All Chapters of City of Two Moons : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Chapter 12: The Unfamiliar Pulse POV: Kael Draven Duty is what moved my feet toward the east wing. Duty and nothing else. I had put this visit off for two days. I told myself the council and the border trouble were more pressing. The truth was simpler. I wanted the river's scent to fade from her skin first so I could read what was underneath it. I needed to know the condition of the woman I was binding myself to in less than fourty-eight hours. If she was broken, I needed to know how badly. The guards outside her door snapped straight as I approached, their heartbeats jumping. I didn't look at them. I took one breath at the door, centred my wolf, and pushed it open. The air stopped me before anything else did. Selene's scent had always been easy to read. Lavender and soft rain, and underneath that, whenever I walked into her space, a sharp spike of anxiety mixed with something heavy and longing. The smell of a girl who had spent ten years wanting something from a man who had nev

Chapter 14: The Lag in the Pulse POV: Riven Ashford The Great Hall was packed and loud and hot with the collective breath of the Silver Moon. I stood at the base of the dais where the Ashford line had always stood, the silent point between the throne and the crowd. Every other wolf in this room was feeling the ceremony the way it was meant to be felt. I was watching it. I watched Kael the way I had always watched him, the way you watch something you have spent your whole life learning. I knew the language of every muscle in that man. I knew the exact rhythm of his heartbeat at rest and under pressure. He was built for precision. He did not hesitate. He did not falter. Until the marking. When he pressed his wrist to hers I saw it. A fraction of a second, nothing more. His shoulders locked. His body went completely still, the kind of still that has nothing to do with calm. His scent spiked, a sharp metallic edge cutting through the cedar. Then it was over, and he was moving again.

Chapter 16: The Unnamed CurrentPOV: Kael DravenMoonlight lay across the floor of my study in a wide pale stripe. Outside, the night circuit was running. I could feel it through the stone under my feet, hundreds of wolves moving in a steady tide across the borderlands, their collective presence a single pulse of territory and identity. I usually ran in front of it.Tonight I stood at the window and watched them go.My wolf was pacing hard at the back of my mind, dragging its claws against every attempt I made to stay still. I should have been out there. Paws on the dirt, lungs burning, the noise of the pack drowning out everything else. But I couldn't move. Something had lodged itself in my chest during the coronation and hadn't shifted since.I watched the last of the patrol disappear into the tree line below.My mind went back to the dais. It had done nothing else since sundown.I looked at my right wrist. The skin looked the same. Underneath it, the nerves still felt like somethin

Chapter 18: Boardroom of the WolvesPOV: Lina HaleIf I had known that being a queen involved this much sitting in cold rooms listening to men argue about dirt, I might have thought harder before jumping off that bridge.I sat to Kael's left at the obsidian council table doing my best impression of someone whose brain was still waterlogged. The look required a soft unfocused gaze, occasional slow blinking, and absolutely no expression that suggested I understood anything being said. Internally I was running at full speed.The council chamber was stone and fur and twelve men who all looked like they wrestled for recreation. I felt like a very confused canary in a room full of wolves. Which, technically, was accurate."Luna's presence is a blessing," one of the elders said, dipping his head toward me."I'm glad to be here," I said, with a small fragile smile. "Even when I'm not entirely sure where it is."The pitying looks came right on schedule. Good. The scrambled brain card was in pl

Chapter 20: Emotional Hand-Me-DownsPOV: Lina HaleI was looking for the library. You would think a castle this size would have some kind of signage but no, just endless hallways that all smell like dust and old decisions.I stopped to look at a heavy velvet tapestry and the scent hit me before I saw anything. Sweet and thick, overripe fruit and beeswax. A candle someone had burned recently nearby.The corridor disappeared.I was gripping a window frame, knuckles white. Kael was below in the courtyard, his laugh carrying up, sharp and bright, a sound I had never actually heard from him. My chest was caving in because he was looking at Lyra. Not at me. Never at me.I gasped and hit the wall behind me."Okay," I said out loud, one hand pressed to my sternum. "That was not mine. I don't own that dress, I don't stand at windows watching people laugh, and I did not just feel that. Brain, you are malfunctioning and I need you to stop.""My Luna?"I nearly came out of my skin. Betty had mate