Semua Bab Cursed Bonds:The Wolflees Luna's Redemption : Bab 21 - Bab 30

Chloe's POVNobody moved for a long moment after Kael finished speaking."The next full moon is in two nights," I said finally, my voice sounding strange and distant to my own ears. "The same night Silverpine reaches the wall."Theron's eyes met mine across the table, and I watched the same terrible calculation happening behind them that was happening behind mine."They know about the ritual," I said slowly. "They know it's tied to the moon. They're not just marching to fight us. They're marching to arrive exactly when we're most vulnerable, when whatever's left of the curse is unraveling and neither of us has finished changing.""That's speculation," Darius said, though he didn't sound like he believed his own objection. He braced both hands against the table, studying the map like it might rearrange itself into something less inevitable. "We don't actually know Gareth understands the mechanics of the curse. He could simply be marching on the timeline that suits his own army.""Two ye

Theron's POVI felt her shift beneath me before I understood what it meant."Theron." Chloe's fingers dug into my shoulders, her back arching off the sheets. "It's happening. I can feel it."The marks along my collarbone had already begun to burn, brighter than they ever had, heat spreading down my chest like the last three hundred years were finally trying to leave my body all at once. I didn't stop moving inside her. I couldn't have, even if some rational part of me had wanted to."Look at me," I said, voice wrecked, and she did, her eyes glassy with pleasure and fear tangled together. "Whatever happens right now, you're not alone in it.""I know." Her hand found mine, fingers lacing tight. "I trust you."I drove into her harder, deeper, chasing the building pressure in both our bodies, and the light beneath my skin flared with every thrust, pulsing in time with her cries. She clenched around me, her whole body trembling on the edge, and I felt the curse straining, fighting, like it

Chloe's POVThey had him in the lower courtyard, ringed by twenty of Theron's guards with their blades drawn and their faces saying they'd rather not be holding back.Alpha Gareth stood in the middle of them with his hands empty and his chin up, and he looked exactly the same. That was what undid me. Three years of my life had been dismantled by this man, my wolf cut out of me on his order, and he hadn't so much as grown a grey hair for it.Theron reached the courtyard a step behind me, still in his armor, blood on the plate that wasn't his."Do not speak to him," he said, low, for me alone. "Not one word until I know what he wants.""He wants me to speak to him. That's the entire point of the flag.""Chloe.""I know." I caught his hand, brief, before the guards could see it. "I'm not walking into anything. I just want to hear it."Gareth's eyes found me across the courtyard, and something moved in his face that I refused to name, because whatever it was, he had no right to it."Niece.

Chloe's POVThe search parties were still out past midnight, torches moving along the tree line like a slow, scattered constellation, and there was nothing left for either of us to do but wait.Theron had said no one leaves my sight tonight, and he'd meant it literally. He didn't let go of my hand once through the whole walk back to his chambers, not even to open the door.Inside, the fire had burned down to embers. Neither of us moved to build it back up."She could be anywhere by now," I said."She could." He shed his coat, dropped it over the back of a chair without looking at it. "Or she could be three miles out, and Kael finds her before dawn. I don't know which, and not knowing is the part I can't stand.""You're supposed to be the one who tells me it will be fine.""I stopped doing that after tonight." He crossed the room and stood in front of me, closer than talking required. "I'm not going to lie to you about this one. I don't know if it's fine. I know I'm not losing anyone el

Chloe's POVMarcus was awake when we reached the infirmary's undamaged wing, propped against three pillows with his splinted leg stretched out in front of him, a cup of something bitter-smelling untouched on the table beside him."You look like you're about to tell me something I don't want to hear," he said, before either of us had spoken."An empty case. Tracks that stop at rock." Theron set the scorched leather down on the blanket beside him. "Adrian says she was carrying something metal when they took her. Small. Catching the light strangely."Marcus went very still."The sister half," he said quietly. "She found it. She actually found it, and she didn't tell either of us before she went digging alone.""Found it where?" I asked."I don't know. But I know where I'd have looked, if I were her and didn't trust the archive enough to ask me directly." Marcus's jaw tightened. "There's an old shrine east of here, three hours by horse, built the same season Aldric performed the working. M