All Chapters of Bound by the Cursed Moon: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

POV: Kieran"Tell me honestly," Rhen said, sitting beside me on the broken stone at the ruins, moonlight catching the exhaustion still lingering under her eyes, "do you believe there is a version of this that ends with both of us still standing, Kieran? Or are we simply choosing each other for however many days remain before it costs us everything?""I believe there has to be," I said, though even as I said it, I heard how thin the words sounded against everything pressing down on us. "Rhen, I refuse to accept that the only outcomes available to us are war or losing you. I have spent my whole life being told that duty and want cannot coexist inside the same choice. I am not willing to keep believing that simply because it has always been easier for everyone else to believe it for me.""Easier does not mean untrue." She leaned into me, and I wrapped an arm around her, both of us staring out at the dark tree line where the ruins gave way to open valley. "Dorian gave us five days, Kieran

POV: KieranMy father's voice carried through the hall before I even reached the door, and something in its edge told me this was not going to be a conversation I walked away from unscathed."Five days," Alaric said, not looking up from the map spread across his desk. "The betrothal ceremony will be held in five days, Kieran, and I expect you to stand in front of both packs and mean it when you do.""I am aware of the timeline, Father.""Are you." He finally looked up, and I saw exactly how little he believed me. "Because you have been disappearing at strange hours for weeks now, and I am not a fool, Kieran. I raised you. I know when my own son is lying to me by simply refusing to say anything at all."I kept my expression carefully blank, the way I had been trained since childhood to hold it under pressure. "I have been training. The hunter activity near the border has increased. I would think you would want your heir prepared.""I would," Alaric said slowly, "if I believed that was

POV: KieranHer hands were shaking when she reached the ruins that night, and I knew before she said a single word that whatever she had found had cracked something open inside her that could not be closed again."Rhen." I caught her wrists gently, forcing her to look at me instead of through me. "Talk to me. What happened.""I found her grave, Kieran." Her voice broke on the words. "The Thornwolf woman. The one from the curse. Her stone is cracked in half at the edge of the burial field, and it carries the exact same symbol as the blade you pulled out of this stone two nights ago. The exact same symbol carved into the back of my locket."I felt the ground shift under everything I thought I understood about the past few weeks. "Rhen, are you certain.""I am certain enough that Maren would not look me in the eye when I asked her about it," she said. "Certain enough that Sable thinks I might be descended directly from the woman who cursed our bloodlines in the first place."I pulled her

POV: KieranDorian's study looked like a battlefield by the time I arrived, papers spread across every surface, and the look on his face told me he had not slept since our last conversation."You should not be here," he said without looking up. "If your father asks why his heir is spending the days before his betrothal locked in his Enforcer's study instead of preparing for the ceremony, I will not have a good answer for him.""Tell him I was reviewing border security." I closed the door behind me. "It is not even a lie, given what you are looking at."Dorian gestured at the papers spread across his desk, frustration bleeding into every movement. "The forged ledger. I have gone through it a dozen times now, comparing the handwriting against my own correspondence, against training records, against anything I could find with my signature on it.""And?""Whoever forged this studied my hand for months before they attempted it," he said. "This is not a rushed job, Kieran. This is patient,

POV: KieranThe hall was full before I even stepped through the doors, torchlight catching on the gathered faces of two packs who had spent decades learning to distrust each other, and every single one of them was watching me."You look like a man walking to his own execution," my father murmured beside me, adjusting the collar of my ceremonial coat with hands that did not quite hide their tension. "Straighten your shoulders, Kieran. Whatever is troubling you, this is not the room to show it in.""I am aware, Father.""Are you." He studied me for a moment longer than was comfortable, then nodded toward the front of the hall, where Elara already stood beside her father, her expression carved from the same cool stone she always wore in public. "Then let us finish this."I looked past him at the gathered crowd, at Duskmoor delegates in their formal colors standing shoulder to shoulder with Ashveil elders who had spent decades distrusting them, and felt the full weight of what this ceremo