When The Luna Broke Her Chains novel Chapter 34

Finished

Chapter 34 The Wolf That Answered

[XENA]

Three days later, we leave for the royal palace.

I don’t remember much of the first day after the inspection. Only fragments. I remember pain… and falling. Then nothing. But I remember the dream.

Or maybe it wasn’t a dream at all.

I remember being small. Low to the ground. I remember silver–silver bars. A cage too tightly built around

1. me.

Every time I touched it, it burned. Not like fire but sharper. Like the pain went straight through skin and bone and into something deeper. Something that wasn’t flesh.

I whimpered. I could hear it echo in the dark, and I tried to disappear by blinking.

That was all it ever took before. A blink. A breath. A shadow folding around me. I blinked.

Nothing changed. I blinked again. Still there.

Time stretched in strange ways. I don’t know how long I stayed like that—minutes, days. I only know the ache never left. The loneliness didn’t either. Then–I woke, back in my body. And that’s when I understood

what was wrong.

I feel… incomplete. The hollow that appeared when I first lost my wolf at eighteen that night when the rogues attacked me–when everything went quiet inside me–it had dulled with time. I learned to live around it. Now it’s back, but not in an empty, silent way.

It’s restless.

Something stirs in my mind, like a shape just beneath the surface of water. I reach for it instinctively, but there’s nothing there.

No wolf. No voice. It’s a tension that exists and stretches, wrapping around my consciousness.

Cassian visits me twice a day now. He smiles more and touches my arm. Calls me my Luna in that careful voice he uses when he wants something from me.

“You should rest,” he tells me on the second morning. “We leave soon.”

I nod. “For the palace.”

“Yes.” His smile sharpens. “Everything will be resolved there.”

Astrid stands near the door, not saying a word.

Cassian lifts the bowl from her hands himself this time. “Drink,” he says, pressing it to my lips,

I hesitate, barely holding back a scream.

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2:40 pm &

Chapter 34 The Wolf That Answered

Finished

His fingers tighten. “Xena.”

I remember someone saying my lunar energy was stable. I remember how violently Cassian reacted to that. So I drink. The taste is worse than before.

Cassian watches until the bowl is empty, then sets it aside and leaves without another word.

The door shuts, but Astrid doesn’t look at me.

I sit there for a heartbeat longer, then my stomach heaves. I shove my fingers down my throat and retch until my eyes water and bile burns my tongue. The medicine spills onto the floor, thick and green and useless.

Astrid turns sharply. “Luna-”

“I’m fine,” I whisper hoarsely. “I’m fine.”

She kneels beside me but doesn’t touch me. Her hands tremble. “I’m sorry,” she says.

I don’t answer.

When Kasumi returns, I don’t even try to stand. I collapse into her arms, shaking, clinging to the only thing that feels safe. “I miss her,” I whisper into her shoulder.

Kasumi stiffens. “The pup?”

I nod. The ache in my chest deepens.

“She’s… not dead,” Astrid says quietly from behind us.

I lift my head. “What?”

“She’s traveling with us,” Astrid says. “Alpha Cassian ordered it.”

Relief crashes through me so hard I nearly sob. “She’s alive?”

“Yes.”

Kasumi exhales shakily. “Goddess be praised.”

I don’t praise anyone, but I hold onto that relief like it might keep me upright.

The day of departure comes too quickly.

My belongings are packed into a single chest. The ceremonial cloak Cassian gave me–the fake one–lies folded on top.

Lady Mara and Oriel will be joining us.

“For the Luna Choosing,” Kasumi whispers, wide–eyed. “Lady Oriel wants to offer hersell,”

I close my eyes. Of course.

12:40 pm

Chapter 34 The Wolf That Answered

Cassian orders the convoy to leave that very night.

Finished

The palace road stretches long and dark ahead of us, lit by lanterns and moonlight. I’m forced to ride in a carriage with Astrid. But a part of me is thankful for the privacy.

Neither of us speaks at first as the horses snort softly outside and the wheels creak over mud and stone paths.

Finally, I ask, “Why are you coming along?”

Astrid laughs weakly. “He wouldn’t let me stay.”

I glance at her. “You look afraid.”

“Yes,” she says immediately. “But I’m not afraid of you.”

Silence settles again. Then she exhales sharply. “I need to tell you something, Luna.”

I nod, swallowing the lump that forms in my throat.

“I saw them,” Astrid says. “Davina and Cassian.”

My jaw tightens, knowing what she is implying.

“I didn’t mean to,” she continues quickly. “He summoned me. Like he always did. And she was there.”

I stare at the floor of the carriage.

“He looked at her like-” Astrid swallows. “Like she was the only thing that ever mattered.”

I close my eyes, turning away.

“I stayed,” she admits. “I watched. I needed to know.”

The carriage jolts over a stone. “And Morrin?” I ask quietly.

Astrid’s voice drops. “I told her. Everything.”

Oh, so it wasn’t Morrin who saw it herself. Astrid was the messenger.

“She believed me,” Astrid continues. “She was going to send a petition to the Moon Guild.”

“Was going to?” I whisper.

Astrid reaches into her cloak and pulls something free. It’s a parchment with an unbroken seal.

“Morrin never sent it,” she says. “She told me where she kept it. She said she’d wait.”

My heart pounds.

“I still have it,” Astrid says. “With her seal. Her handwriting.”

3/4

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Chapter 34 The Wolf That Answered

“You could destroy him,” I say.

“Yes,” she says. “And he has no idea.”

00:0

The road opens suddenly. The palace gates rise ahead of us–massive, ancient, crowned with silver banners that ripple in the night wind. Lycan sigils blaze in torchlight.

I feel it before I see him. A presence.

Finished

The carriage slows. Trumpets sound. Someone announces us as the Alpha and the Luna from Frostfang.

We step out and stand, waiting. Figures step forward into the light to welcome us, but my gaze finds something else. It finds him.

The stranger from my dreams stands on an open balcony of the palace built from black stone.

And the wolf inside me answers him.

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