CHAPTER ONE

The silver crown sat on its velvet cushion at the high table, waiting for a head that wasn't mine.I watched from behind the last pillar in Draven Hall, a heavy wine jug dragging at my arm. Pitch-pine torches spat resin along the walls. The north door stood open a hand's width to let the smoke out, and frost had crept in anyway, furring the iron hinges white and biting the back of my neck.My apron had a wine stain on the hem. My fingers reeked of crushed silver-leaf, a bitter green smell that eleven nights of boiling had soaked into my skin for good.Under the leather cuff on my left wrist, the mate mark itched. It was a thin black line, like a claw scratch. Two years ago, Kael had buckled that cuff around it himself."Keep it covered," he had said, without looking at me. "Just for now."Just for now had lasted two winters.Three hundred wolves crammed the hall shoulder to shoulder, smelling of wet wool and barley beer. Raven banners hung from the rafters. Salt cod and roast boar ste

Last Updated : 2026-10-28

CHAPTER TWO

I did not run. That is the part I still cannot forgive.I finished pouring. I bowed to Selene, because the cook was watching. I walked out of the hall with my spine straight and my face smooth, the way I had walked since I was six and my pack became the joke of every Alpha in the north.Then I went to Kael's study. I needed to hear him say it.The fire had sunk to orange embers. By the window, a skin of ice had formed over the ink in its well. A map of the northern territories covered one wall, stuck with iron pins, and the room smelled of lamp oil and dried juniper. I knew every corner of it. For two years, I had slipped in here after midnight, when the keep slept, and Kael had been someone else. He had once pressed his forehead to mine by that window and said, "You're the only quiet place I have." His hands had shaken when he touched my face. He had held me like something he was afraid to crack.I had called that love. Maybe it was. I could no longer tell which answer would be wors

Last Updated : 2026-10-28

CHAPTER THREE

Forty-one steps led down to the cellar under the east wing. I counted every one, because counting kept me from screaming.The air down there was thick and cold, like a grave that had never been shut. Blocks of river ice lay stacked in sawdust along one wall, dripping slowly into a brass drain. Bundles of silver-leaf, my silver-leaf, hung from the beams in dusty rows, and somebody had cut half of them down.An iron door stood at the end of the passage. Two guards flanked it. They did not stop me. They studied their boots, the way wolves do when they have been given an order they do not like.I shouldered the door open.My father lay strapped to a steel table."Papa!"His face was the color of ash. Black veins spread across his neck like roots through soil, and his lips had cracked and bled. A glass tube ran from the crook of his arm into a copper bowl, filling with dark red blood.Selene stood at the foot of the table in a clean white coat, sleeves rolled to the elbow. She looked up an

Last Updated : 2026-10-28

CHAPTER FOUR

The snow had no end.I do not know how long I walked. Hours, maybe. The cold had dropped so low that the snow squealed under my boots like wet leather, and the pines along the track popped and cracked as their sap froze. My breath turned to ice on my scarf. The sled rope sawed through my gloves and into my palms. Inside me, my wolf whimpered, small and hurt, and every step sent a white spike of pain up my wrist.My father had stopped talking. He only breathed, a thin wet rattle that scared me more than silence."Stay with me, Papa," I said. "I'm right here."The forest closed in. Black trunks, white ground, a sky the color of iron. The wind shoved against my chest as if it wanted me to turn back.I knew where I was heading. I had memorized the map in Kael's study. North of Draven lay the Blackthorn border, where the two packs had been bleeding each other for forty years. Kael's men called Blackthorn wolves savages. I did not care. Savages could not be crueler than the man I had just

Last Updated : 2026-10-28

CHAPTER FIVE

The door shut, and the room emptied.I lay on a narrow cot in a small stone chamber, my hands wrapped in linen, a blanket pulled to my chin. A bear pelt covered the foot of the bed. A fire cracked in the corner, and the whole room smelled of pine resin and smoke. Two guards stood outside the door. The room was warm, and I was still shaking.Ronan sat on a wooden chair across from me. The knife lay across his knee. He had not lifted it. He had not put it away either."My name is Lyra," I said. There was no point in lying now. "Lyra Moonstone.""I know what you are." He said it slowly. "My grandfather told stories about your family. The Moonstone Queens. Wolves who healed with a touch and made kings kneel. He said the Alphas hunted them all down.""I don't know anything about queens." My throat burned. "I'm a healer. That's all I've ever been.""That's not all you are.""My father…""Is alive." He said it flatly. "My healer is working on him. The poison is Frost wolfsbane mixed with som

Last Updated : 2026-10-28

All Chapters of THE LUNA THEY HID IN THE SHADOWS : Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE