chapter 1 : The catch

Aina's POV "You're working too hard for a man who barely looks at you."Mira said that to me last week in the kitchens, half joking, and I laughed it off the way I always do. Tonight, standing in the hallway outside Dylan's study with my hand raised to knock, her words come back to me sharper than she ever meant them.I lower my hand.Two years. Two years of learning exactly how he takes his tea, mending his shirts myself instead of sending them to the seamstress because I know he likes the stitching close, keeping quiet when his mother criticizes the way I fill out a dress. I told myself none of it mattered as long as I kept trying. If I was patient enough, useful enough, maybe eventually he would look at me the way a husband is supposed to look at his wife.I haven't felt that feeling in months, the itch under my skin that something is wrong, and tonight I finally let myself follow it instead of swallowing it down with the rest.I didn't knock, I opened the door.Dylan is not alone

Last Updated : 2026-08-24

chapter 2: The claim

He starts walking, and everyone seems to hold their breath with me.Osborne Cliff doesn't push through the crowd, because he doesn't need to. Wolves step aside before he even reaches them, heads dropping, bodies angling out of his path like the ground itself is warning them to move. I've seen him from a distance before, always alone, always watched the way you watch something that hasn't decided yet whether it's dangerous. Up close, walking straight toward me with that same terrible calm, I understand for the first time why nobody in Silver Crest ever tests him.He stops close enough that I have to tip my head back to hold his eyes.He doesn't look at Dylan. He doesn't look at the crowd still murmuring behind me, still tasting the scandal on their tongues. He looks only at me, like the rest of the clearing has simply stopped existing."This woman is under my protection." His voice doesn't rise, doesn't need to, instead it's low and absolute, cutting straight through the last of the l

Last Updated : 2026-08-24

chapter 3: The Silence

I wake to an empty house.Not empty of people, I can hear staff moving somewhere below, the clink of pots, low voices, but empty of him. Whatever settled into my chest last night is still there, quiet and watching, but the man it belongs to is already gone, and no one bothered to tell me where. My luggage was already at the corner of the bed, probably brought by the staff last night when I was asleep.I dress slowly, in a room that still doesn't feel like mine, and make my way downstairs.The staff are polite. Careful. A young man shows me where the kitchens are without quite meeting my eyes. A pair of older women pause their conversation the moment I walk past, then resume it at a lower volume once they think I'm out of earshot. No one is unkind. But no one looks at me like I belong here either. I recognize the particular flavor of that distance, the wait-and-see courtesy people give you when they're not sure if you're staying long enough to be worth knowing.I've lived inside that k

Last Updated : 2026-08-24

Chapter 4: Forced Proximity

Osborne doesn't move for a long moment.I don't either. The room feels too small suddenly, his breathing too loud in the quiet, and I don't know if I'm supposed to speak first or simply wait him out the way I've learned to wait out every difficult silence in my life.Finally, his jaw tightens, like whatever he almost meant to say has decided against itself."Rest," he says instead, rough and clipped. "You're safe here."Then he's gone, footsteps already fading down the hall before I can answer, and I'm left standing alone in the half dark with my pulse still too fast and no real answers, only the low, steady hum of the new bond settling deeper into my chest where it wasn't before.I didn't sleep well.By morning, Kade, Osborne beta, is waiting for me in the hallway outside my room, arms crossed, voice carrying the flat certainty of a man who has already decided the conversation is finished before it starts."You'll remain here," he says. "For your protection. Until the fallout from la

Last Updated : 2026-08-24

Chapter 5: The First Crack

I fold the note into a small square and tuck it into my sleeve, and I didn't cry.I spent the rest of the night lying awake, turning the words over until they stopped feeling like a threat and started feeling like a test. *Leave before the next full moon.* Someone wants me gone badly enough to slip a warning under my door in the dark. That means someone thinks I matter enough to warn.In the morning, I decided to test something else entirely.I stay away from the east wing, where I know Osborne keeps his study and his training rooms, and instead spend the morning in the far side of the house, helping Elder Rowan with his joints again, sitting with Mira while she kneads dough. I want to know if this pull in my chest needs me close to him specifically, or if it only needs me somewhere inside his territory at all.By midday, the answer settles in quietly. The pull stays steady no matter which wing I'm in. Not sharp, not painful, just present, the way you're always aware of your own heart

Last Updated : 2026-08-24

All Chapters of THE CHUBBY LUNA THEY REJECTED : Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

chapter 1 : The catch

chapter 2: The claim

chapter 3: The Silence

Chapter 4: Forced Proximity

Chapter 5: The First Crack