All Chapters of THE DORMANT LUNA Book 1: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

NEAH  The knife hit the floor with a metallic clatter that echoed through the corridor. Marcus's hand stayed on my throat. Not squeezing. Just there. A reminder of power differential. Wolf versus human. Predator versus prey. "Smart girl," he said. "Practical girl. There's a difference." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "You came here to save them. Noble. Stupid. But noble. I can respect that even if I don't understand it." He looked past me at the freed hostages. Weak. Frightened. Huddled against the wall like children waiting for a parent to tell them what to do. "Here's what happens now," Marcus continued. His voice was conversational. Like we were discussing weather instead of lives. "You come with me. Quietly. No fighting. No heroics. And I consider letting these wolves live long enough to see what Liam does when he finds out I have his mate."

LIAM  I shifted back to human and someone threw me pants. I pulled them on without thinking. My mind was already three levels down in a laboratory I didn't know existed in my own compound. Mara. Seven months pregnant. Chained to a table. Being experimented on. The rage that filled me was cold. Precise. The kind that didn't scream. It calculated. It planned. It killed efficiently. "Sub-level three," I said. "Where's the access?" Jax's voice crackled through the radio. "Main stairwell. Eastern corridor. But Alpha, you need to see this before you go down there." "I need to get my people out." "I know. But there's something else. Someone else." The way he said it made my blood freeze. Jax didn't hesitate. Didn't hedge. If he was stalling me, the reason was worse than I thought. 

LIAM  Neah looks down at her hands. The gash she got from the tunnel. The one she scraped on concrete when we were running from Marcus's wolves. It's closing. Not wolf fast. But faster than human. The skin knits together as she watches. Her eyes widen. Something is waking up inside her. Before I can ask what she's seeing, the packhouse door slams open. Ryan storms in with three warriors flanking him. His face is twisted with rage and something darker. Something that looks like betrayal. "We need to talk," he says. His voice is ice. "Now." I step between him and Neah without thinking. Kain surges forward, hackles raised. "Watch your tone, Beta." "I'm not your Beta anymore." He rips the pendant from his neck. The silver chain that marks his rank. Throws it at my feet. "Not after what you've done." The room goes

LIAM The office is too small. Or maybe it just feels that way because Neah takes up all the air in the room without even trying. She sits across from me. Arms crossed. Jaw tight. The golden light that surged through her in the medical wing is gone but I can still feel the aftershock. Through the bond. Through the air between us. Something fundamental shifted when that power woke up inside her. "A sister," she says. Her voice is flat. Controlled. The kind of control that comes right before an explosion. "Yes." "A whole sister. That you never mentioned. Not once." "I hid Sophia when my mother left. I was seventeen and she was twelve. If anyone knew about her, they could use her against me. I sent her to a human boarding school under a different name. She's been out of the wolf world for eight years." "Until Marcus found her

NEAH  I sit on the roof of the Shadow Peak compound and watch the sun bleed across the horizon. Red and gold. Like the light that keeps pulsing under my skin. Like the power I can't control. Twenty wolves still wait at the border. Silent. Patient. They haven't moved in three hours. Haven't attacked. Haven't done anything except stand there like sentinels guarding a grave. My grave, maybe. The thought sits heavy in my chest. Right next to the other weight I've been carrying since Theo planted the seed. My mother. The fifth council member. The possibility that everything I believed about her is a lie. I pull my knees to my chest. Try to think it through logically. Remove emotion. Look at the facts. Elena was a test subject for the Bloodline Project. She said the experiment failed. But what if it didn't? What if she's been part of t