Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Substitute Luna: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

By sunrise, every entrance to the Pack House had been sealed.The pack had been awake for less than an hour when the first reports came in. Three wolves were missing from the northern patrol. Two vehicles had been abandoned near the old boundary road, and a trail of black residue led from the forest to the outer wall.Kael stood in the war room with Elias, Riven and four senior Enforcers while the surveillance screens showed the northern perimeter.Nothing moved. That was the problem.“Pull the thermal feed,” Kael said.Elias did. The screen flickered.For half a second, twelve human-shaped heat signatures appeared between the trees.Then they disappeared.“Those aren't wolves,” Riven said.“No,” Kael answered. “They're empty.”Elias looked at him. “What does that mean?”Kael didn't answer. He had felt it.A pressure at the edge of his senses. Not Lyra. Something weaker. Something being controlled.A voice came through the intercom.“Alpha?” Kael pressed the button. “Speak.”“This

Aria woke on the floor with Kael's arms around her.For several seconds, she didn't know where she was.Then she heard Cassian crying.She pushed herself upright.“Cassian.”“He's safe.”Kael's voice was close. Too close.She looked at him.There was blood running from his nose.“What happened?”“You broke the tether.”Aria stared at her wrist.The violet mark was still there, but a thin black line ran through its center like a crack in glass.Brenna crouched beside her.“It's damaged, not gone.”“Can it heal?”“Yes.”Aria looked at her. “Will Lyra still be able to control me?”“Not the way she was.”A pause.“But she can still feel you.”Kael's expression darkened.“So can we track her?”Brenna shook her head.“No. But she can track you.”Kael stood.“Then we use that.”Aria looked up.“What are you planning?”“To let her think the tether is still strong.”“No.”“Aria.”“She wants me.”“That is exactly why she will come.”Aria rose slowly.“You're talking about using me as bait.”“I'

The sea was waiting for them. Aria knew that before they reached the cliffs because the bond had begun pulling long before the Pack House disappeared behind them. It was not painful yet, but it was persistent, a quiet pressure beneath her ribs that grew stronger as the vehicle descended toward the coast. Cassian sat beside her with his head against the window, unusually silent, while Kael drove with both hands fixed on the steering wheel. Elias and Riven followed in a second vehicle, and Brenna had insisted on coming despite Kael’s objections. None of them had said much since leaving the Pack House. There was a strange kind of silence that settled over people when they were moving toward something they already suspected they might not return from.Aria glanced at Kael. The faint light from the dashboard caught the hard line of his jaw and the tired shadows beneath his eyes. He had changed since the night at the inn, and yet sometimes she still saw the same man in him, the one who had

By the time they reached Midnight Pack House, the sky had turned the colour of ash. Guards hurried to close the gates behind them, and the healer’s room filled with the smell of hot water, herbs, and wet wool. Cassian had fallen asleep against Aria’s chest during the journey home. She refused to let anyone carry him away, even when Brenna explained that the boy needed to be checked properly.“He can stay with me,” Aria said. “You can examine him here.”Brenna looked as if she wanted to argue, but one glance at Aria’s face changed her mind. She brought a blanket and a small lamp, then guided Aria onto a couch while Kael stood nearby, dripping water onto the polished floor. He looked ready to command the entire pack to move mountains if it would make the fear in Aria’s eyes disappear. For once, he kept his orders to himself.Brenna cleaned the shallow cut on Aria’s shoulder, then turned her attention to the violet mark on her wrist. It had spread since the chapel. Thin branches of colou

Brenna spent most of the morning studying the words that had formed in the dish. She copied the old script into her notebook, compared it with the markings from the chapel, then searched the pack’s archive for references to coastal rituals. The phrase appeared only once in a damaged record, written in the margin of a page that described a settlement swallowed by a storm centuries earlier.“Saint Orra,” Elias read over her shoulder. “I’ve heard the name. There used to be a village along the eastern coast, before the cliffs collapsed.”“Was there a chapel?” Aria asked.“There was a sanctuary,” Brenna replied. “The record calls it a place where the first vow was sealed. The account is incomplete, and much of it was dismissed as a legend.”“What kind of vow?” Kael asked.Brenna traced the words with one finger. “A pact between the first guardians of this territory and the old coastal witches. The details are missing, but one line says a child born of a true Alpha bond could carry the powe