All Chapters of Forbidden Under the Blood Moon: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Point of view: Wren"Take it off. Right now, before you understand what it does, and I will show you exactly why Alden wants it gone." An old woman I had never met stood in the doorway of the study, her eyes sharp despite the deep lines carved into her face by age.Ronan stepped between us instinctively, but Selene, who had led the stranger in, raised a hand to stop him. "She is safe," Selene said. "Her name is Old Mara. She was Vane, one of the few who survived the war by hiding in the human towns. I found her searching for information about my father.""How did you find her," I asked."She found me," Selene said. "She has been watching this pack for weeks, waiting for the right moment to come forward."Old Mara stepped closer, studying me with an intensity that made my skin prickle. "You have your mother's eyes," she said quietly. "I knew Elara Vane before she fled and became Elara Thorne. She was the strongest wolf I ever fought beside, and she died protecting a secret I think you

Point of view: Kade"Say the name, Mara. Whatever danger it brings, silence has already cost this pack eighteen years it can never get back." I said it quietly, but the weight behind it filled the entire study, every person in the room holding their breath for her answer.Mara studied me for a long moment, and I could see the war happening behind her eyes, decades of survival built on knowing exactly when to speak and when to stay hidden. "If I say this name," she said slowly, "there is no undoing it. He will know I am still alive, and he will come for all of you faster than you are prepared for.""We are already being hunted," Wren said. "At least let us be hunted by someone we can finally see clearly."Mara closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, something had settled into her expression, a decision finally made after what felt like a lifetime of avoiding it. "Garrick Hale," she said.The name meant nothing to me at first, and then Ronan's face went pale beside me, recognit

Point of view: Wren"If he realizes I am not alone out here, he will kill me before any of you reach me in time." Briar's voice shook as she stood at the edge of the tree line, staring toward the dark silhouette of the eastern ridge waiting beyond it."You will not be alone," I said, crouched beside her in the underbrush, my senses already stretched wide, listening for anything the darkness might be hiding from the rest of us. "You just will not be able to see us."Ronan had positioned guards in a wide circle around the ridge, close enough to move quickly, far enough to remain hidden from anyone watching for exactly that kind of trap. Kade crouched on my other side, tense and silent, his eyes never leaving the path Briar would need to walk alone."You do not have to do this," Kade said quietly, one final time."Yes, I do," Briar said, steadier now than she had sounded all night. "I owe Wren this much, and I owe myself the chance to finally do something right instead of something safe.

Point of view: Wren“An Omega does not throw a grown wolf into a tree, Kade. I want to know what I am looking at.”Alpha Magnus stood in the middle of the great hall when we arrived, arms crossed, his presence filling the room the way storm clouds fill a sky before they break. Someone had already told him everything. I could see it in the tight line of his mouth.“Father, this is not the time,” Kade said, moving to stand slightly in front of me, though I did not need protecting, not from words.“It is exactly the time,” Magnus said, his pale eyes finding mine and staying there, cold and assessing in a way that reminded me too much of the guard at the border, all those weeks ago. “Ivy Thorne was raised in a pack that has produced no fighters of note in a generation. Yet somehow, tonight, she fought off a trained wolf twice her size with her bare hands.”“I was scared,” I said carefully. “Sometimes fear makes people do things they did not know they could do.”“Fear,” Magnus repeated, li

Point of view: Wren“Ask me anything you want. I will not tell you a single thing that keeps me alive longer than tonight.”Alden sat chained to a chair in the lowest cell of the packhouse, his lip split and swollen from the fight in the forest, defiant even now, even here. Ronan’s guards had caught him trying to slip back across the border an hour after dawn, and Kade had summoned me the moment they dragged him inside.“You do not have to be here for this,” Kade said quietly, standing beside me at the cell door.“Yes I do,” I said. “He knows things about my mother. About the Vane pack. I am not standing outside a door while someone else decides what I am allowed to learn about my own blood.”Kade studied me for a long moment, then nodded once and pushed the cell door open.Alden’s eyes found me the second I stepped inside, and something shifted in his expression, surprise, maybe, or grudging respect. “The Omega who throws grown wolves into trees,” he said. “Garrick was right about yo