All Chapters of Forbidden Under the Blood Moon: Chapter 271 - Chapter 280

POV: WREN THORNE"Do not move, my lady. Do not breathe. If you wake the baby too fast, everything we have built will fall apart." The voice outside my bedroom door was small, thin and sweet, and it was singing.I lay under the heavy quilt in the grey half light, my eyes shut, my heart pounding against my ribs. It was nearly dawn. The fire had burned down to a few red coals. The room smelled of ash and cold stone, and somewhere behind the wardrobe Kade was holding his breath so hard I could almost hear it.Selene had planned everything. Hess and Brin stood guard outside the door, as always. The second note said the heir would be taken at dawn, so we let the dawn come. I played the part of a sleeping woman. Kade and Selene hid in the shadows. Ronan waited in the corridor below.The door handle turned very slowly.Wood scraped on wood. Cold air slid across the floor. I heard a soft thud in the corridor, the sound of a body falling, and Hess's muffled groan. Then footsteps. Two sets. One

POV: WREN THORNE"Look at me, Elder Maren. Tell me to my face how many of the families you signed away had children my age." My voice came out colder than I had ever heard it.The cell beneath the east tower smelled of damp straw and old iron. One slit of window let in a thin bar of afternoon light that lay across the floor like a blade. Maren sat on the stone bench in her plain grey dress, her silver rings gone, her hands looking strangely small and bare. She did not look up.Selene stood by the door with her arms crossed. I had asked to come alone. She had refused, and then compromised on the doorway."Twelve," Maren said at last."Twelve.""Twelve families had children. Seventeen had none. And eleven I never learned about. They simply burned the file." Her mouth twitched. "I can recite every name. I have been reciting them for twenty years.""Do you expect that to make me feel sorry for you?""No, my lady. I expect it to make you hate me, which is only fair."I stood in front of he

POV: WREN THORNE"I am afraid I will break her, Corin. A baby is so small. What if I hold it wrong, love it wrong, or lose it in the first week? What if I am not enough?"The words tumbled out before I could stop them. It was mid morning, and the training yard was bright and cold, the grass stiff with frost. I sat on the overturned barrel with my cloak wrapped tight around me. Corin stood in front of me with her arms folded, studying my face as though it were a map.Twenty paces away, beneath the bare oak, Lyra sat on a blanket with a wooden horse in her lap. Cody sat beside her, making the horse gallop across his knee and doing a very bad neigh. Lyra giggled into her hands. Hale hovered a few steps behind them, red eyed and unwilling to let her out of reach."You asked me this question six nights ago," Corin said."Then I did not like your answer.""You do not like it now either." Her mouth twitched. "Do you want a better answer, or a true one?""A true one. Always.""Then listen. Yo

POV: WREN THORNE"What if my mother left me here because she did not want me, Ivy? What if the whole story is a lie, and I was only a burden she could not carry?"I whispered it into the dark of the secret passage, and my voice came back thin and strange. Ivy walked ahead of me with a lantern held high. Cody followed at my heel with his hand on his sword. The tunnel behind the nursery wing wardrobe smelled of dust, damp stone and old candle wax, and the walls were so close I could feel the chill coming off them.It was the afternoon of the next day. Kade was in the war room with Ronan, planning the defense. Selene was guarding Lyra. I had told no one where I was going except these two, because I was afraid that if I said it aloud, I would lose my nerve."Do you want the truth or the comfort?" Ivy asked without turning."You sound like Corin.""I have been spending too much time with her." She almost smiled. "The truth, then. I do not know. I never knew your mother. But I know what it

POV: WREN THORNE"Lock me in the cell beside Maren, Wren. If I am the Warden, I will confess by dawn. If I am not, I will never rest until someone proves it."Maelis stood in the middle of my sitting room with her hands held out in front of her, wrists together, as if waiting for chains. Her grey hair had come loose from its knot. Her round face was blotchy from crying. Dusk was falling outside the window, and the room had turned the colour of old pewter.Kade stood near the door, his arms folded and his face unreadable. He had told me everything an hour ago. Pell dead in his cell. The ring in his fist. The woman in the grey cloak. Maelis's footprints, and only hers. I had listened without moving, and then I had asked him to leave me alone with her.He had refused. We had compromised at the door."Put your hands down," I said."Wren, please. You must do it. Your people will demand it.""Put them down, Maelis."She did, slowly. Her fingers trembled against her skirt."Tell me about daw