Chapter 11

He came on the third night of the new moon.I knew before the guards spoke. The spirit-web shuddered, a familiar thread—frayed, poisoned, but still pulsing—trembling at the edges of my territory. He had not eaten in days. The cold had bitten his fingers. The bond-sickness had hollowed his cheeks until he resembled a skull wrapped in greying skin."Alpha," my Beta said, eyes downcast. "There is a wolf at the eastern border. He claims... he claims you owe him audience."I sat by the fire, nursing the broth that kept my strength for the pup's final weeks. My belly had grown vast, heavy, undeniable. I had dressed in midnight blue—my own color, not the crimson of warning, not the white of mourning. My own."What does he offer for this audience?" I asked."Nothing." The Beta's lip curled. "He offers... himself. Says he will serve as slave, as beast of burden, as anything you command. Says he has carved your name into his flesh, hoping to restore what he destroyed."I set down my cup. The sou

Chapter 12

The pains began at moonrise.I walked through them at first—pacing the great hall, hand trailing the stone walls my father had built, counting breaths as the Northern Pack midwives watched in silence. They had never attended a Spirit-Walker birth. They had never attended the birth of an heir to three territories."Alpha-daughter," the senior midwife said, scarred throat working, "the pup turns. The position is... difficult."I stopped, gripping a timber beam, feeling the contraction build like a wave. "Difficult for whom?""For you. The pain—""I have known worse pain." I smiled, teeth bared, silver eyes glowing in the firelight. "Continue."They worked through the night. I did not scream. I had screamed in Leon's silver cage, in his burning platform, in his abandonment. I would not give him—or the memory of him—the satisfaction of my voice raised in suffering again.Instead, I sang. The Northern songs. The songs of my grandmother, who had birthed twins alone in blizzard. The songs of

All Chapters of Beneath the Waning Moon: Chapter 11 - Chapter 12

Chapter 11

Chapter 12