All Chapters of The Crescent Heir : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

"Calm your spirit, Master Ashworth."Madam Edith's voice was soft but deliberate, her staff striking the floor with a single, firm tap — less a sound, more a statement. The kind of statement that said 'I am the oldest person in this room, and I will not repeat myself.'Deimon said nothing. His jaw clenched, his chest still tight with something he couldn't cleanly name. Was it the boy's tone? His posture? The lazy, unbothered way he occupied space in a room full of people who could end him? Or was it simply the fact that he had spoken at all — sat there in front of the Blood-moon Scion and opened his mouth like the floor was already his?He couldn't tell. And that, perhaps, was the most infuriating part."His ways are not what we can address as respectful," Edith continued, her gaze steady. "Not before a Blood-Scion. Not before an Alpha." Her eyes moved briefly to Romulus, then back. "But he speaks the truth. He speaks as though the spirits themselves are guiding his tongue. So let us

"JB?"Anna looked at him the way you look at someone who has just said something that shouldn't have been said out loud, in quiet disbelief, slow and stinging. But Jebediah's expression didn't shift, he did not even flinch. He meant every syllable of his question, and Anna could read it very clearly on him."I'm just asking, Anna." He kept his voice low and casual, like the question hadn't just landed in the middle of everything like a stone dropped from a great height. "I would never take back those tainted hands. He's a traitor, and there is no place for a traitor in my life. Not now, not ever. And that's where it stays." The word came out harder than she planned, fury written in-between them."Oh, alright." Jebediah tapped her arm gently, his tone shifting just slightly — a quiet, deliberate nudge toward safer ground."JB?"He turned and answered her with nothing but his eyes."Why did you ask?" She studied him carefully. "Is something bothering you?""Something? Of course not." T

-----The evening had barely settled when Madam Edith slipped through the corridor of the Ashworth mansion like someone been chased by shadow. She had made sure Deimon was really gone before she embarked in her mission. She moved carefully, her staff tapping soft and low against the marble floor, each step calculated and careful. Her ears worked the silence the way her eyes never could, reading every shift in the air, every breath that wasn't hers. The hallway was empty, no footsteps, no perfume trailing from a passing maid, no whisper whatsoever.She was alone. For now.She found Octavia's door at the far end of the east wing and knocked twice — quiet, barely more than a brush of her knuckles. The sound died fast, swallowed by the thick walls.The guilt hadn't left her since morning. It had only grown heavier as the hours passed, pressing down heavy on her like stone, wrapping itself around her throat until every breath felt borrowed. She had never made a wrong deduction in her lif

"You are his golden price." The words landed like a sledgehammer on stone. Deimon hadn't meant for it to come out that hard. But it did — sharp, heavy and final, ringing in the air long after his mouth had closed. Something in him recoiled just from saying it out loud, as if giving the words voice made them more real, more permanent. Sophia said nothing, she was lost of words. She sat completely still, eyes fixed on the floor, breathing quiet and controlled. No tears, no outburst, just silence — the kind that was harder to read than any reaction. Deimon and Octavia exchanged a glance, neither of them knew what to do with it. "Sis." Deimon's voice dropped. "I know it hit you hard the same way it did to me. And I won't stand here and pretend it doesn't still boil my blood — because it does." "Deimon." Octavia rose from her seat and crossed to Sophia, lowering herself beside her daughter. Her hand found Sophia's back, gentle and firm at once. "I think we should stop here. That's

Jebediah and Emmett's gazes met across the silence, both of them shifting their eyes briefly to sleeping Anna.Jebediah reached over and touched her lightly — just enough to confirm what he already suspected. She was out completely, peacefully, her breathing soft and even against the expensive linen."I think we'll be expecting a visit from Deimon soon, JB." Emmett broke the quiet at last, his voice dropped to something careful. "That's why I wanted to ask. What are you going to do when he comes?"Jebediah sat with that for a moment.The unbothered composure he always wore like armor — the one that had never cracked in a boardroom, nor wavered in a council, never flinched before a challenge — came apart quietly in the privacy of the room. The thought of Deimon Ashworth arriving at his door sent sharp sensations crawling across his skin.He looked up at Emmett with a dark expression, as though Emmett had personally manufactured this problem."Are you certain of what you're telling me,