All Chapters of THE LUNA HE THREW AWAY: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

I’m not sure how long I stood there after Kael left. The fog thickened at the doors, cold against my skin. The whispers started again, loud and merciless, scraping at the raw edge inside me. Someone laughed, sharp and bright like a match striking. That sound cut right through me.A heat started low in my stomach, something I’d never felt before, like I’d swallowed an ember. At first, I thought it was grief or the mate bond breaking, burning as it went. But it didn’t feel like losing something. It felt like something inside me was waking up. My hands shook, not from fear, but from trying to hold back whatever wanted out. My vision sharpened. The candles looked too bright. The voices were too loud. I could hear every heartbeat in the room, each one like a separate drum. I pressed my nails into my palms and tried to breathe. Was I shifting? No. It wasn’t that simple. My bones didn’t change. There was no fur, no muzzle, no wolf coming forward. What rose in me was older than any of that. I

The forest didn’t care that I was shaking.I’d been running for ten minutes, or maybe it was more or less. Time felt strange since the Hall. The trees didn’t slow down for me. They just kept coming, dark and close, their branches scraping my arms and the hem of my mother’s ruined dress. Mud tugged at my shoes with every step, almost like it wanted to decide for me. Go back. Sink down. Stop.I kept moving.The power that had filled the Hall was gone. Whatever that force was, the one that made a thousand wolves kneel, it had pulled back into the deep, leaving me hollow, cold, and painfully human. For a moment in that room, it had felt like a river bursting through my veins, moonlight burning just under my skin, humming with a language older than words. Now, it was just absence, a shadow where something wild and ancient had been. My lungs burned. My ankles felt rooted to the ground. The locket Jax gave me knocked against my collarbone with every step, and I clung to its sound like a hear

The tree was still bent in half when Fen came back.I sat in the dirt in front of the tree, staring at the split trunk as if it could explain itself. My hands had stopped shaking a few minutes ago. Still, tension gripped me. The shock lingered, leaving me suspended, caught between a cold numbness and a sudden, creeping panic that pressed at my chest."Still staring?" Fen dropped beside me. "You break things and expect apologies."“I didn’t mean to break it that much,” I said.“You never mean to.” He picked up a piece of bark from the ground and turned it over in his hands. “That’s the whole problem.”I wiped mud off my cheek. "Why are you helping me?""You asked me that already.""You didn't answer."He looked at me sideways. "I answered. You just didn't like it."I hadn’t liked his answer. When he talked about debts and old stories, my confusion swelled into frustration. Each time he muttered about a river crossing in winter or flinched at the scars on my wrist, new questions crowded

The bolt hit Kael in the shoulder.Not me. Him.He threw himself sideways, not to avoid the bolt but right into its path. The silver tip sank just below his collarbone. He made a sound I’d never heard from him before. It was low and animal, but not like a wolf. It sounded more human.He went down on one knee.Serena stared at him. For one second, she looked like she hadn’t planned for this either.That second was all I needed.I didn’t use the power. I just moved. I took three steps across the clearing and drove my elbow into her jaw so hard I felt it in my teeth. She turned, and the crossbow spun out of her hands into the mud. Without thinking, I kicked it farther into the dark.Serena looked up at me from the ground, blood on her lip, and for the first time since I’d known her, she looked genuinely afraid.“Don’t,” I said. That’s all.She didn’t move.I turned around. Kael was still on one knee, holding his shoulder. His gold eyes watched me with an expression I couldn’t name. The b

Nobody slept.Kael leaned against a thick root, eyes closed, and jaw clenched. Fen had disappeared into the darkness an hour ago and still hadn’t returned. I sat three feet from the pool, close enough to see my reflection but far enough to pretend I wasn’t thinking about it.The water stayed still. No wind, no current. It was black and calm, as if it were waiting for me. Once, Fen had told a story about the first Sovereign who tried to claim the Hollow- a legend about a pool that never froze or dried, filled with memories the earth couldn’t keep buried. Some said the pool was older than the walls around us. Others whispered that its surface was a door, not a mirror, meant for secrets, not wishes. I didn’t know what to believe, except that it felt like looking into a place that remembered everything.I’d been staring at it for an hour. Maybe more.“You’re going to look eventually,” Kael said. His eyes were still closed.“I’m not looking for your commentary.”“That wasn’t commentary. Th