All Chapters of Bound by the Cursed Moon: Chapter 181 - Chapter 190

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"You broke a century of treaty in a single season, Kieran, and you expect this council to simply accept your reasons without demanding something in return for the damage it has done us."Elder Voss stood at the head of the long table, his voice carrying the particular disdain of a man who had never once had to choose between duty and the thing his own heart refused to release."I expect the council to understand that a forced bond built on rank law nearly cost us the border war we are currently fighting," I said, keeping my voice level though anger sat close beneath the surface. "Rhen is not a scandal, Elder Voss. She is the reason Dorian is alive at all.""She is the reason your betrothal to Elara collapsed publicly," Voss snapped. "The reason Duskmoor's faith in this alliance is currently hanging by threads thinner than I would like to admit."My father sat quietly at my side, letting the argument play out longer than I expected before finally lifting a

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"I have known for three months that someone inside Duskmoor was feeding information to Vane's people, Kieran, and I said nothing because I was terrified it would turn out to be someone I loved."Elara stood by the window of the west study, arms wrapped tightly around herself despite the fire burning steadily in the hearth, and I recognized the particular exhaustion in her posture, the kind that came from carrying a secret alone for far too long."Who do you suspect," I asked, keeping my voice careful, aware of how fragile this conversation already felt."My cousin," she said. "Rowan. He has always resented how close my father kept ties to Vane's old faction, back before any of this became the disaster it is now.""Resented it enough to help Cade Halloway disappear," I said slowly."Resented it enough to want Duskmoor free of both alliances entirely," Elara said. "Yours and Vane's. I think he believes burning both bridges is the only way our pack ever gove

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"If anything moves near that chapel that is not Rhen or her mother, I want it stopped before it gets within a hundred feet of that door, do you understand me completely."My Enforcers spread quietly through the tree line as dusk settled over the border fence, and I positioned myself close enough to see the chapel's crooked silhouette without being visible from its single narrow window, every instinct in my body straining against the promise I had made to stay back."She will be furious if she catches you hovering," Sable said quietly beside me, having insisted on coming despite Dorian's protests from his sickbed an hour earlier."She would be more furious if something happened to her out here and I was not close enough to help," I said.We watched Rhen's small figure approach the chapel alone, her shoulders squared in the particular way she carried herself whenever she was more afraid than she wanted anyone to see, and I felt every muscle in my body tense

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"You cannot simply erase two hundred years of rank law in a single council session, Kieran, no matter how badly you want to undo the mistakes it made with your own bond."Alaric's warning followed me out of the council chamber three days after the chapel, the rank law reform draft spread across the table behind us still missing half the language the elders demanded before they would even consider a vote."I am not trying to erase it," I said. "I am trying to make certain it never forces another Rhen and Elara into a bond neither of them chose, simply because two packs were too afraid to write something better.""Then be patient with the process," Alaric said. "Reform that moves too fast breaks as easily as the law it replaces. You saw how close Voss came to stalling the entire draft over a single clause about hereditary claim rights."I understood the wisdom in his words even as frustration gnawed steadily at my patience, every day the reform remained unf

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"We finally have a name for the reform, a location for the search, and a prisoner's confession, Kieran, and somehow none of it feels like the progress it should."Alaric spread the finalized rank law draft across the council table for the final reading, three weeks of careful negotiation finally settling into language even Voss had grudgingly stopped contesting, though the vote itself would not come until the following session."Progress rarely feels like progress while you are still living inside it," Alaric said. "It only looks that way afterward, once you can finally see the whole shape of what it cost to get here."I looked over the draft one final time, my own name and Rhen's woven quietly into the new language protecting bonds like ours from ever again being treated as exceptions requiring correction rather than truths deserving recognition."It is not finished," I said. "Duskmoor still has to ratify their half.""It will be," Alaric said. "Elara ha