All Chapters of Return of the Rejected Luna: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

25 Chapters

Not to Strangers

"Papa! Papa!"The sudden cry fractured the courtyard's suffocating silence.Zarek dropped to one knee, his massive frame absorbing the impact as Malakai threw himself forward. For a fleeting second, the ruthless Alpha vanished. In his place was a father burying his face in a tangle of unruly dark hair, a heavy palm cupping the boy’s head with quiet, fiercely protective warmth."Malakai," Zarek murmured, his voice losing its harsh edge. "I told you to remain in the grand hall.""You took too long," the boy mumbled against his shoulder. As he pulled back, his curious gaze drifted over Zarek’s shoulder, locking onto the frayed hem of my skirt and the tiny, hooded figure seeking refuge behind my hip.Naya’s fingers tightened against my palm, her breath hitching as she shrank further into my shadow."Malakai, sweetie. Step back now. Your father is tired."The voice was smooth, melodic, and perfectly measured. Emerging from the arched shadows of the palace entrance, a woman stepped into the

You Do Not Have A Choice In This Matter

The door clicked shut behind us.Then came the sound I'd been dreading since we stepped into this palace - the scrape of a key turning in the lock.Locked in."Mommy?"Naya's voice was too small for a room this large. She'd pushed her hood back, and her silver eyes darted across the high ceiling, the velvet drapes, the massive four-poster bed that could have fit four grown wolves. She looked at the arched doorway leading to the second room, and her chin wobbled."Is... is that where I'm supposed to sleep? By myself?"I knelt in front of her, my hands finding her shoulders. "It's just a smaller room, sweetie. It's safe.""No." She threw herself against me, her arms locking around my neck. A sob broke loose from somewhere deep in her chest. "Please, Mommy. Don't make me go in there alone. The walls are too big. They feel like they're going to squash me. What if the bad things from the woods come through the glass?"My chest cracked right down the middle.I lifted her easily; she was stil

Mother to Mother

The servant's passage was narrow enough that my shoulders brushed both walls.The only light came from thin slits in the stone where the inner corridors bled torchlight through, just enough to see the maid's back, just enough to avoid tripping on the uneven floor.I counted the turns. Left at the first fork. Down a spiraling staircase that made my thighs burn. Right at a tapestry I could not clearly see. The fabric was coarse wool, not silk, and it smelled of dust and cedar.The maid had not spoken since we entered the passage. Her shoulders were hunched high, and her pace kept quickening, like she was trying to outrun something."If this is a trap," I said, my voice echoing strangely in the narrow space, "you should know I've survived worse."She did not answer."Worse than an ambush. Worse than whatever your master has planned. I spent seven years in the dead zone with a silent wolf and a newborn. There is nothing anyone in this palace can do to me that I haven't already survived."S

Never Again

I woke to the sound of humming.It was not a tune I recognized. It was merely something Naya had made up, a meandering melody that rose and fell without pattern.She was sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed, her dark hair a wild tangle from sleep, arranging the pillows into some kind of fortress.The light through the windows was pale. Still early. The fire had died to ash."Mommy, you're awake." Naya crawled over the covers toward me, her silver eyes bright. "I've been waiting and waiting. The sun is up but they haven't brought us breakfast yet. I think they've forgotten about us.""They haven't forgotten." My voice came out rough with sleep. I cleared my throat. "It's still early.""How early?""Too early for you to be this awake."She giggled and flopped onto her back, her arms spread wide. "I was bored. You were sleeping forever."I turned my head toward the windows. The bars were still intact. The door was still locked. Everything was exactly as it had been when I fell asle

Twenty Minutes

The door was unlocked.I discovered this by accident. I had pressed my palm against it while pacing, running through the letter's words for the hundredth time, and the latch gave way beneath the weight. The door swung inward an inch before I caught it.I stared at the gap.Last night, the bolt had been thrown. I had heard it slide home after Oreeka brought me back from Cressida's meeting. This morning, it was open.Probably a mistake by the guard who delivered breakfast. Or perhaps a test by Zarek.Or none of those things. Maybe I was too exhausted to think clearly. Maybe the guards had simply gotten careless.I told Naya I would return soon. I told her to lock herself in and not open the door for anyone, not even if they claimed to have cake. She rolled her eyes at that, which I chose to take as agreement. Then I slipped into the corridor and pulled the door shut behind me.~`~`~`~`~`~`|~`~`~`~`~`~`|~`~`~`~`~`~`The servant's passage was darker and longer than I remembered.I had trie

One of the Stars

I had told her yes. I had told her he would be proud. Then I had tucked her into the big bed and waited for her breathing to slow.Now the fire had burned to embers and the room was dark yet sleep would not grace my eyes.I stood at the window with my palms pressed against the cold stone. The bars were still there, black iron against the night sky, but beyond them the stars were out.Thousands of them. Bright, beautiful and impossibly far away.Theron had loved the stars.I closed my eyes and I could see him. Not as he was at the end, grey and fading and coughing blood into a cloth. But as he was when Naya was still small enough to carry on my hip, when the dead zone still felt like sanctuary instead of exile.It had been one of those nights when sleep refused to come.Naya was maybe eighteen months old, teething and furious about it, and I had spent hours walking her in circles around the cottage while she screamed against my shoulder. When she finally exhausted herself into silence,

One of Us

"Theron was one of us."The elder's voice carried across the courtyard, thin and reedy, the voice of a man who had spoken at too many funerals and meant too few of his words.I stood to the left of the pyre with my daughter's hand clenched in mine and I thought about what those words were worth.One of us.As if they had not let him walk away. As if they had not spent years pretending he never existed while he tended his herbs and watched the stars alone in the dead zone. As if any of these wolves, with their bowed heads and their solemn faces, had ever truly known him at all.They knew the chief strategist.They knew the name inscribed on old war documents.They did not know the man who hummed off-key while he sorted his herbs, completely unaware he was doing it.They did not know the man who could not tell a joke to save his life, who always ruined the punchline by laughing before he reached it.They did not know the man who taught my daughter to read by firelight. They did not know

Still Watching You

"Theron was my teacher," he said, and his voice was rough, surprisingly so. It was not the voice of an Alpha merely addressing his pack. "He was the first man who ever told me I was wrong. He was the first man who ever made me believe I could be right."I did not want to look at him. I looked at him anyway."I was young when he took me under his guidance. Arrogant. Reckless. I thought being Alpha meant being the strongest wolf in the room. Theron taught me that strength was not the same as wisdom. He taught me that a pack was not built on fear. He taught me that the hardest decisions were the ones that kept me awake at night, and if I ever stopped losing sleep over them, I had stopped being the Alpha my pack deserved.""I did not always follow his counsel. There were times I thought I knew better. Times I was wrong." His eyes never left mine. "I was wrong about many things."The words hung in the air between us. I did not move. I did not breathe.Cressida's head turned, just slightly.

Old Friends, New Plans

The guards at the Western wing stepped aside without meeting my eyes, as they always did.Lila followed me inside. I heard the exact moment she registered the bars on the windows. The gasp she let out was too loud to go unnoticed."Charming," she said flatly."It's temporary.""It's a prison cell with silk curtains." She ran a finger along the iron lattice, tracing the scrollwork that was meant to disguise its purpose, and her mouth tightened into an unimpressed line. "How long have you been locked in here?"I laid Naya on the big bed and pulled the covers to her chin. She was already gone, the exhaustion of the funeral dragging her under before her head touched the pillow. "Since the night we arrived.""And Zarek signed off on this.""Zarek has a council breathing down his neck and a woman in his bed who'd rather I didn't exist. His signature is not required."Lila dropped into the chair by the hearth with the gracelessness of someone who had stopped performing for anyone a long time

What A Watcher Sees

Naya had arranged her lunch into a battlefield. Apple slices were soldiers. The honey pot was a fortress. She was making small explosion sounds under her breath, too absorbed in her war to notice I hadn't eaten a bite."The carrots are dying bravely," I said."The carrots are traitors. They're fighting for the wrong side.""Which side is that?"She gave me a look that suggested I had asked something deeply stupid. "The side that loses."I pushed my plate away. The grey gown I'd worn to the funeral was draped over the chair, and I was back in the frayed dress from the dead zone, the one that still smelled faintly of Theron's herbs. I had not been able to bring myself to wash it. Grief made you hold onto stupid things.Naya's battle sounds faded. She had stopped moving, her hand suspended over an advancing carrot, her head tilted toward the window."Mommy."Something in her voice pulled me to my feet before I'd made the decision to stand."There's a bird," she said. "It's been there sinc

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