When The Moon Hides Her Crown novel Chapter 170

RONAN

“Roṇan…”

My mother’s voice came from behind.

The sound cut through the forest like a blade, stopping my heart for a fraction of a second. My blood boiled in my veins, every muscle locking tight, because I knew what it truly was. The curse. Twisting the one voice! hadn’t heard in years into a weapon sharp enough to pierce bone.

Verkas growled, pacing in the shadows of my mind, restless and on edge. The snowy ground cracked beneath my boots, splintering as though the very earth wanted to outrun the nightmare stalking me. I didn’t need to look back, I could feel it. That suffocating presence pressed against my spine like a blade ready to strike. Cold seeped into my skin, crawling over me like frostbite, invisible yet undeniable. The curse was fucking real.

I would not give it the satisfaction of seeing me falter.

“This curse only stills when we meet another Alpha,” Verkas observed, his voice a low rumble.

My jaw clenched. I had already noticed that. The first Alpha I crossed paths with, we recognized each other correctly. The bond ignited, and for a moment the curse seemed to pause, acknowledging the trial. But the second Alpha…he failed. So though trial law declared him eliminated, that wasn’t what destroyed him. The curse surged forward, sharper and closer, as if it had been waiting for him to stumble.

I didn’t waste time watching. When I met the third Alpha, he no longer seemed right in his mind. He hesitated and his fear broke him. He ended up looking back.

That was how I saw it.

The curse.

It was beyond imagination, something twisted from shadow and nightmare. It dug its grotesquely long nails into his skull and dragged him screaming into the endless mist. His body disappeared in a blink, leaving nothing behind but his cries echoing through the forest until even they were consumed by the mist.

Later, I saw another Alpha fall. His death was different. His curse was different.

My chest burned with the weight of realization. The curse wasn’t one single monster, it was many. Personal. Unique. Each Alpha carried his own death. I had seen it in their eyes, the depth of terror that wasn’t the same as the others. Each one saw what haunted them most.

I knew mine was worse.

I didn’t need to turn my head to confirm it. I could feel its breath ghosting across my skin, hear the quiet gnash of teeth waiting for me to slip. Its hunger pressed closer with every step. It wanted me. It was patient.

Another Alpha burst from the fog. Recognition snapped between us, marks flaring on our hands. He survived, like me, but the look in his eyes was desperate, his voice breaking on the same question I had heard again and again.

“The White Feather Door…where is it?”

The door. The one Alpha Gideon had spoken of. The only way out of this cursed graveyard.

Only my focus wasn’t on the door. My steps weren’t driven by escape. They were driven by her.

Seraphina.

She was strong–stronger than most. Strong enough to withstand this curse’s tricks. But that didn’t matter. I needed to see that she was safe with my own eyes. That’s why I kept changing direction, carving through the

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forest like a madman, chasing not the door, but the ghost of her presence.

Until…

Through the thick fog, a figure appeared, running hard. My heart shook wishing it to be her, before the haze thinned enough to reveal him.

Finn.

Verkas went still in my head, bristling with instinctive hostility. Bitterness filled my mouth like ash, just as it always did when I saw him.

We had never faced a trial together, except for that cursed battle when he was possessed. Now, with the forest closing in around us, I only wanted to get this over with quickly.

His wolf gleamed in his eyes just as mine did in me. We drew close, steps syncing in that fatal moment. Our hands reached out, marks searing as they met. An invisible chain locked between us, forcing the bond from our lips. The words came unbidden, crashing out at the exact same time.

“You are my love rival.”

The bond sealed instantly. It didn’t matter that my chest tightened, that his eyes mirrored my shock. The bond didn’t lie.

Love rivals.

The kind of bond that could only form if two wolves laid claim to the same soul.

Unless–unless we were both in love with the same woman.

My blood roared like a storm locked beneath my skin. I had suspected it. The way Finn looked at Seth Darven, at her, was too long, too intently. The smirk of his smile, the glint in his eyes. He had known. He had seen past the disguise. Now the bond had stripped away all doubt.

His expression said everything. He felt for her what I did.

Our eyes locked, colliding in the space between us, burning with more than rivalry, burning with possession, with unspoken truth. Then we ran past each other, the forest pulled us apart.

Verkas snarled, his voice rattling the walls of my mind. “He’s already seen her. He’s come across her.”

I clenched my teeth until I tasted blood, fighting to cage the darkness clawing at my chest. The trial demanded control, demanded survival but my fury demanded something else entirely.

Because I had a gut–wrenching feeling that not only had Finn met her-

But that the bond between them had revealed more than I could ever allow.

“Ronan…”

The curse called my name again, but this time it twisted and mimicked my mother’s voice into broken, crying, agonized like that day.

“Ronan… please…”

My heart shook violently. The sound gutted me, tearing through the walls I had spent years building around the memory of her, around the blood, the darkness, the smile. Every second of my life since that night, I had struggled to bury those things in the deepest pit inside me, but the curse ripped it all open in an instant.

The more it mimicked my mother, the further Verkas slipped from reality, and the deeper I was dragged into the abyss where I had once been chained. The mist ahead began to shift, warping into the nightmare of that

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night and the view shifted into that scenario in front of my eyes to her.

My mother. Sitting in the middle of a white blood–soaked robe, smiling at me. Her lips parted, and her voice was a whisper that still echoed in my ears.

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