All Chapters of Luna Reborn: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The streets had long gone quiet when Zander and I left the cafe. My stomach was full, my body warmed by the stew, by the environment. As we walked I let my mind sink into the silence, into how the laughter and constant bustling on the streets had turned into whispered conversations and closing shops. Children still darted through the square with sticky fingers and berry-stained smiles while exhausted parents called after them, promising baths and bedtime stories. The dryad who had been pruning roses carefully coaxed the blossoms from her flower cart to close for the evening, each bloom folding its petals beneath her gentle touch. Across the square, Bronn hauled the last of his cauldrons inside while Neria perched atop his broad shoulder, locking the tiny windows of Sunfire Cafe with a flourish of sparkling dust.They looked… Happy… Safe.“I’ve never seen anything like this place before,” I admitted softly, unafraid of the admiration that laced my every word. The moment I looked at Z

I woke before dawn; the skies over the kingdom were still dark, freckled with more stars than I had seen in my moons.I found myself standing on the balcony, looking at them, wondering if I climbed to the tallest tower of this place, if I could touch them.Unsure of how long I had stood there, I decided to find clothes and find my way through the castle and out into the darkness that I had stood staring at all this time.Surprised seemed like a small word to describe how I felt when I opened the closet doors and found it with clothes. Not just day clothes, but night clothes, dresses more expensive than anything I had seen in Evander, more beautiful too. But it was the training clothes that my fingers seemed to rake over first.Skimpy… that was the only word that came to mind. My father, Theron… they would all call this a whore’s clothes. But I was mesmerized by the short garments with legs that would barely cover my thighs, and their matching tops were no more than long bras.I found

“This isn’t a ball in Evander, girl. We aren’t dancing! Plant those feet!” I growled at Zander, but the sound came out ragged and desperate. I swayed, swiping the sweat from my forehead as I tried to fall back into some rhythm with his workout.“We have to work on cardio, strength training, get those muscles built up before we can move on to the fun stuff. Keep it moving.” He shouted, falling into routine beside me.We had been at this for hours, and despite having done some training before, nothing compared to this. In Evander, I was trained as a princess, then as a queen. I had been trained to be invisible, to be light on my feet, to be seen and never heard. In the fae clan, I trained out of desperation, out of the need to survive. But this, this was something so very different. We continued until I collapsed, unable to move from the soreness in every inch of my body, from being short of breath, from being frustrated that my body wouldn’t cooperate. I guzzled water before I collaps

Reign:I could feel the knobs of her spine against my arm as I lifted her into my arms, cradling her to my chest. She weighed next to nothing in my arms. That was my first thought as I carried her from the training grounds. The second was how she felt against my skin.“She’s exhausted.” Zander grumped.“I know,” was the only response I could manage while looking down at the blonde hair that had come out of her braid to stick to her forehead. “She’s starving… and stubborn!” He kept growling as he walked along behind us, but again, I could only mutter those two words.“I know,” I couldn’t take my eyes from the crimson staining her cheeks, from the soft breath escaping her parted pink lips. She was beautiful, undeniably beautiful…Only hours ago, I had been standing beneath the silver grass of a dream that had felt more real than the waking world, listening to the Moon Goddess tell me that this woman was the only thing capable of saving my kingdom. Now she lay unconscious in my arms…

As the forest blurred past us, a burst of laughter tore through me, wild and joyous, almost strained from how long it had been since I truly laughed. I gripped my thighs harder, leaned forward, and whispered one word that I couldn’t keep to myself any longer.“Faster!” I gasped.His paws tore through the earth with my plea, barely landing on the soil before they lifted for take off again. I wanted to lift my arms, to fly through the wind, to be free from everything that was weighing me down since I woke in this world, but I couldn’t.At that moment, I felt guilty… Because how dare I find joy and laughter in anything when my son was dead because of me? How dare I let my grief and rage go at this moment? Just as my thighs loosened, Reign growled, knocking the wind from me all over again; the powerful vibration of his body beneath my thighs stole every thought from my mind, and I gripped him again, tighter than before, letting the silk of his fur chase away those thoughts until it was