Todos os capítulos de THE ALPHA'S FORBIDDEN LUNA: Capítulo 211 - Capítulo 220

POV: Kaelan Ashwood“Your mother did not curse me, Lyra. She thanked me.” Damon’s laugh was a dry, broken thing. “She thanked me minutes before the barn caught fire. Do you know what that does to a man? Nine years, and I still hear it.”We sat in the small stone room beside the cells. One candle, one table, three chairs, and my father in the middle of it all, looking like a coat hung on a nail. Marcus stood by the door with his arms folded. Lyra had asked me to stay. “I will not carry this alone,” she had said, and I had never been so grateful for a sentence in my life.“Thanked you for what?” Lyra asked. Her hands lay flat on the table. Through the bond I felt her heart, quick and hard, like a fist knocking on a locked door.“For telling her the truth.” Damon rubbed the red marks the rope had left on his wrists. “She came alone, near dusk. No guards, no weapons. She stood in my study and said she knew about my promise to the Crimson Fang. She said she knew I was afraid. She said she

POV: Kaelan Ashwood“You put a wolf on my back, Kaelan. A wolf. After nine years of being watched, you decided to watch me too.” Lyra’s voice shook on every word. “Tell me I am wrong. Please.”She stood in the middle of our private room, the folded violet note crushed in her fist. I had never seen her so angry. Not at Damon. Not at Titus. At me.“You are not wrong,” I said.“Kaelan.”“I asked Dane to follow you at a distance. He is young, quiet, and he does not crowd.” I kept my hands open at my sides. “Someone has been breaking into Corra’s pantry. Someone has been cleaning every room before we arrive. I could not sit in this house and wait for you to be hurt.”“I did not ask you to protect me. I asked you to trust me.” She threw the note on the table. “You promised we would share this. Our power, our decisions, all of it. A promise is not a promise if you break it the moment you are frightened.”That hurt, because it was true. “I was frightened,” I said. “I still am.”“So am I.” Her

POV: Kaelan Ashwood“Tell me I am not like him, Lyra. Tell me the blood in my veins is not the same.” My voice was a scrape in the dark, and I hated how small it sounded.We were under the dais in the empty Moot Hall, flat on our stomachs, with one candle between us. It was past midnight. The eighth chair had been pushed aside, and its underside lay exposed, smelling of dust and old wax. Lyra’s cheek was smudged with dirt, and she looked at me with an expression so gentle it nearly broke me.“Why are you asking?”“Because I watched my father cry in that room tonight.” I swallowed. “Because I heard him say he was a fool, and I thought, that is exactly what I am afraid of. Being the fool. The man who looks the other way until it is too late.”“Kaelan.” She wriggled closer. “You are not the fool. You are the man who tied his own father with a rope and then asked the council to keep it soft.”“That is not courage. That is guilt.”“It is both. People are allowed to be both.” Her fingers br

POV: Kaelan Ashwood“A man died last night holding your mother’s brooch, Lyra, and today the council wants to hand you her land. Does that not frighten you?” I kept my voice low as the elders filed in.“It terrifies me.” She smoothed her gray dress. Her fingers did not shake. “But if I let fear decide, then whoever poisoned Pell has already won.”We stood at the back of the Moot Hall in the minutes before the vote. The benches were crowded. Word of Pell’s death had spread through the pack by dawn, and every face looked pinched and watchful. The air smelled of wool, sweat and candle smoke.“I have a bad feeling,” I said.“I know. I can feel it through the bond.” She touched my sleeve. “But I need you to trust me today. Not behind me. Beside me.”I swallowed my argument. “Beside you.”Wynne rapped her stick three times. The elders took their seats, and Lyra walked down the aisle alone. She did not go to the floor, where petitioners stood. She climbed the dais steps and sat down in the e

POV: Kaelan Ashwood“If I fall asleep tonight, Kaelan, promise you will wake me before the dreams reach the fire.” Lyra’s voice was a whisper, her face half hidden in her blanket.Our camp sat in the lee of the hall’s broken wall, with the horses picketed behind us and twelve council wolves in a loose ring. Vale had pitched his tent near the gate. Garrow’s tent stood beside it, and the old elder’s knee had been creaking all evening. The fire popped. The stars burned cold and thick above the ash.“I promise,” I said. “And if the dreams come anyway, I will be in them with you.”“That is a terrible promise.”“It is the only one I have.”She huffed a laugh against my shoulder, and some of the tightness left her back.“I keep thinking about the ditch.” She sat up and drew her knees to her chest. “Pell lifted me out. I must have been screaming, but I cannot remember a sound. Only the smoke, and a man’s hands, and the way he said hush.”“You were fourteen.”“I was a coward. I ran when my mot