All Chapters of Forbidden by the Triplet Alphas: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

The peace lasted three months.Three months of rebuilding, of healing, of learning to live without the shadow. Three months of watching Theron train the young wolves in the yard, his voice a rough whisper but his movements still sharp, still deadly. Three months of listening to Lysander read aloud from the old texts in the library, his grey eyes scanning pages that had once been written in honey gold. Three months of holding Cassian when the nightmares came—nightmares of the fissure, of the watchers, of the moment my heart stopped in the fortress.Three months of pretending that the darkness was gone for good.Then the scouts returned.They came at dusk, their horses lathered in sweat, their faces pale beneath the grey sky. The lead scout—a young wolf named Brenna, barely more than a pup—dismounted before her horse stopped, her boots sliding on the gravel. Her eyes were wide, her hands shaking as she clutched the reins."Luna," she said. "There is something in the north. Something we

The victory at the mountain pass should have been the end.We had killed the Lycan king. We had freed his army from the shadow. The twisted wolves had scattered into the forest, their red eyes fading, their hunger gone. The war was over. The peace should have begun. But peace, I was learning, was not the absence of war. It was the presence of something harder. Healing. Trust. Forgiveness.The freed Lycans did not know how to be free. They had been shadow for so long that the light burned them. Some curled into themselves, trembling, unable to speak, their eyes staring at nothing. Others lashed out, attacking the wolves who tried to help them, their claws still sharp even if their minds were not. A few simply walked into the forest and did not come back. We found their bodies days later, cold and still, their faces peaceful as if they had finally found rest after centuries of hunger.We brought as many as we could to Blackwood Manor. The pack gave them food, blankets, shelter in the ol

The morning after the triplets knelt, the work began.Theron was in the training yard before dawn, his claws already extended, his gold eyes blazing in the grey light. The young wolves and freed Lycans gathered around him in a loose circle, their faces pale, their bodies stiff with sleep. Some of them were still wearing the tattered clothes they had worn in the mountains. Others had been given fresh tunics and boots by the pack, but they moved stiffly, unused to such comforts.Theron did not speak. He did not need to. He simply moved, and they followed. His body was a lesson, his movements a language they could understand. A strike here. A block there. A shift of weight, a turn of the hips. The wolves copied him, their blades swinging, their claws extended. The Lycans watched, their red eyes fading to grey as they learned to fight without the shadow's hunger driving them.Cassian stood at the archery range at the edge of the training yard, the first wolf's blade strapped to his back,

The gold faded from my skin like the last light of sunset, draining away into the cold stone beneath my knees. I watched it go—the light that had been in my blood since the fissure, since the bargain, since the first wolf marked me as her heir. It swirled around me for a moment, gold and warm, and then it was gone. I fell forward. The Kingslayer slipped from my hand, clattering on the stone, its symbols dark.The bond was silent. Not broken, but muted, as if someone had thrown a heavy blanket over it. I could still feel Cassian, Theron, Lysander—their heartbeats were there, but distant, muffled, like sounds heard underwater. I reached for them through the bond, and my hand found only echoes.Cassian caught me before I hit the ground. His arms were around me, his heart pounding against my back, his breath ragged in my ear. He pulled me against his chest and held me like he was afraid I would shatter."Ravenna," he said. "Ravenna, look at me."I looked. His grey eyes were wild, desperat

The hundredth day after the battle dawned cold and grey.Lysander stood at the window of the library, watching the snow fall. The flakes were small, light, drifting down from a sky the color of iron, the same iron that had bound the king's heart in the tomb beneath the ice. The forest was silent, the trees bare, the world white and still, as if the land itself was holding its breath, waiting for something that had not yet come. Three months since the king fell. Three months since Ravenna gave up the hybrid's power in a blaze of gold and light that had lit up the mountains like a second dawn. Three months of watching her heal, slowly, painfully, like a wound that would not close, like a bone that had been broken and was still learning to bear weight.She was better now. Not the same as before—she would never be the same as before—but better. She ate. She slept. She smiled. She laughed. She trained with Theron in the yard, her movements slower than they had been, but steady, her body re