<b>Chapter </b><b>130 </b>


    In the warriors‘ courtyard, tension hung in the air like a taut bowstring.


    Audrey paced beside Monica, both of them cloaked in silent alertness. Kiera’s venomous words hadn’t faded into the wind. No, they lingered like the stench of blood before a storm. Every warrior who had heard her reckless outburst carried it now<i>–</i>not as anger, but as a memory. One that wouldn’t be easily forgiven.


    “She hasn’t left her chambers since that day,” Monica said, her voice t as she crossed her arms tightly over her chest. Her sharp eyes never left the far end of the guest tower.


    “She shouldn’t,” Audrey muttered. Her arms were folded too, but her fingers flexed subtly; a readiness for battle never fully gone. “And if she has half a brain, she won’t speak again without thinking.”


    Creaakk….


    The silent tension between them cracked when the great inner hall doors opened.


    Francesco stepped through, the weight of his name echoing in every footstep.


    The Lycan King.


    The war had ended with fire and fangs. Luca was dead. But victory didn’te with peace, his Luna is one of them.


    The once–mighty Council Towery in ruins a memory buried under ash, itsws drowned in betrayal. Of all the high council, only two remained: Renna, the sharpest mind of her generation, and Darius, the oldest werewolf still breathing, whose known as Mara and Elias.


    They had escaped death not through strength but foresight. On the day the tower fell, before Luca could inject them with madness, they had run – wounded, betrayed, but alive. They had escaped Marsen’s shadows along with Eine with them.


    Now they stood in the war chamber, the cold stone walls thick with unspoken truths helping him to find everyone who is link to Luca, now their eyes lock to find the person who is an old high counsellor, Marsen, the betrayer.


    Renna’s eyes were fixed on the frostced window, her breath fogging the ss. Dark circles hollowed her gaze – the toll of sleepless nights, of endless searching for the truth they still didn’t fully understand.


    “He’s nowhere,” Darius muttered, his gravel–lined voice scraping through the silence. He turned toward Francesco. “No sightings. No whispers. No trace of his scent.”


    Francesco didn’t speak immediately. His expression remained unreadable, forged in fire and tempered by the loss of too many.


    “We know Marsen was always careful,” Renna added, her tone sharp but weary. “He wasn’t like Luca. He didn’t lead. He watched. Listened. Learned.”


    “A shadow,<i>” </i>Darius said.


    “No man like him vanishes without a n.”


    They believed Marsen was the reason they were hunted. But no trail led to him. No paper trail. No body. Not even magic residue. As if he had never existed at all.


    But they knew better. Men like Marsen didn’t disappear. They burrowed. They bided their time. And then they emerged stronger.


    Francesco remained still as stone.


    He wasn’t one to waste words. Not on ghosts. Not on cowards who hid in the dark.


    But he felt it – the wrongness in the air.


    The veil had shattered. Magic once hidden, once sealed away by ancient blood oaths, now pulsed freely through thend.


    And with it came creatures never meant to walk under sun or moon again.


    Creatures… and something else.


    Meaning, everything unknown is still there.


    Go to Kiera Point of View:


    What the hell!!


    She hated it.


    Every second of it burned in her chest like acid.


    She was the daughter of an Alpha.


    She came from a bloodline of power and pride, raised with the expectation that the world would bow before her.


    And yet…


    “How dare they.” Her voice dripped with venom as she stormed down the corridor of the east wing. Her heels clicked with fury on the stone floor. “They humiliated me. In front of everyone. Me.”


    Audrey’s re. Monica’s cold dismissal. The warriors‘ silence–heavy and charged, as if she were the enemy.


    All because of her. That sleeping Luna.


    What’s with that girl?


    Why does everyone act like she’s some goddess fallen from the heavens? Like she’s the center of gravity, pulling every man, woman, and breath toward her?


    What is she, really?


    A powerless nobody. A reject. A Luna without a crown.


    Kiera’s hands clenched at her sides. Her nails dug half–moons into her palms.


    She reached therge oak doors to her father’s study and shoved them open with a loud-


    BLAM.


    Alpha Gregory, seated behind his desk with scrolls and letters strewn before him, looked up sharply. “Kiera?” His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed with concern. “What’s wrong with you, barging in like that?”


    Kiera didn’t answer at first. She marched in like a storm, pacing back and forth with wild eyes and clenched fists.


    He rose from his chair. “Speak, daughter. What happened?”


    “I’m sick of this,” she spat. “Everyone walking around like that girl is the moon itself. I make onement–one–about her, and suddenly I’m treated like a criminal. As if I insulted the goddess herself!”


    Gregory’s brow creased. “What did you say?”


    “Nothing awfull Just the truth. I said she’s always asleep and fragile and weak. That she’s not worthy of-”


    “Enough.”


    She blinked as her father’s hand flew up in front of her mouth, silencing her mid–sentence.


    “F–Father?!” she recoiled, stunned.


    But his face was not the warmfort she’d always known. It was cold. Serious. Commanding.


    “I said enough, Kiera,” he growled, his voice low butced with warning. “Don’t speak like that again. Not in this house. Not in this kingdom. I don’t care if you are my daughter.”


    Her heart thudded. This wasn’t like him. He never spoke to her this way–not Gregory, who always protected her, spoiled her, chased away


    the world for her.


    “You would punish me?” she whispered, stunned. “For her?”


    Alpha Gregory stepped closer, cing a firm hand on her shoulder. “You don’t understand, Kiera. That girl is not just a Luna. She’s his.”


    “You mean King Francesco’s?<i>” </i>she snapped.


    He nodded grimly. “Yes. And not just his. The goddess fated her. The mark is real. The bond is real. And what’s more… there’s power surrounding her that not even I can exptain.”


    Kiera stepped back as if pped. “So that’s it? We all bend to her now?”


    “No,” Gregory said quietly. “We protect her. For him. For the kingdom. For the war that’s stilling.”


    Kiera’s chest rose and fell with shallow, angry breaths. Her father’s words dug into her pride like thorns.


    She turned away, blinking back heat behind her eyes. “I hate her already…” she whispered under her breath. “That girl they call Luna.”


    And deep inside her–beneath the pride, beneath the spoiled softness–something darker, began to root.


    Something dangerous.