All Chapters of THE ALPHA'S FORBIDDEN LUNA: Chapter 251 - Chapter 260

POV: Lyra Thorne“You can have all of it back, Lyra. The land, the name, the gate, the graves. Your cousin free, your uncle at your table. I only need one small thing, and you will hate me for asking.”Titus stood in the corridor outside the crypt with a lantern in his hand and his shoulder against the wet wall, as if he had been waiting there for hours. Maybe he had. The light carved deep lines into his face. Behind me, Briar’s fingers closed around her knife hilt, and I felt Rhea go stiff as a post.“I sent my hawk an hour ago,” I said. My nose was still bleeding, and I wiped it with my sleeve. “Kaelan will know where I am, and what I have seen. So say your small thing quickly.”“Walk with me.”“No.”“Then I will say it here.” He set the lantern on the floor. “Crimson Fang and eight other packs will stand behind a free Thorne territory. Not a gift. A claim, older than Ashwood’s, which your bloodline already holds. We will march to the burned gate, raise your banner, and no Alpha ali

POV: Lyra Thorne“You left me in a locked room for nine years, and now you want me to forgive you before breakfast? Look at me, Lyra. Look at my face. Tell me you did not know I was alive.”Wren stood in the middle of the guest room with her arms folded and her chin up, still wearing yesterday’s ink on her sleeves. It was barely dawn. Gray light crept through the shutters. Briar had gone to find hot water, and Rhea had gone to find Corvin, and I had been about to sleep when the door burst open and my cousin walked in like a storm.“I did not know.”“You did not look.”“Wren.”“Did you look?” Her voice shook. “Even once? Even for a day? Did you ride one mile outside Ashwood and ask for the Thornes?”The honest answer sat in my mouth like a stone. I could have lied. I wanted to. I was so tired, and the lie would have been so soft.“No,” I said. “I did not.”She flinched as if I had slapped her.“I did not look because I was afraid.” My voice came out raw. “Every night for nine years, I

POV: Lyra Thorne“I lied to you on that ridge, Lyra. Not about the gate. About the book. I did not hear that it was carried out. I carried it myself, and I have been too ashamed to tell you who took it from me.”Corvin said it to the frost. We were standing in the walled garden behind Gallowmere’s kitchens, a small cold square of dead roses and bent apple trees. He had been waiting for me by the gate before the sun was fully up, and he had looked, when I came out, like a man who had not slept in a year.I did not answer at once. My breath hung in front of my face. Behind me, Rhea and Tam had stopped at the kitchen door, and Briar leaned in the shadow of the wall, pretending not to listen.“Say it again,” I said.“I carried the Keeper’s book out of the burning hall.” He looked at his hands. “Your mother put it in my arms in the hallway. Her face was black with soot. She said, run, Corvin, and do not stop for anyone, not even me. I ran.”“Not even her.”“Not even her.” His voice cracked

POV: Lyra Thorne“Tell the table how many floors you scrubbed, little maid. Tell us how many chamber pots. We are all so curious what a Keeper’s daughter tastes like after nine years on her knees.”Hask of Ridgeback leaned back in his chair and let the laughter roll down the long table. It was a fat, ugly sound. Torchlight shone on the silver ridge at his collar. Thirty Alphas and captains lined the benches of Gallowmere’s great hall, red faced with wine, and every one of them was looking at me.I stood at the foot of the table with my hands at my sides. My face was burning. For nine years I had known this feeling. The heat in the cheeks, the hot dry throat, the urge to bow my head and slide out of sight. It rose in me now like a tide, and for one second I let it. I was fourteen again, in a kitchen, with a woman shouting at me about a cracked plate.Then I felt a small, warm weight against my thigh. Tam, standing beside me, had pressed the whistle into my palm.I closed my fingers aro

POV: Lyra Thorne“He dies in your arms, Thorne, and you do not know his name. The Scribe told me everything. He told me you would look at your mate like a stranger. He laughed when he said it.”Hask’s whisper slid across the table like a knife on a plate. For one frozen heartbeat I could not breathe. Then Titus’s fist came down on the wood, and the whole hall jumped.“Enough.”He did not shout. He did not need to. His voice rolled down the benches like a stone, and thirty Alphas went silent. Hask opened his mouth, and Titus stood.“Sit down, Hask, or leave my house. You are not the first man I have thrown out for foolishness, and you will not be the last.”“Crane, you cannot.”“I can. It is my roof.” Titus’s eyes were gray ice. “Doran, you wished to speak?”Doran of Saltmere rose slowly, the pouch of silver coins still in his fist. He bowed to Titus, very slightly, and then, to my surprise, to me.“Saltmere withdraws from this table,” he said. “Until I know whose silver I have been sp