evening. They think the poison finally got him.”“And Riven?”Asgard’s jaw tightened. “He’s formally declared war. The declaration from Duskbane came twenty minutes later. They’re blaming Virelith fo