All Chapters of From Torment to Luna : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

**POV: Aria**"Who are you," Aria asked, studying the figure in the moonlight."My name is Orin," the figure said. "I have served the Northern Voice for thirty seven years, since I was young enough to believe that what I was told about protecting pack stability was simply true, without question." Orin's expression carried something weathered, the look of someone who had spent decades doing difficult things and had only recently begun to question whether they had been right to do them."What changed," Aria asked."You did," Orin said simply. "Word of what happened at Silvermoon, the bloodline surfacing publicly, the alliance with Ashwood, even the situation with Selene Callum, all of it reached the Northern Voice's network within days. And the response was immediate. Plans that had been dormant for years suddenly activated." Orin paused. "I was assigned to oversee the action against the Hartley family. And for the first time in thirty seven years, I found myself unable to simply follow

**POV: Aria**The morning of the fifth day arrived quietly.Aria woke before dawn, feeling the bond humming with an awareness that told her Caden was already awake beside her, his thoughts moving through the same careful preparation hers were. They lay together in the early darkness, neither speaking, simply present with each other in the way they had learned to be, completely and without pretense."Today," he said finally."Today," she agreed.They dressed together and moved through the mansion with the focused quiet of people who had prepared thoroughly and were now simply waiting for the moment to begin. The combined Silvermoon and Ashwood warriors had positioned themselves the previous evening, guided by Orin's precise knowledge of the Northern Voice's team and their planned approach routes. Everything was in place.All that remained was the execution.Zane met them in the study with the morning's communication monitoring report. "Nothing changed overnight," he said. "The Northern

**POV: Aria**Alpha Ryker called a formal pack assembly three days after the Hartley family operation.Aria had not been told in advance what the assembly was for. The invitation had come through official channels, formal and precise, requesting her presence alongside Caden and the senior council members at a gathering of the full pack, scheduled for the following morning.She had asked Caden if he knew.He had said simply that his father had asked him to trust the timing, and that he did.She had trusted it.The morning arrived clear and cold, autumn fully settled over the territory now, and the trees along the ceremony path turned gold and deep red. The pack gathered in the main grounds, the same space where Aria had addressed them twice before, though the atmosphere today carried something different from either of those occasions.Less tension. More anticipation.Luna Sera stood beside Aria as they waited, and something in her expression suggested she knew exactly what was coming a

**POV: Selene**She had been careful.That was the thing Selene kept coming back to as she sat in her quarters inside the Shadowfang camp on the fourth morning, watching Kael's warriors move across the grounds with the focused efficiency of people who had been preparing for something for a long time and were finally within reach of it.She had been careful and precise and she had not rushed anything and yet the rock through Mara's window sat uncomfortably against everything she prided herself on.She had not ordered that.That was the part that kept nagging at her like a stone in her shoe. She had not told Kael to move yet. She had been explicit about that in their last exchange. Her terms. Her timing. She had made that the foundation of everything they had agreed to and he had confirmed it with three words and she had believed him.She took out her phone and opened the encrypted channel."The window," she typed. "That was not sanctioned."His response took four minutes."A show of pr

**POV: Aria**The meeting with the Hartley family was scheduled for three days after Selene's initial visit.Aria spent those three days preparing carefully, drawing on everything she had learned about approaching someone whose world was about to expand beyond what they had known. She thought about her own experience, about what she had needed most in those early days.Honesty. Steadiness. People who did not rush her.She intended to offer the Hartley family exactly that.The morning of the meeting, Zane brought something that complicated everything before it had properly begun.He found Aria and Caden at breakfast with the expression that had become familiar over months of difficult information arriving at inconvenient moments."Vesper sent a message this morning," Zane said. "Through her most secure channel. She has received intelligence suggesting the Northern Voice knows about the planned meeting with the Hartley family today."Aria went still. "How.""Vesper does not know," Zane