All Chapters of THE ALPHA'S FORBIDDEN LUNA: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

(Kaelan's POV)"Tell me you didn't just scent bond to a Thorne in the middle of my corridor."My father didn't yell often. He'd trained that out of himself decades ago, the same way he'd trained fear out of his voice and grief out of his face. So when Damon Ashwood's words came out sharp enough to cut, I understood exactly how much trouble I was in before he finished the sentence."I don't control my wolf's reaction to a mate bond, Father. You know that better than anyone.""I know," he said, "that a mate bond to that girl will end your title, end this pack's alliance with the Voss line, and possibly end this territory's ability to survive the next six months. Do you understand what you're describing to me right now?"I did. That was the problem.I'd walked that corridor a thousand times without noticing Lyra Thorne, the same way I hadn't noticed most of the Omega staff, not out of cruelty, just the particular blindness of a man carrying a whole pack's survival on his shoulders, who d

(Kaelan's POV)The shot never came. That was almost worse, the half second where I was certain it would, where every instinct in my body screamed shield her louder than nine years of Alpha training had ever screamed anything, and then the scope dipped, and the shape in the trees was simply gone, retreating without firing, like whoever held that rifle had gotten exactly what they came for just by aiming it."They wanted to see something," I said, once I'd swept the treeline twice and come back empty. "Not kill anyone. See something."Lyra hadn't moved from where I'd put her, back against a tree trunk, breathing hard, eyes wide and gold at the edges where her wolf sat close to the surface. "See what?""Whether you'd run," I said slowly, the pieces settling into a shape I didn't like. "Or whether I'd protect you." I looked at her. "I did the second one without thinking. In front of a witness with a rifle scope, who is now going to report exactly what he saw to whoever sent him.""You thi

(Kaelan's POV)"Two weeks," Selene Voss said, studying me across the length of my father's study with the flat, assessing look of a woman doing complicated math in her head. "You moved our mating up by a month, Alpha Ashwood, and you haven't looked me in the eye since I arrived. I'd like to know why, and I'd like an honest answer, because I did not travel three days to be lied to politely."I hadn't expected Selene Voss to be blunt. Every account I'd heard of her painted a portrait of a quiet, dutiful daughter delivered to seal an alliance, and the woman sitting across from me, dark eyed, composed, watching me like she already knew more than she was saying, did not match that portrait at all."There was a security incident on the northeast border," I said, which was true, and also not remotely the answer she'd asked for."That's not what I asked." Selene leaned back, unhurried. "I asked why you can't look at me. I've been in this pack house four hours, Alpha, and I've already heard th

(Kaelan's POV)"Two weeks has become twelve days," I said, pacing the leaking training barn while Lyra sat perfectly still on an overturned crate, "and every single one of them is going to end with me lying to a woman I'm supposed to marry about a father I no longer trust."Nobody used this barn anymore, roof leaking, wards gone thin from years of neglect, which meant it was exactly private enough for a conversation that could get us both killed if the wrong ears found their way here. I held out the ledger fragment Marcus had handed me an hour ago, watching Lyra's face carefully as she took it."Crimson Fang scouts left this at the northeast marker," I said. "Same handwriting as yours. Same initial. Titus wants my father to confess by the wedding, or he says he'll do it publicly, in front of both packs, at the ceremony itself, in front of everyone who matters."Lyra's face went pale in the flickering lantern light, her fingers tightening around the parchment's blackened edge. "Confess

(Kaelan's POV)"Stay here," I said, but Lyra was already moving, ignoring me completely, years of learned invisibility apparently making her the last person on earth willing to stand still while danger walked past.The silence after that snapped branch was the loudest thing I'd heard in three years of holding this pack together with careful hands, and every instinct I owned told me it hadn't come from an animal. I kept scenting the air, sorting through wet leaves and pine and distant rain for the one thread that didn't belong here at all. There. Faint, retreating fast, moving with the deliberate, controlled pace of a trained wolf rather than the panic of ordinary prey."Absolutely not," Lyra said, already low and quiet beside me, matching my pace step for step. "Whoever that is knows exactly what we just found. If they get back to Crimson Fang territory with it, or worse, back to your father, we lose whatever advantage we just gained by accident."She was right, and I hated that she w