All Chapters of Bound by the Cursed Moon: Chapter 261 - Chapter 270

Point of View: Rhen Thornwolf"Rhen, wake up, the eastern ridge is dying, and nobody can tell me why the grass is turning black in a shape that looks like it is reaching toward us."Sable's voice pulled me out of sleep before my eyes had even opened, and I was already reaching for my boots when the words caught up with me fully. For one disoriented moment I thought I was still dreaming, that the urgency in her tone belonged to some half-formed nightmare rather than the actual dark of my own room, but the cold floor under my bare feet told me otherwise, and so did the tremor in her voice, which Sable almost never allowed anyone to hear."Reaching toward us," I repeated, pulling my jacket on with hands that were not quite steady yet. "Sable, that is not how blight works. Blight does not reach.""This one does," she said, already moving toward the door, not waiting to see if I followed. "Kieran sent me. He wants you at the ridge before Ilsevet gets there and tells everyone something we c

Point of View: Rhen Thornwolf"I have tracked wolves through blizzards and hunters through swamps, and I have never once lost a trail the way I am losing this one, Rhen, and I do not like what that tells me about what we are actually facing."Sable knelt at the cliff seal site, running her fingers over ground that gave up nothing useful, her frustration plain in the sharp line of her shoulders. I crouched beside her, feeling the same cold dread she clearly carried, the grey sky pressing low over us like a held breath that refused to release itself into rain."No blood," Kieran said, arriving with Dorian close behind him, his Enforcer training moving through the scene with quiet precision, eyes cataloguing every detail before he spoke another word. "No struggle marks. Whatever took them did not fight for them.""Then it did not need to," Sable said, standing slowly, brushing dirt from her knees with more force than the task required. "Two trained patrol wolves vanished without leaving

Point of View: Rhen Thornwolf"Alaric, with respect, I have spent thirty years honoring this treaty, and I will not stand quietly while your son gambles both our territories on the word of a creature none of us can even properly define."Lord Bramwell's voice rang sharp across the council chamber the next morning, and I sat very still beside Kieran, watching the older Duskmoor elder pace in front of the assembled leadership, his fear dressed up as reasonable caution the way fear so often was among people who had never had to run toward danger themselves. The chamber smelled of old wood and colder tea, and every face around the table wore some version of the same exhaustion."Ilsevet has guarded this territory longer than either of our bloodlines have existed," Alaric said, his patience visibly thinning, though he kept his voice level in the way I had learned was distinctly Ashveil. "I understand the fear, Bramwell. I do not understand the demand that we ignore the only guide we actual

Point of View: Rhen Thornwolf"Dorian, do not come any closer, something is wrong with my leg, and I do not think I am imagining the way the ground itself just tried to hold onto my ankle."I heard Sable's voice carry across the blighted western ridge from a distance, sharp with an alarm she rarely let herself show, and Kieran and I broke into a run before either of us said a word, my heart slamming against my ribs by the time we crested the rise, the cold air burning in my lungs.Sable's ankle was caught in what looked, impossibly, like the blackened grass itself, thin tendrils wrapped tight enough to bruise, pulsing faintly with a dark, wrong light that seemed to breathe in time with something none of us could see. Dorian was already on his knees beside her, blade drawn, cutting carefully at the tendrils while she held perfectly still, her jaw clenched against whatever she was feeling."Do not move," he said, his voice steady despite the fear plain on his face. "Sable, look at me. I

Point of View: Rhen Thornwolf"Rhen, I found something in the archive you need to see before we go any further with this plan, and I am honestly not sure whether it changes everything or nothing at all."Halloway's voice pulled me away from the war table late that night, his expression carrying a caution I rarely saw from him, and I followed him down into the old Ashveil archives, past shelves of records older than either pack's known history, the air growing colder and staler the deeper we went, to a small desk where a single leather ledger lay open under lamplight."This is the original guardian record," Halloway said. "Not the fractured account passed down through fear and legend. The actual account, written by the first pair before they failed."I sat down slowly, running my fingers over ink faded nearly to nothing, the paper so fragile it seemed to sigh under my touch, and began to read, Kieran arriving quietly behind me to read over my shoulder without a word, his breath warm an