All Chapters of The Cursed Alpha King's Forbidden Luna: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Zayden's POV I shut the door behind her, and for one heartbeat neither of us moved. She was carrying the pressed suit the maid with Kael maid held earlier. He must have handed it to her outside. It slid from her arm when I stepped toward her, and she didn't notice it fall. I didn't intend to keep coming. I just did, and she backed up on instinct, one step, then two, until her shoulders met the wall and she had nowhere left for her to put distance. Her eyes were wide, and I watched them change from alarm into something warier. She lifted a hand to put some distance between us. I leaned closer still, bracing my palms on the wall on either side of her head. Damn! She looked beautiful. There was no use lying about it, not even to myself. With her hair pulled up and the blue ribbon drawing my eyes to her nape, the line of her neck was bare, and the scent I'd followed down the hall was close enough now to hurt. The Veilbrand, which had dragged at me all night, went quiet around her lik

Yvaine's POVThe ride out of the palace was easier than I'd feared.Judy took the passenger seat beside the driver, and I took the back. For two hours there was just road, and fields, and a gray sky coming down on both. Perfect. Nobody was speaking to me, shoving me, or hitting me with a tray. I rested my head against the glass and hated how grateful I was for that.The supplier was in a small town at the end of the road, in a narrow shop wedged between a tailor and a shuttered pharmacy. A bell rang over the door as we walked in. The air in the shop was thick with dried herbs, and every shelf was crowded with jars. The shopkeeper was a stooped old wolf, and his nose wrinkled the moment I came in. I could tell what he was thinking. Human. His eyes swept me head to toe, then he turned to Judy, and decided to talk to Judy.She said the word. Damnroot. I think I might have to ask someone for the spelling. I refused to believe damnroot was a real word, much less something worth that much

Yvaine's POVThe trick to washing sheets with your feet is to stop thinking about the sheets.I had been marching in the big red washtub since sunrise, my skirt knotted above my knees, grey water up to my shins, stamping out one soaked bedsheet after another as if each one had insulted my mother. Lye soap had eaten the skin around my nails. My calves burned. Somewhere around the third batch I stopped feeling the cold which I decided was an improvement.There were still dozens left. The pile beside the tub had not gotten any smaller. It looked like it was breeding.Every bed in the guest wing, Madam Crane had said, for the alphas staying through the accord week. Washed by hand, dried in the sun, folded and returned by noon tomorrow. By hand, she added, because some people needed reminding what their hands were for.I hauled the first wet sheet across the green fid with both arms and threw it over the line. The wind caught it at once and snapped it flat. Beyond the line the palace wall

Yvaine's POV By late afternoon my legs had stopped belonging to me. The sun had slipped behind the east tower and the green grass was striped with long shadows. The line sagged under its load of white, and there were still eleven sheets and six blankets standing between me and my bed. I had stopped sweating around noon, which I suspected was not a good sign. Every time I stepped out of the washtub my knees shook, as if they were considering a protest. "You look way worse than this morning." Anita had come around the corner of the shed with a cloth bundle under one arm and a bottle of water in her fist. She was not teasing this time. She just looked tired of watching me. She did not offer the bottle. She unscrewed it herself, drank, and held it out already open. I took it without a fight. I was too tired. Then she unwrapped the cloth. Two apples, a handful of plums, a pear gone soft on one side. "Anita." I stared at the fruit. "Madam Crane said nothing to eat until I finish." "M

Yvaine's POVThere are moments when your body betrays you in public, and the shame is so total it feels like the whole room can hear your pulse in a particular kind of silence that has weight. It falls after a crash, in a room full of people who matter, and it presses down on the one person who does not matter.A person like me.The tray was already tilting when I understood what had happened. A foot had slid out from under the edge of the long table, a silver buckle flashing in the candlelight, and my ankle had met it. I never saw whose it was. I only had time to watch the red wine leave the glass in a slow, graceful arc, as if it had all the time in the world, and land across the front of Lady Seraphine's ivory gown.Then the whole hall breathed in at once, and every breath was a murmur."Look what she has done.""On Lady Seraphine?""Who let a human carry wine?""I am so sorry." I was already bowing, my forehead nearly at my knees, the empty tray crushed against my ribs. "I am so s