The night refused to move forward.The forest stood frozen, branches bowed low beneath the weight of a moon that burned too brightly, too close, as if watching. Aria knelt in the torn earth, Rowan’s body cradled against her chest, his weight familiar and unbearable all at once. His scent was still him pine, iron, and moon but something vital was missing, something that made the silence around him scream.“Rowan,” she whispered again, her voice hoarse, broken raw. She pressed her forehead to his. Cold.Her hands shook as she searched his chest, as if she could will his heart to start again by touch alone. Nothing. No rise. No breath. The bond between them newly sealed, violently forged throbbed inside her like a wound that refused to close.She could feel him.But he wasn’t there.Around them, the forest began to stir.Low sounds echoed through the trees bones shifting, dirt collapsing inward, claws scraping against stone. The Graveborn were rising again, drawn not by command this time

WHEN ALPHAS LOSE THEIR CROWNSThe first real chaos did not come from the Night Fathers. It came from the wolves themselves.As the horizon lightened with a weak, uncertain dawn, the forest fractured into sound. Howls tore through the trees from every direction overlapping, clashing, stripped of harmony. They were not calls of unity or warning. They were cries of confusion. Of loss. Of instinct suddenly cut loose from the chain it had obeyed since the first wolf lifted its head to the sky.Rowan moved through the turmoil like a man walking through a dream that had turned against him. Every sense burned too sharply. Without the Moon’s constant pull, his body did not know where to settle. His balance felt wrong, as though the earth itself had shifted slightly off-center. Scents collided in his head fear, blood, dominance, panic none of them layered or ordered the way they had always been before.A snarl snapped to his left. Two wolves lunged at each other near a fallen oak, their moveme

The day stretched forward like unfamiliar territory, every hour exposing fractures that had always existed beneath the surface of the werewolf world but had never been allowed to breathe. With the Moon gone, the old instincts did not vanish; they turned inward, colliding with doubt, memory, and fear. Wolves wandered where borders had once been sacred. Sentries abandoned posts they no longer felt bound to guard. Some Alphas shouted themselves hoarse trying to reclaim authority that no longer answered their blood.Rowan watched it all with a tightening chest. He had been raised to believe order was survival, that obedience was the spine of their kind. Now he saw the truth unraveling in front of him order had been a cage as much as it had been a shield.Aria walked ahead of him, her steps measured, her presence altering the air without effort. Wolves made way for her instinctively, not because they were compelled, but because something in them recognized consequence. Her shadow stretched

THE WAR OF WHISPERSNight settled fully this time, heavy and deliberate, as if the world itself had decided to lean into the darkness rather than resist it. Without the Moon’s quiet authority to temper the sky, the stars burned too sharply, scattered like watchful eyes that offered no guidance, no comfort. The valley below breathed uneasily, fires guttering and flaring as wolves shifted restlessly around them, their voices low, tense, uncertain.Rowan stood at the edge of the camp, listening.Not with his ears alone.Something had changed in the way sound carried. Words slid differently through the air now, heavier, as if meaning itself clung to them longer than it should. He caught fragments of conversations drifting between fires arguments about leadership, murmurs of fear, questions no one had ever dared ask aloud before.Why do we need Alphas at all?What happens if no one answers the call?What if the gods were never meant to stay?Each thought struck him like a small blow. The

BLOOD DOES NOT FORGETNight did not fall gently.It came down hard, pressing against the world like a weight the land had not felt in centuries. Without the Moon to soften its edges, darkness felt raw unfiltered, alive with sound and movement. Fires burned across the convergence grounds, scattered and uneven, their light reflecting off wary eyes and tense bodies. Wolves did not sleep easily. Some did not sleep at all.Aria sat apart from the others, her knees drawn to her chest, her fingers pressed against the cool stone beneath her. The wards still pulsed faintly, like a slow heartbeat, responding to her presence without demanding anything in return. That frightened her more than resistance ever had.Rowan approached quietly, careful not to startle her. He carried a cloak, heavy and dark, and draped it over her shoulders without a word. She didn’t look up, but her body leaned into the warmth instinctively.“They’re restless,” he said softly. “Not hostile. Just lost.”Aria nodded. “S