Todos los capítulos de MOONBOUND : Capítulo 21 - Capítulo 30

The letter arrived three weeks after Priya's exile, delivered by a courier wolf from a northern pack Redoak had no standing relationship with, addressed simply to "The Alpha of Redoak Hollow" in handwriting that made Vane go pale the moment he saw it over Rhys's shoulder."I know that hand," he said quietly, before Rhys had even broken the seal.Rhys looked up sharply. "You recognize it.""It's Elara Rourke's," Vane said, and the name landed in the study like a stone dropped into still water. "Cael Rourke's mother."I felt the air go tight around us. "She's alive?""She was, last I knew," Vane said, something old and guilty moving behind his eyes. "Which was longer ago than I ever told either of you."Rhys set the unopened letter down slowly, his gaze fixed on his father with a stillness that carried its own kind of warning. "How long ago, exactly."Vane didn't answer immediately, and the silence stretched long enough to confirm what none of us wanted to hear."Thirty years," he said

The lead came from an unlikely source — a trade caravan passing through Redoak's southern edge, its wolves stopping only long enough to restock supplies before continuing on toward territories further south. One of them, an older woman named Ilsa who'd clearly seen enough of the world to have opinions about most of it, cornered me at the market stalls with a directness that caught me off guard."You're the Luna," she said, not quite a question. "Vane's mate.""I am," I said. "Sable.""Then you should know something I heard two territories back, in a tavern that gets more honest talk than it probably should." She glanced around, lowering her voice despite the open market around us. "There's a name circulating among certain unsavory circles. Someone financing old rogue networks, buying loyalty from packs too broken or desperate to refuse coin. I heard it mentioned alongside your territory's recent troubles."My pulse quickened. "What name?""Marrow," she said. "Just that. No pack affili

Diplomacy with Ashgrove took the better part of a month to arrange, and every day of that waiting stretched Rhys's patience thinner than I'd seen it since the challenge trial."Alpha Draven's agreed to a formal meeting," Rhys told the war council, gathered once again around the same table that had seen too many crises in too short a span of years. "Neutral ground, his territory's southern border. He's curious enough about why Redoak wants an audience to grant it, but curious isn't the same as cooperative.""Draven's reputation isn't friendly," Vane said, some of the old caution creeping back into his voice despite the distance still sitting uneasy between him and his son. "He didn't build Ashgrove's standing by being generous with information.""I'm not expecting generosity," Rhys said. "I'm expecting a negotiation. If Wick operates in his territory, Draven either knows about it and profits from looking away, or doesn't know and won't appreciate learning a courier's been running dange

We didn't move on Talia immediately. Rhys insisted on caution this time, unwilling to repeat the mistake of accusing someone publicly before the evidence was solid enough to withstand scrutiny."We watch her first," he said, gathering the small circle he trusted most — myself, Kian, Vane, and Ferris, whose infirmary Talia worked within daily. "Quietly. If she's connected to Marrow, I want to understand how deep that connection runs before she has any reason to suspect we're looking."Ferris's expression had gone grim since learning his newest apprentice might be exactly what she appeared to have replaced — another careful infiltration wearing the guise of gratitude and service. "I should have been more careful," he said. "After Priya, I told myself I'd watch anyone new more closely. I let my guard down anyway.""You're not to blame for trusting someone who worked hard to earn it," I said gently. "That's exactly what makes this kind of infiltration so effective. It preys on decent peop

Vane spent the following days buried in the pack's oldest records, determined to confirm or deny what forty years of assumption had left dangerously uncertain. I found him there most evenings, surrounded by yellowed ledgers and half-legible council minutes, Rhys often beside him, father and son working together in a way that had grown steadily easier since the honesty Talia's confession had forced between them."Here," Vane said one evening, voice tight with discovery, sliding a brittle page across the table. "The report of Aldric's death. Filed by a trader passing through the territory he'd supposedly settled in after exile."Rhys scanned it quickly. "No body confirmed. No witness beyond the trader's secondhand account.""I accepted it because I wanted to believe it," Vane admitted. "Because confirming it properly meant sending wolves into hostile, unfamiliar territory to verify the death of a man I'd already spent enough grief casting out in the first place. I told myself the report