All Chapters of At Midnight, I Stopped Being His Luna: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Two days later, I reached the Blood Moon pack.Rowan’s mother was waiting outside the pack house. She hurried toward me as I climbed down from the truck.“You went north?”“You know about Mara and the child?”I took my suitcase upstairs without answering.She followed me into my room. When I continued to ignore her, her voice hardened.“Well, there’s no point keeping it from you now.”“After you lost your pup, the healers said you might never conceive again. Rowan is an Alpha. Blood Moon cannot go without an heir forever.”“Mara saved his life and gave him a son. Is that so terrible?”“She won’t take your position. She’ll live here as a maid. Once Noah is registered under your name, everyone will still honor you as his mother.”I finally looked at her.She didn’t seem to notice what it cost me to listen.“Yes, we kept you from going north these past three years. But the poisoning was real. The ambush was real. Your grandmother really was dying. No one lied about any of that.”“You chos

Over the next eleven days, I registered Mara as an employee, prepared a guest room, and arranged a New Year’s Eve welcome dinner in honor of the woman who had saved our Alpha’s life.Everyone decided I had accepted the situation.As the days passed and I kept cooperating, even Rowan’s unease faded.On the afternoon of December thirty-first, a royal courier delivered the last of my documents.I carried the folder to Rowan’s study. Before I reached the door, I heard his mother.“I thought Elena might make a scene. I even worried she would dissolve the mating.”“Three years ago, she never would have accepted this so easily.”Rowan was quiet for a moment.“She hasn’t changed. She loves me. She knows I only feel responsible for Mara.”He sounded certain.“Elena gets angry. She gets hurt. But she won’t leave me.”His mother laughed softly.“She’s finally learned what it means to be a proper Luna.”I remained outside.Neither of them knew that once these papers were sealed, I would leave Bloo

ElenaMy first patient at the Royal Infirmary was a kitchen apprentice with a burned hand.He stared at the name on my door.“You’re the new chief healer?”“Unless you know something I don’t.”He laughed nervously. I pulled up a stool and asked him how he had burned himself.By lunchtime, I had forgotten to wonder whether Rowan had called.The work was demanding. There were treatment protocols to review, younger healers to supervise, an entire wing asking for equipment. But when I requested help, people came. No one called needing an assistant a failure of devotion.At my own examination that afternoon, the obstetric healer moved the listening crystal across my stomach.A rapid beat filled the room.I gripped the edge of the bed.“That’s the baby?”“Strong and steady.”I closed my eyes.For weeks, I had been carrying fear so tightly that relief almost hurt.Gabriel found me later in the courtyard behind my aunt’s house. She had lived in the royal district for twenty years and insisted

Elena POVA package arrived from the northern settlement in early spring.Inside was an old draft of a letter and a note from Mara.He wrote this before sending the final version to Blood Moon. I kept it because I thought it proved he had chosen me. I was cruel to you about the name and the amulet. I knew what they were. I’m sorry.I don’t expect you to answer. This should never have been mine to keep.The letter was dated five days after I lost my first baby.I received the dispatch about Elena. The border is quiet enough for me to return, but Mara’s fever hasn’t broken and Noah is weak. Mother and Elena’s father are with her. Elena will understand. I’ll write when things settle here.I read it twice.I had known he knew about the miscarriage. I hadn’t known he could have come home.For years, I had imagined an impassable road, an attack, a duty that made returning impossible. There had been sick people near him and a grieving woman far away. He had chosen the people whose need he cou

The next New Year’s Eve, I met Rowan at the royal ferry landing.Gabriel and I were taking Ivy to my aunt’s winter house. Rowan had come for his holiday visit before heading north to Noah.Ivy reached for him as soon as she saw him.“Hello, little sprout.”He lifted her carefully, letting her pat the carved wooden wolf tied to his coat.“Noah made that,” he told me. “With considerably more enthusiasm than accuracy.”The wolf had one enormous ear. I smiled.Our visits had become predictable. Sometimes awkward, sometimes warm, always arranged in advance. He returned Ivy when he said he would. If the border roads closed, he called before we were left waiting.Those things mattered to her.They did not restore our mating, and he no longer behaved as though they should.Gabriel checked the ferry board.“We have ten minutes. I’m getting pastries. Any requests?”“Something without cinnamon,” I said.He raised an eyebrow. “A challenge. I accept.”Rowan watched him go.“Are you happy?”“Yes.”T