All Chapters of The Luna My Alpha Regrets Losing: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The silver light receded slowly, taking the bridge with it, the Keeper with it, the crown with it, until there was nothing left but the familiar weight of solid ground beneath my feet.I opened my eyes to the shrine again — the same stone chamber I’d stepped into what felt like hours ago, though I had no real way of knowing how much time had actually passed. The pedestal stood empty now. The carved wolves along the walls had gone dark, their glowing eyes dimmed back to plain stone. Everything was quiet, in a way that felt different from the silence I’d walked into at the beginning. Settled, rather than watching.-----Rowan moved first, crossing half the distance toward me before something made him stop.I watched it happen on his face — the hesitation, the way his eyes searched mine like he was looking for damage he expected to find and couldn’t quite locate. I looked the same as I had before I’d stepped through that door. I understood, somehow, that I wasn’t.“Are you hurt?” he aske

# Chapter 24 – Whispers on the RoadDawn found us leaving the forest behind, the trees thinning slowly into rolling hills until an old stone road unrolled ahead of us like something out of a different life.I walked in silence for most of that first stretch, my hand finding its way beneath my cloak more than once to touch the pendant resting against my collarbone. I didn’t know why I kept checking it was still there. Maybe I needed proof that the shrine hadn’t simply been a fever dream I’d talked myself into believing.The king noticed. He always seemed to notice things like that. He didn’t say anything about it, which I was starting to understand was its own kind of consideration from him.Rowan filled the quiet instead, easy and light in a way that felt deliberate — commenting on the weather, on the state of the road, on nothing important at all. I think he was trying to hand normalcy back to me in small pieces, the way you’d offer food to someone who hadn’t eaten in days.-----The

The city grew larger with every step down from the ridge, until *large* stopped being an adequate word for it at all.Walls of pale silver stone rose higher than anything I’d ever stood beneath, stretching in both directions until they vanished into the haze. The gates themselves were iron, massive and engraved with wolves mid-stride, flanked by guards whose armor caught the last of the daylight in polished flashes. A long line of merchants and travelers and loaded wagons waited before the entrance, patient in the particular way of people used to being inspected before they were allowed anywhere.I didn’t ask questions. I watched instead, the way I’d learned to in the trial — taking in details before deciding what any of them meant.-----The gate captain’s eyes found the king first, and his expression shifted in the span of a single breath — routine boredom collapsing into something closer to disbelief.He dropped to one knee immediately. The guards nearest him followed within second

A steward led me through the royal residence to a suite prepared, she said, for honored guests.It was beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with me. Tall windows looked out over the city, silver tapestries hung along the walls, shelves held books whose spines had gone soft with age, and fresh flowers sat arranged in a vase that someone must have filled that very morning, before they even knew what I looked like.I appreciated the care that had gone into it. I still felt, standing in the middle of it, like a guest wearing someone else’s life for the evening.-----Walking the corridors afterward, I started to understand what the High Priestess had meant.Servants moved constantly, messages passed hand to hand, guards changed posts in quiet, practiced rotations. Courtiers fell silent whenever I approached, conversations dying mid-sentence, only to pick back up the moment I’d passed far enough not to hear how they ended.*The palace remembers everything,* she’d said. I was beginning

By morning, word of the throne hall had already outpaced me through the palace.I could hear it in the way conversations stopped as I passed — servants lowering their voices mid-sentence, some dipping into a respectful bow, others stealing quick glances before returning to whatever task kept their hands busy. Nothing anyone said reached me directly, but I didn’t need to hear the words themselves to understand that *the King’s mysterious guest* had become a phrase circulating well ahead of my own footsteps.-----A polished, composed woman found me before midday — the chief lady-in-waiting, someone explained to me, of considerable standing among the court’s older circles. She invited me to afternoon tea with a warmth that felt genuine on its surface and entirely deliberate underneath it.The gathering looked informal enough — a handful of noblewomen, delicate cups, quiet conversation drifting between polite laughter. But every question, however gently phrased, seemed built to learn som