When The Moon Hides Her Crown novel Chapter 178

Chapter 178 He Knew It

SERAPHINA

“Mate…” Phina’s voice trembled inside my mind, a whisper of reverence as she recognized the truth.

The truth of the man I had lived beside for the past three months.

The man who had chased me relentlessly since the first moment our eyes had met.

The man now holding me in his arms, lips curved in the faintest smile, as if he had known this all along.

My soulmate.

My breath seized, my lungs refusing to work as my eyes widened in shock.

We plummeted together into the consuming darkness as a door yawned open beneath us. Our gazes never wavered, bound as if nothing in the world, not even the void, could tear us apart. Yet, in the next heartbeat, another door appeared glowing white feathers unfolding behind us. It tore me from Ronan’s arms, wrenching me backward into its pull, even as he was dragged into his own.

A gasp broke from my lips. Darkness swallowed me whole. My vision blurred, and then just as suddenly I was no longer in the Ghost Forest. I was standing in the Moonstone chamber. Back where it had all begun.

Between Ronan and Ryker.

The shock of the return had barely registered when Alpha Hugo burst inside, his voice commanding and desperate. “Is everyone alright?” Behind him, a group of healers hurried in. “Check on them!”

Around me, the other Alphas stood battered, silent, their faces pale with horror after the curses‘ torment. Their silence was heavy, broken only by the shuffle of healers moving from one to the next.

Though my silence my shock was born of something else entirely.

My eyes sought only Ronan.

He stood calm amidst the chaos, his wolf’s gaze steady, locked onto Phina with an intensity that rooted me to the spot. He didn’t look surprised. Not even a fraction. That truth struck me harder than anything else.

He knew.

He had known all along.

He knew we were soulmates.

My chest tightened violently, my heart stumbling over itself. I took a step back, breath unsteady, unaware that Ryker’s gaze had been on me the entire time, sharp and unyielding, watching every flicker of my reaction. The more his eyes darted between Ronan and me, the darker his expression grew.

From across the chamber, Finn and Asher, too, glanced my way though their gazes carried questions rather than judgment.

Then Alpha Hugo’s voice cut through the silence. “Take Alpha Ronan to Healer Aran first. His rut must be tended to.”

At his command, my throat closed. I spun quickly, desperate to leave before anyone noticed the storm in my chest.

A healer reached for me to check my condition. Even if I wanted to just run away from the chamber, I had to stop. I was obviously not injured so he just fed me a liquid sent by Healer Aran for us to regain our strength and heal any internal injury. I took it quickly so that the healer would confirm that I was fit and fine. Only a couple of seconds after drinking the liquid, thirst, hunger, and fatigue all vanished inside me. With each passing seconds, my body started becoming refreshed and full of energy like I had never been in the forest.

Chapter 178 He new it

At the same time the intensity in Ronan’s gaze increased as well as his rut. My legs grew weak. Unable to bear the scent of his rut anymore, I told the healer, “I will be resting in my room.”

Without another glance back, without daring to look at Ronan, I stormed out of the Moonstone chamber. My steps were brisk, determined, but my limbs trembled with every step. The hallways blurred around me, my heart still reeling from the truth that had just unraveled my world.

The memory of his words still stole the breath from my lungs.

“Seraphina, I am a virgin.”

“I was saving myself for you.”

“We Volkstane are born to have eyes only for our fated mate.”

“In our bloodline, we don’t even receive our scent until our twenty–fifth birthday…”

My hands trembled as I pressed them against my mouth, my steps breaking into a frantic run toward the dormitory building.

How had I not seen it?

From the very moment I stepped into the Lupine Academy and our eyes first met, he had been bound to me. Obsessed. I had told myself it was nothing that I was imagining things, that his relentless presence was too dangerous to name. But he had always been there. Always circling. Always burning.

I had never dared to admit the pull inside me, even when my body betrayed me when I fell into heat because of him. Even then, I tried to pretend. While he–he had never pretended. From moving into my room without asking, to the raw jealousy that flared whenever another male came near, to the night he blasted through the vampire den for me…to when he burned the entire Nightshade Alley to ash.

He had never hidden it.

I had been too afraid to call it what it was. Perhaps because I never truly believed the Moon Goddess would give me a soulmate like the others. Or maybe…because I was terrified of finding one.

But now…

I shoved open the door to my dormitory room, lungs shuddering, and staggered inside. My chest was heaving as I tried to collect myself.

The door slammed shut behind me with a thunderous bang.

Startled, I spun around only to find him.

Ronan.

He was already striding across the room with that lethal grace, violet eyes burning through the dim light. Before I could even draw a breath, he was on me. His hands seized mine, pinning them above my head as my back hit the wall with a muted thud.

The air between us crackled.

Our eyes locked, and for a long moment there was no sound but the rush of my own breath. His gaze was a storm of unspoken desire, dark and consuming, and beneath it, something rawer, something ancient.

My chest rose and fell against his, brushing against the solid wall of his body, the unavoidable heat of him searing me through the thin barrier of clothes. With every inhale, I drowned deeper in the mouthwatering scent of his rut, whiskey and applewood smoke, intoxicating, inescapable.

A part of me had known this would happen. That he wouldn’t stay in the healers‘ wing, no matter the

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Chapter 178 He knew it

command. That he would find me.

A part of me shamefully, desperately had been waiting for him. Wanting him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice was barely more than a whisper, trembling with all the questions I had buried.

Ronan’s breath brushed hot against my lips, his face hovering just an inch from mine. His eyes burned with a storm I could neither look away from nor resist.

“I wanted you to fall in love with me the way I was already hopelessly in love with you, Seraphina,” he murmured, his words raw and unshaken. “I knew you wouldn’t choose me just because fate bound us. You’re not the kind of woman who would surrender to a bond alone. You would choose the man you love.”

His lips ghosted across mine, feather–light, tormenting me with their nearness. His whisper slid into me like a vow, “I wanted to be that man. You’re one and only. The one no bond, no curse, no destiny could ever replace.”

That was when he kissed me.

His mouth claimed mine with a fierce, passionate hunger, pulling me under like a tide I had no will to fight. The kiss was fire and desperation and something achingly tender all at once, unraveling every fear I had locked inside.

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