All Chapters of THE ALPHA'S FORBIDDEN LUNA: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

(Lyra's POV)"Someone saw you." Briar's voice cracked across the pantry the moment she'd shut the door behind us, before I'd even finished wringing out my soaked sleeves. "You and the Alpha. Coming back from the border together, hours late, both of you soaked through and standing closer than patrol partners ever stand."My stomach dropped straight through the floor. "Who saw us, Briar? Tell me exactly.""I don't know yet. But it's already halfway around the kitchen staff, and kitchen staff gossip reaches Marcus faster than official reports ever do." Briar's hands were shaking slightly, which frightened me more than her words had managed to. "Lyra, this isn't the corridor anymore. This isn't one accidental moment witnesses can half explain away over supper. This is you spending eleven hours alone with him and coming back looking like.""Like what, exactly?""Like a woman who just fell in love with an Alpha she can't legally have," Briar said, quiet and honest in a way that hurt more th

(Lyra's POV)"Lyra Thorne, you stand accused." Damon's voice, pitched deliberately for the whole chamber to hear, hit me before I'd even fully crossed the threshold, and walking into that room at dawn felt like walking straight into my own execution wearing borrowed dignity.Six elders sat in their carved seats, Damon at their head, his face arranged into something that almost passed for grief, almost, if you didn't know exactly where to look for the fear underneath it the way I'd trained myself to. Marcus stood at the door, jaw tight, eyes carefully avoiding mine entirely. Kaelan stood beside me instead of behind his father's chair, which I understood, even before another word was spoken aloud, was itself a kind of declaration the entire chamber would remember."You stand accused," Damon continued, "of violating pack law through pursuit of a forbidden bond with the Alpha, and of spreading unfounded accusations against this council regarding matters long settled and properly grieved."

(Lyra's POV)"You need to hear this before you do anything else." Rhea's hands were visibly shaking as she pulled us inside her cabin and barred the door behind us, a precaution I had never once seen her take in nine years of knowing her."I sent word to an old contact this morning," she said, "someone who was Crimson Fang before she left the pack years ago, disillusioned with what she'd seen there. She confirmed something I'd only ever suspected quietly, but never had proof enough to say aloud.""Confirmed what, exactly?" Kaelan asked, his voice tight with barely restrained urgency.Rhea's eyes found mine, careful, heavy with a grief that had clearly been waiting nine long years for permission to finally surface. "Titus Crane didn't just help your father cover up the Thorne massacre, Lyra. He orchestrated it from the very beginning. Your father paid for the maps. Titus provided the wolves who used them, disguised carefully as hunters, and the two of them split whatever gain came from

(Kaelan's POV)"Say what you came here to say, Damon." Elder Faye's voice cracked across the council hall before I had even finished crossing the threshold, and I knew from the sound of it that whatever waited inside would not be easy to survive.My father would not look at me, and that told me more than any confession he could have made standing in that room. The elders had gathered within the hour, summoned by Marcus before Titus Crane had even cleared our border, and not one of the seven of them looked comfortable occupying the carved stone bench that had judged Ashwood disputes for two hundred years. I stood at the center of the floor with Lyra beside me, close enough that I could feel her trying to keep her breathing even, and across from us my father sat in the Alpha's old chair like a man waiting for a storm he had built with his own two hands."Titus Crane does not walk up to our gates and ask for a Thorne by name for no reason at all," Elder Faye continued, her eyes fixed on

(Kaelan's POV)"I found Corin," Marcus said, and the words came out rough, like they'd cost him something just to hold onto until he'd made it through my door.Marcus had never once hesitated to follow an order in the three years I'd known him as my enforcer, so watching him hesitate now told me exactly how deep this had already cut into whatever certainty he'd built his life around."Say it," I told him, closing the door to my study so whatever came next stayed between us. "Whatever it is, say it plainly. I've had enough of careful words tonight.""Two days' run north, in a border camp Crimson Fang uses for wolves they don't want anyone asking about." Marcus's hands were steady despite everything in his voice suggesting otherwise. "He's alive. Barely, from what my contact could tell me. They're not feeding him well, and they're not planning to for much longer."My stomach dropped. "Titus took him.""Titus took him the same night your father learned the council was reconvening." Marcu