All Chapters of Born of Moon and Magic: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Armida's povLilith let herself in without knocking, the way she always did, hip nudging the door shut behind her while both arms stayed full of grocery bags. "I come bearing offerings," she called out, already heading for the kitchen like she owned it. "Don't ask me why I bought three different kinds of berries. I couldn't decide.""You never can." I took two of the bags off her before she dropped them, peering inside — strawberries, blueberries, a carton of blackberries so dark they looked almost black in the morning light. "Good thing I already had plans that involve all of them.""Do I want to know?""Waffles." I nudged her toward a stool at the counter. "Sit. You're not allowed to help, you'll just eat the batter.""I absolutely will." But she sat, chin propped on her hand, watching me pull out the waffle iron with the particular contentment of someone who liked being fed more than she liked cooking. She never made herself a guest in my kitchen the way some people might have, car

Armida POVThe walk took us east, past the last of the houses clustered close around the pack center, until the road gave up pretending to be a road and became more of a worn path threading through trees. Someone had carved small marks into the trunks every so often — scent-markers, Lilith had told me once, so a wolf running at night would know whose land they were still on. I hadn't thought about it again until now, noticing how the marks thinned the farther we went, like even the trees knew we were getting close to somewhere else."Almost there," Lilith said, either not noticing my quiet or choosing not to comment on it.The shop was small, tucked between a shuttered bakery and a tailor's, with a bell over the door that jangled the moment we stepped inside. It smelled like cedar and fresh fabric."This one." Lilith held up a soft green dress against herself, then made a face and put it back. "No. Green makes me look like I'm the one who's nauseous.""You're not even showing yet.""D

Armida POVLilith didn't say a word until we were well past the shop door, the bell's jingle fading behind us into the quiet of the street."Are you going to tell me what that was?" I kept my voice light. "You went somewhere else for a second back there.""It was nothing." She said it too fast, the same way she'd said I'm fine that morning, her hand pressed over her mouth — a reflex more than an answer. "Just tired. Growing a person takes more out of you than anyone warns you about."I let it go, mostly because I didn't have a better question to replace it with. The street back this way ran quieter than the one we'd come in on — fewer people about, the trees standing closer together the further we walked. It wasn't unsettling, exactly. Just remote, the kind of stretch that existed for getting somewhere rather than being anywhere itself."You know," Lilith said, popping the last berry from the bag she still hadn't put away, "technically, this isn't the way we're supposed to be taking."

Armida PovI came back slowly, in pieces, the way you surface from deep water instead of breaking through it.The room told me nothing. Unfamiliar ceiling, low beams instead of the vaulted ones in my room at the pack house. A different smell — antiseptic, and under it something herbal I didn't recognize, bundled and drying somewhere nearby. And under both of those, closer than either, the one scent that meant safety without my ever deciding it should. Cedar. Warmth. Him.Wherever I was, it wasn't home.Voices reached me next, low, careful, pitched not to wake me — which meant they hadn't noticed I already was."Swelling's down. Whatever's healing her is still healing her, faster than it should." A woman's voice. Unfamiliar. Tired in a way that made me think she'd been awake as long as I'd been out."Then let it." Demetrius. Rougher than I'd ever heard him, like something had scraped his voice raw and hadn't given it time to heal either.A pause. "You should sleep, Alpha.""I'm not lea

Armida's PovThe first thing I noticed when I woke was the ceiling — unfamiliar, and then not. My room. Demetrius's house. I lay still for a moment, piecing together how I'd gotten from Cornelia's exam table to here, and the answer arrived in fragments: his arms under my knees and my back, the low rumble of his voice telling me to stop squirming, and my own protest — I can walk, I can walk — that he hadn't so much as acknowledged. He'd carried me the whole way. Through the house, up the stairs, past whoever had been in the paths to see it. I didn't remember anyone's faces. I only remembered his jaw, tight the entire time, like carrying me cost him something he wasn't willing to name.A tray sat on the small table by the window. Toast, eggs, a mug of something that had gone lukewarm waiting for me to wake up. Demetrius was standing near the door when I stirred properly, and for a second neither of us said anything."You made this?" I asked, because it seemed safer than anything else I