All Chapters of Bound by the Cursed Moon: Chapter 201 - Chapter 210

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"Father, if this room has been locked for eighty years, someone in this family wanted it forgotten, and I want to know why."The Ashveil archive sat three floors beneath the main hall, a room I had walked past a hundred times without knowing what waited behind its iron door. My father had the only key, and the way his hand shook fitting it into the lock told me more than anything he had said out loud since Rhen brought Wren home. I had never once seen his hands shake, not even the day the treaty with Duskmoor was signed."Some truths are kept locked for a reason," he said. "I am not certain we are ready for this one.""We stopped being ready the moment a creature called Dorian by a name none of us recognized," I said. "Open it."He did. Dust rose in the lamp light, thick enough to taste, and shelves of records older than the Thornwolf curse stretched back into shadow, further than the small lamp could properly reach. Dorian stood beside me, quiet in a way

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"If you tell me you are fine one more time tonight, Dorian, I am going to assume it means the exact opposite, because it always has, for as long as I have known you."I found him on the training grounds well after midnight, exactly where I expected to find him when sleep refused to come for either of us. The archive had emptied something out of both our chests hours ago, and neither of us had managed to fill the space back up since. He sat on the fence rail with his arms braced against his knees, staring at nothing, the way he used to stare at the horizon when we were boys and the weight of what he would someday owe this pack had not yet fully settled onto him."I am fine," he said, and did not even attempt to make it convincing."There it is," I said, and sat down beside him without waiting to be invited, the way we had done for each other since we were children too young to understand what any of it would eventually cost us."I swore an oath to enforce

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"Rook, before you sit down, I need you to understand something. If any part of your story is a lie meant to get you inside these walls, my Enforcer will know before you finish speaking."He sat anyway, steady despite the warning, hands folded on the kitchen table where Rhen had insisted we talk instead of some cold interrogation room my instincts had wanted to use. The lamp between us threw long shadows across his face, and I studied every flicker of it as though I could read the truth directly off his skin."You do not trust easily," Rook said, not quite a question, more an observation offered carefully, the way a man tests ice before he decides whether to cross it."I trust exactly as much as the situation earns," I said. "Three years ago I would have trusted more freely. Three years ago I had not yet watched a quarry try to swallow the woman I love.""I understand," Rook said. "Ask whatever you need to.""Your mother," Rhen said gently, taking the seat

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"Rhen, stay behind me until we know the chapel is empty, and do not argue with me about it this time."She did not argue, though the look she gave me made it clear the concession was a gift and not a habit, one she was granting me only because the past week had earned it. We had ridden two days through country I barely recognized, the old contested border wilder and more overgrown than anything inside Ashveil land, the trees leaning close together overhead like they were sharing a secret none of us were meant to hear, until the small stone chapel finally rose out of the mist exactly where Rook had promised it would be.It was smaller than I expected, half swallowed by ivy, its roof caved in on one side, though someone had clearly kept the door clear enough to use in recent years, the hinges dark with fresh oil against the pale, weathered wood."This is it," Rook said, dismounting slowly, his eyes fixed on the building like it might vanish if he looked awa

Male Lead POV: Kieran Ashveil"We ride now, tonight, and if you are wrong about this, Warden, I will not forgive it, because everyone I love is behind those walls."We did not stop to argue further. Within minutes we were mounted and moving hard through the dark, the Warden riding grim and silent beside Dorian, offering no further explanation beyond the two words that had emptied every ounce of patience out of me the instant he spoke them. The land blurred past in shapes of black and silver, every mile feeling longer than the last."How," Rhen demanded, her horse matching pace with mine, her voice sharp with a fear she was not bothering to hide anymore. "How could Cade Halloway possibly be inside Ashveil walls. Every gate has been guarded since the quarry.""Trust is a door too," the Warden called back, not slowing his pace. "You can bar every gate in the territory and it will not matter if you leave that one standing open.""That is not an answer," Rhen said."It is the only one I ha