All Chapters of The Luna With Ruin: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

One week after the battle, Jasmina moved back into the Alpha's office.Meredith had given her clearance with conditions—no sparring, no shifting, no extended standing. Jasmina had agreed to two of the three and left the healer to figure out which ones.The office had been managed in her absence by Jetstar and Elara splitting the administrative load between them. She could see it in the desk—two different organizational systems fighting for dominance, Jetstar's neat stacks versus Elara's color-coded folders. She left it as it was. They'd both worked hard and she wasn't going to immediately reorganize their system.She sat down in the Alpha's chair with Kira in the carry wrap and opened the first file.Intel reports from the ridge scouts. Stefan had sent three teams out over the past week and the reports had been coming in every six hours as ordered. She'd read them in the birthing room. Now she read them again properly, with a map in front of her.Gareth's logging camp had expanded.Th

Vincent arrived on day twelve. Not his warriors—they'd come on day six, forty of them, efficient and well-equipped, reporting to Stefan without drama. Jasmina had met with their unit commander briefly, established terms, assigned posts.Vincent himself wasn't supposed to come.His car pulled through the main gate at four in the afternoon with two other vehicles behind it, and Jetstar appeared in Jasmina's office doorway with the look he got when something had changed."Eastern Vale Alpha," he said.Jasmina set down the commission papers. "In person?""In person."She handed Kira to Damoew, who was in the chair by the window reviewing patrol assignments, and stood up.Vincent was a big man, late fifties, with the easy authority of someone who'd been Alpha for a long time and had stopped needing to perform it. He came into the meeting room with two of his people and shook Jasmina's hand the way he always did—firm, equal, no theater."You didn't tell me you were coming," she said."No."

The scouts came back at dawn on day eighteen.Not the regular rotation. Two of them, pushing hard, arriving at the gate together instead of staggered. Stefan was already at the gate by the time they dismounted—he had an instinct for when reports weren't routine.He came to Jasmina's office at six in the morning.She was already at the desk. Kira was in the wrap.Stefan put the scout report on the desk without preamble. "He's moving."She looked at the paper. "Eighteen days.""Faster than my estimate. Faster than his own timeline if what Vincent heard was accurate." Stefan's jaw was set. "He's not waiting four weeks. He's moving now."She read the report twice.Gareth's camp had broken down overnight. Not a patrol shift—full breakdown. Tents, supply lines, the secondary structures they'd built after the retreat. All of it packed and moved. The scouts had tracked the direction of movement north-northwest.Not the logging road approach. A different route entirely."He's changed entry poi

They came at 0437. Jasmina was awake. She'd slept in two-hour intervals on the cot in the command room, radio within reach, Kira's crib beside her. When the first report came in she was already sitting up. Stefan's voice, flat and precise: "Forward scouts confirm movement at the valley entrance. Column formation, tight. They're funneling as expected." "How many in the first wave?" "Sixty to eighty. Vanguard. Gareth will hold the bulk of his force back until the passage opens." She looked at the map. The valley narrowed to forty meters at its midpoint. Sixty warriors moving through forty meters of space—it didn't matter what your total numbers were. You could only send so many at once. "Hold the mouth," she said. "Don't push in. Make them come to you." "Understood." She set the radio down and stood up.

Three weeks after the valley battle, the pack held a gathering.Not a ceremony. Not a mourning rite or a naming or a strategic assembly. Just people coming together in the main yard at evening with food and fire because they had things to celebrate and they'd earned the right to do it.Jasmina hadn't organized it. It had organized itself.That was how she knew it was real.---She stood at the edge of the yard and watched it happen.Forty-one days since Kira was born. Three weeks since the valley. Two serious injuries from that engagement both fully recovered. No deaths.Six weeks until the Grand Council session.She tracked it all the way she always did—the threats and the timelines and the things that still needed handling. The habit didn't turn off. She wasn't sure she wanted it to.But she let herself stand there and watch her pack eat and talk and exist.The alliance warriors were mixed in