Marked By The Moon: Tied To The Four Alphas のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 121 - チャプター 130

ISLAThe dust that swept around hadn’t settled. It hung in the air like a curtain, thick with rock and salt and the smell of burnt lightning. The cove wasn’t a cove anymore. It was a wound in the island, a crater that went down twenty feet, and the black water was rushing in to fill it, slow and heavy like it was afraid to touch what had happened here. Elias-and-Jace stood in the middle of it. The fused wolf was coming apart. Not violently. Not with a snap. With an exhale. Light peeled off them in strips, fur receding, bone shrinking, the twelve feet of storm breaking into two men who hit their knees hard on the shattered stone. Elias first. His back arched. He coughed and blood hit the ground. His shoulder was torn open, muscle and bone and something white that shouldn’t be seen. He didn’t make a sound. Jace second. He landed on his hands, head down, his side a mess of red and black. The lightning was gone from his skin but the air around him still hummed. He was breathing like h

LUCIANThe first thing I felt was the wall. Not stone. Not air. Force. It hit me in the chest and took my breath with it. One second I had Isla in my arms, her face buried in my neck, her tears hot on my skin. The next I was airborne. I hit the crater wall twenty feet up. My shoulder took it first. Something tore. I heard it. A wet, ripping sound that belonged to meat, not to me. I slid down, rock scraping my back raw, and hit the ground on my knees. “Isla!” I shouted. Or tried to. My throat was full of dust and blood and her name came out broken. She was standing. No. It wasn’t her. The wolf in the center of the crater was twelve feet tall, maybe thirteen. Fur like hammered silver. Eyes that weren’t eyes. They were white fire. The mark I’d put on her shoulder was gone. Burned away like it had never been. She threw her head back and howled. The sound wasn’t sound. It was a command. The ocean answered it. The whole island shuddered. Darius moved. He shouldn’t have been able to

ISLAMy feet moved. That was the worst part. They moved and I didn’t tell them to. The cave floor was wet stone, slick with something that had never seen sunlight, and my toes curled against it for balance without asking me. My arms hung at my sides. Loose. Wrong. Like they belonged to someone else and I was just borrowing them. Darius walked ahead of me. His back was to me. His right arm was bent wrong, the bone pressing against skin, but he didn’t cradle it. He didn’t limp. He wouldn’t give me that. Each step had to be agony. He didn’t show it. The cave breathed. It wasn’t wind. Wind was outside. This was deeper. It came from the walls, from the black water that ran in thin streams along the floor and vanished into cracks. It smelled like iron and old salt and something else. Something that had been waiting. “Keep up,” Darius said. He didn’t turn around. My legs obeyed. I was scared not scared of the dark one bit. I was only scared of me, and how quiet I was inside my own hea

LUCIANThe fire wasn’t warm. It burned, but the heat didn’t reach me. Nothing did. Not since the island went under. Not since the bond went dark. I sat with my back against the tree, my leg stretched out, my ribs wrapped tight with whatever Jace had torn from his shirt, and all I could feel was the hole. The shame was a stone, but now it had edges. It cut every time I moved. Every time I breathed. She was gone. My mate. My Isla. I’d had her in my arms. I’d told her it was over. And then the light took her. “What if we’re late?” The words came out before I knew I was going to say them. My voice was rough. Broken. I hadn’t meant to speak. But once it started, I couldn’t stop. “What if we get there late and Darius had already killed her?” I said. I pushed up straighter. Pain lanced through my ribs. I didn’t care. “What if he doesn’t wait for the red blood moon? What if he decides six days is too long? What if he looks at her and decides he’s done waiting?” Jace stopped pacing. He’

LUCIANThe fury was a living thing. It climbed up my throat and sat behind my teeth, hot and metallic, and if I opened my mouth I was going to tear Ryder’s throat out. Not because he was wrong about the threat. Not because he didn’t have a reason. But because he said it. Out loud. In the yard. Like she was a problem to be solved and not the air in my lungs. We have to kill her then. The words kept echoing in my mind. I didn’t answer. I didn’t look at Jace, at Elias, at Caelan. I could feel their shock. Their anger. Their betrayal. We’d agreed. On the boat. On the sand. Her name doesn’t leave our mouths. Not until we have her. Not until she’s safe. I’d broken it. Because I was done hiding. Done pretending. I walked past Ryder. He said my name. “Lucian.” I didn’t stop. Didn’t turn. My leg wanted to give out. I made it work. Each step was a spike through my knee, through my ribs, but I kept my back straight. Kept my head up. The guards parted. The students in the windows went silen