All Chapters of Forbidden Under the Blood Moon: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Point of view: Wren"Closer than any of us are ready to believe," I said, staring at Maris across the dying firelight. "That is not an answer. That's a threat."My hands would not stop shaking, even hours after Garrick vanished into the trees, even after the danger had supposedly passed, and I hated myself a little for not being able to make them stop.We moved before dawn, just as Ronan said we would. Maris walked ahead of our small, battered group like she already knew the path through the woods behind Briar's cottage, though she had claimed to be hiding for eighteen years. I watched her back the whole way, searching for pieces of my mother in the way she carried herself, in the set of her shoulders, and I found them everywhere. It made my chest ache in a way I did not have words for yet."You keep staring at me like I might disappear again," Maris said, without turning around, without slowing her pace through the underbrush."You did it once," I said. "Forgive me for not trusting t

Point of view: Wren"I would burn this entire treaty to the ground before I let anyone use it to take you from me."Kade's words followed me all the way back to Ashborn territory the next evening, slipping through a side gate Ronan swore no one watched closely enough, and I had never felt more like a stranger walking into my own life.Alpha Magnus was waiting in the great hall when we arrived, exactly as if he had known the precise hour we would return, and the look on his face told me instantly that whatever careful lies Kade and I had constructed over the past weeks had already begun to unravel without our permission."My son disappears for two days without word," Magnus said, his voice a low growl that echoed off the stone walls, "and returns with the Omega girl, an outsider claiming to be dead, and a story I am certain will not satisfy me.""Father," Kade began, but Magnus raised a hand, silencing him instantly."I did not ask for your explanation, Kade. I asked for the truth. The

Point of view: Wren"Then it has to be me."Kade argued against those five words for nearly an hour, and I understood every fear behind his objections even as I refused to change my mind."If Thane catches you," he said, pacing the length of his private chambers as the sun dropped low outside the windows, "he has every reason in the world to make you disappear before the gathering even happens.""And if you're caught searching a councilor's study, it destroys any credibility you have left when we finally expose him," I said. "I'm the Omega nobody watches carefully, remember. Nobody expects me to be dangerous.""That's exactly what worries me," he said, stopping in front of me, his hands coming up to cradle my face with a gentleness that made my chest ache. "Everyone underestimating you has kept you alive twice now. I don't want to test our luck a third time.""Then trust me to be careful," I said softly. "The way I trusted you with my secret the very first night I stepped onto this la

Point of view: Wren"I suggest we all prepare for whatever that purpose turns out to be."Magnus's warning proved true faster than any of us wanted. The gathering grounds stretched wide beneath a pale afternoon sky, banners from a dozen allied packs snapping in the wind, and I had never in my life felt so completely exposed as I did standing at the edge of that crowd.Kade walked beside me, his hand steady at the small of my back, and I drew whatever courage I could from the warmth of that touch as hundreds of eyes turned toward us, curious, calculating, hungry for whatever story they'd heard whispered about the substitute bride."Stay close to me," Kade murmured. "Whatever happens today, we face it together.""Together," I echoed, though my voice shook slightly around the word.Selene found us before we'd gone twenty steps, her smile bright and brittle, her eyes flicking briefly toward the raised platform where Magnus would soon address the crowd."Wren," she said, sweet poison lacin

Point of view: Wren"Did you really think this family only had one wolf willing to fight for it."For one impossible heartbeat, nobody moved, the entire chaos of the gathering ground seeming to freeze around the sight of my little brother standing fierce and shaking over Garrick's sprawled form."Cody," I breathed, disbelief and terror crashing together in my chest. "What are you doing here, you're supposed to be safe at home.""I followed Father's guard when word came about the attack at Briar's cottage," Cody said, not taking his eyes off Garrick even as the older wolf began pushing himself up from the dirt. "I wasn't about to sit at home while my sisters were in danger."Garrick rose slowly, blood trickling from a split lip, his earlier composure completely gone now, replaced by something raw and furious. "A child," he spat. "You think a child can stop what I've spent eighteen years building.""I think a child just knocked you flat on your back in front of every Alpha on these grou