All Chapters of THE ALPHA'S CURSED LUNA : Chapter 21 - Chapter 27

KAEL'S POVThe fortress burns.Not with fire—with silence. The kind of silence that follows violence, heavy and stunned, like the world itself is holding its breath. Warriors stand in the courtyard staring at black dust. Servants peer from doorways with wide, white eyes. No one speaks. No one moves.I hold Lyra in my arms. She weighs nothing. She weighs everything."Medic!" I shout. My voice cracks the silence. Shatters it. "Someone get a healer! Now!"Feet scramble. Boots on stone. I do not look up. I only look at her.Her face is pale. Too pale. The silver light has faded from her skin, leaving her gray and cold. Her breath comes in shallow gasps. Each one sounds like it might be her last."Lyra." I press my forehead to hers. "Stay with me. Please. I just found you. Do not leave me."Her eyes flutter open. Brown and gold and barely focused."Kael," she whispers. "The dust. Do not let them touch the dust."I look at the black powder covering the courtyard. It shifts in the night bree

LYRA'S POVThe feather should not exist.I stare at the crushed remains beneath my heel. Black dust. Like the hunters. But different. Older. The Moon Queen is gone. The First Hunter is wounded. There should be no one left to drop feathers from empty skies.Yet here it is."Lyra." Kael's voice is low. Warning. "Step back."I do not step back. I kneel. My fingers brush the dust. It tingles. Not cold like the hunters. Warm. Almost alive.A vision slams into me.A room of mirrors. Infinite reflections. In each one, a woman with my face. Some young. Some old. Some smiling. Some screaming. They reach toward me through the glass, mouths open in silent pleas.And behind them all, watching from the darkest mirror, a figure. Not the Moon Queen. Not the First Hunter. Something else. Something that wears no face because it has borrowed them all."Lyra!" Kael shakes me. The vision shatters. I gasp, sucking air like a drowning woman."What did you see?" he demands.I tell him. The mirrors. The face

LYRA'S POVSix months.Six months since the sky cracked and sealed. Six months since Kael and I became something new. Six months of learning to live with power shared instead of power borne alone.I sit in the garden behind the fortress. Not a real garden—nothing grows easily in mountain stone—but Kael had soil carried up. Had seeds planted. Had patience.A rose blooms beside me. Red. Stubborn. Alive.I touch the mark on my wrist. It no longer glows. No longer warns. Just... is. A scar. A memory. A promise kept."Lyra."I look up. Kael stands in the doorway, a letter in his hand. His face is strange. Not afraid. Not happy. Something between."What is it?" I ask.He sits beside me. The rose between us. His thumb traces the matching mark on his own wrist."A messenger came from Silver Ridge," he says quietly.My blood stills. "My father?""Dead." Kael's voice is flat. No triumph. No grief. Just fact. "Gambling debt. Different creditor. They found him in a ditch three weeks ago."I wait

KAEL'S POVThe woman vanishes, but her absence remains.I feel it in my teeth. In my bones. In the bond stretched between Lyra and me, humming with a frequency that makes my wolf want to howl and hide at the same time. The crack in the sky does not close. It simply... waits. A wound that has forgotten how to heal."Alpha?" Captain Dain's voice is rough. Terrified. "What was that?"I do not answer. I am staring at Lyra.She stands in the center of the courtyard, naked in my too-large shirt, her dark hair tangled by wind that should not exist. The mark on her wrist blazes with that nameless color. Not silver. Not gray. Something that hurts to look at directly.Her eyes find mine. Through the bond, I feel her confusion. Her fear. And beneath it, something harder. Anger."They're not hunters," she says quietly. "Not gods. Not anything with a name.""Then what are they?" Dain asks.Lyra looks at the crack. At the absences moving behind it. "The end of names," she whispers. "The end of stor