บททั้งหมดของ Forbidden Under the Blood Moon: บทที่ 191 - บทที่ 200

POV: WREN THORNE"He left something behind," I said, kneeling in the frost stained grass long after the others had gone quiet around me. "Corvyn does not make mistakes. Which means whatever we find here, he wanted us to find it."The words came out steadier than I felt. My hands were shaking, though I told myself it was only the cold, only the wind cutting sideways across the exposed rock of the ridge, not the memory of his voice still echoing somewhere behind my ribs. Sleep well, while you still can. I had heard threats before. I had never heard one delivered so gently, as though he genuinely wished me a peaceful night before deciding whether to end it.Kade crouched beside me, his sword still bare in his hand, his eyes never quite leaving the tree line where Corvyn's wolves had vanished only an hour before. Ronan and Selene worked the far edge of the ridge with a lantern between them, their voices low, clipped, professional in the way people speak when panic has nowhere left to go e

POV: WREN THORNE"I did not come back for forgiveness," Ivy said, standing at the edge of our territory with a bag over her shoulder and an expression I had never once seen on her before, something like grief wearing the mask of courage. "I came back because I heard about the fire, and because I know exactly what Corvyn is capable of burning next."I had not seen my cousin in months, not since she had fled our lands the night everything fell apart between us, and seeing her now, road worn and thinner than I remembered, dust still clinging to the hem of her cloak, stirred a tangle of anger and relief I did not know how to separate. Part of me wanted to embrace her the way I would have once, without question. Another part of me could not forget the silence she had left behind her, or the shape of everything unspoken it had carved into our family since."You left without a word," I said. "You let all of us believe the worst. Do you know what that did to my mother? To me?""I let you beli

POV: WREN THORNE"You buried something at the old mill," I said, my voice shaking with an anger I had been swallowing for days, ever since that single line had been nailed to our gate in the middle of the fire. "Corvyn knows it. He is daring me to ask you what it is."My mother stood very still at the window of her chamber, her back to me, the morning light throwing her silhouette sharp against the glass, her hands folded so tightly in front of her that her knuckles had gone pale. For a long moment she did not answer at all, and the silence between us grew heavier than any words could have made it, thick with a hundred conversations we had never once had."I was protecting you," she finally said, her voice quieter than I had ever heard it."By lying to me," I said, my own voice cracking despite my best effort to hold it steady. "By letting me believe you were building some army against a threat you never bothered to name. Do you know what it is like to grow up sensing a shadow over yo

POV: WREN THORNE"It is Corvyn," a sentry gasped from the doorway, chest heaving, sweat beading at his temple despite the cold morning air outside. "He is at the northern gate. He is asking for Wren by name, and he says he will wait exactly one hour before he stops asking politely."Every plan we had built across the last few frantic days collapsed at once into a single, terrible clarity, every question about names and ledgers and loyalists suddenly small and distant beside the reality of him standing at our own gate, in daylight, without fear, as though our walls had never once meant anything at all. Whatever name Selene had been about to reveal would have to wait, because Corvyn himself was standing at our gate, and an hour was no time at all to prepare for a man like him."You are not going alone," Kade said instantly, already moving toward the door, his sword already in hand."I am not asking to go alone," I said, matching his pace. "I am asking you to trust that whatever he wants

POV: WREN THORNE"Show me," I said to the guardian, standing alone at the edge of the training field long after midnight, the silver ring warm now against my palm from hours of restless turning, my breath fogging in the cold night air. "Whatever you have been protecting me from understanding this entire time, show me now, before Corvyn forces it out of me in a way none of us can control."For a long moment, the creature only watched me with its unnatural golden eyes, unmoving, and I wondered if I had finally asked for something even it was unwilling to give, if some things really were meant to stay buried no matter how badly the truth was needed.Then it moved closer, slower than I had ever seen it move, its old scars catching pale in the starlight, and lowered its great head until its nose nearly touched the ring cupped in my hands, its breath warm against my cold fingers.The moment silver met skin and fur together, the world around me did not so much disappear as fold inward, colla