All Chapters of MARKED BY MOON : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Luna POV Cassia is dead before we even reach the stairs.I know it the second we walk through the pack house doors, because the air itself feels wrong, thick with the kind of silence that only follows something terrible. Guards stand frozen near the cell block entrance, faces pale, nobody quite able to look Kian in the eye."Report," Kian says, voice flat and dangerous in a way I've only heard once before, standing over Torin's body this morning."She's gone, Alpha." The younger guard's voice shakes. "We found her twenty minutes ago. Same as Torin. Throat, quick, clean. Whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing."I feel the floor tilt beneath me, though this time it has nothing to do with dizziness. Cassia was the one thread tying us to the bloodline mark, to the true Alpha's network, to the entire shape of what we're fighting. And now she's gone, silenced the exact same way Torin was, exact same method, exact same message.We're always one step behind."Who was on duty," Kia

Luna POV We leave Renata under guard and run.The border sits nearly a mile from the pack house, and Kian covers the distance faster than I've ever seen him move, fear and fury driving him harder than exhaustion can slow him down. I keep pace beside him, my wolf pushing my human body past what it should reasonably be able to do tonight, adrenaline burning through hours of dizziness and dread like it never happened at all.The guards are waiting at the tree line when we arrive, weapons drawn, tension coiled tight in every one of them."There," one whispers, pointing into the darkness beyond the boundary markers. "Just past the old oak. Hasn't moved in ten minutes."I follow his finger and go very still.A figure stands motionless among the trees, half-hidden by shadow, watching us with the kind of stillness that only comes from someone who's spent their whole life learning how to disappear. Even from this distance, even in the dark, something about the shape of him is instantly famil

Luna POV Kian wants me to rest. I go hunting instead.It's not defiance for its own sake, though I know that's exactly how it'll look if he finds out before I'm back. After a night like the one we just survived, I need air, movement, something to do with my hands and my body besides sitting in a healing room watching Declan sleep off an arrow wound while Bettina hovers nearby. The forest at the edge of Blackthorn's territory has always cleared my head better than anything else, even now, even pregnant, even hunted by something none of us fully understand yet.I tell myself I'm just checking the border markers Declan mentioned, the place where the shooter vanished without a trace last night. I tell myself I'm being careful. Mostly, I believe it.The morning is quiet, birds calling overhead, sunlight filtering thin and gold through branches still wet from yesterday's storm. I move slowly, deliberately, reading the ground the way Maren taught me years ago, searching for anything the gua

Luna POV We find Renata alive, but barely.She's crumpled behind her own wardrobe, half-hidden in shadow, blood soaking through her robes from a wound along her side that Bettina takes one look at and immediately starts working to close. Her breathing comes shallow and fast, eyes glassy with shock, but she's conscious, and that's more than any of us expected walking through her door to find."Renata." Kian kneels beside her, voice urgent but careful, the tone he uses for things that are breaking and need handling gently. "Who did this?"Her lips move, barely enough sound to catch. "Came from the door. Fast. I never saw a face. Just felt the blade, and then I was falling, and then I was behind the wardrobe trying to keep quiet because if they heard me they'd finish the job.""The key," I say, crouching beside Bettina, scanning Renata's hands, her neck, searching for the chain Declan described. "Renata, where's the key? The one Priya's letter said you had."Her eyes find mine, and som

Luna POV The fight lasts maybe ten seconds.That's how long it takes for Kian and me to burst into the archive chamber and close the distance to the stone door. One attacker throws Sable at the door and bolts for the far end of the chamber, where a second passage yawns open into deeper darkness. The second tries to stand and fight, but Kian moves faster than I've ever seen him move, all fury and protection and no regard whatsoever for his own safety, and the man goes down hard.Sable crumples to her knees, gasping, arm bleeding where they forced it toward the stone, but the blade never came down, never touched her skin deep enough to matter, and when I pull her into my arms, her heart is hammering just as fast as mine but she's whole, she's breathing, she's alive.The third one gets away.We watch him disappear into that second passage, already knowing by the time Kian shouts for the guards to follow that it won't matter. Whoever's running the show has planned escape routes as caref