When The Moon Hides Her Crown novel Chapter 200

Chapter 200 The Dead Maris Mame

RONAN

“Alpha… Alpha…” Mace called my name, not once but five times, his voice carrying a sharper edge each time, trying to wrench me back from the invisible tether that bound my gaze to the Academy. The building loomed far off in the heart of the Black Pine Forest, its silhouette jagged against the dim horizon like a beast keeping secrets in its gut. While I stood deep within the border woods, shadows clinging to my shoulders, as though they knew the storm stirring inside me. Mace had insisted I meet him here urgently, yet my attention kept drifting elsewhere, pulled by something I could not ignore.

“Is something wrong, Alpha?” he pressed, tone wary.

My hand twitched at my side, my fingers curling and uncurling as if they were holding something that wasn’t there. The air seemed heavier, colder. Verkas, my wolf, was restlessly prowling inside me, his growls vibrating in my chest. Something was wrong. Through the mate bond, a sharp spike of Seraphina’s emotions cut into me. Unstable. Stressed. Her wolf battered against mine in panic, a storm of feelings that churned and twisted. Just this morning, she was fine. But now…now something has shattered that calm.

My jaw tightened, my chest pulling taut with unease. Every instinct screamed at me to run back to her, to tear through the walls of the Academy until I reached her side. My legs even moved of their own accord, one step forward, then another, before-

“Alpha”

Mace’s voice cracked through the haze like a whip. I froze, my body torn between two compulsions. Slowly, reluctantly, I dragged my eyes from the Academy and fixed them on him. “I don’t have time. Make it quick.”

Mace swallowed, his expression taut. “I followed your orders. Looked into the surname ‘Wraithe.””

At the sound of that name, Verkas halted his pacing inside me, the hair along his spine rising, lips curling in a snarl. A dangerous vibration echoed in my chest, low and promising destruction.

“There is no pack. No bloodline with that surname,” Mace continued carefully. “But there was a person. Only one.”

My brows rose. “Who?”

“Dante Blackwood’s mother.. Mara Blackwood,”

A dark pulse went through me at that name, one I had buried, one I had sworn never to hear again. My teeth ground together. “Dante’s mother?”

He nodded firmly. “Yes, she bore the Wraithe surname. But her lineage, her entire bloodline, has been erased. For someone who stood as Luna of a powerful pack, there is nothing.

Chapter 200 The Dead Man’s Name

Not a trace of her ancestry. I managed to find a single photograph, but no records, no history. Dante’s father’s background, however, is pristine. A full bloodline, well documented. Dante took his father’s surname. While Ryker… Ryker carries hers.”

The document landed in my hands, heavier than it should have been. My grip tightened as ! flipped through it. Bile rose in my throat. Wrong. Bitter. My jaw clenched hard enough to ache. “Don’t tell me they’re brothers.”

“That’s just it,” Mace said quickly, “The Alpha of Blackwood had only one son. Dante. No more. No less. And his mother…” He hesitated, glancing at the trees as if even they might be listening. “She was called a nightwalker. After giving birth to Dante, she withdrew from everyone. People said she was seen only beneath the moon, wandering alone in the woods. Always at night. Never during the day. They said she was cursed. Then, one day, she disappeared. No death, no burial, nothing. Just gone.”

The shadows seemed to draw closer at his words, as though even the forest bowed to the weight of the tale.

“Disappeared?” I frowned, voice sharper than I intended.

He nodded, lips pressing into a thin line. “Yes, no one knows if she lives or rots in some forgotten grave. She dissolved like smoke. As for Ryker Wraithe, I dug deeper and asked questions no one wanted to answer. The truth is, there is no truth. No pack ever bore that name. No Alpha ever carried it. His existence shouldn’t be possible, Alpha. And yet, somehow, he walks within Lupine Academy’s walls. Not through forged documents, his file is flawless with his just name and surname that you saw yourself in the record room.”

Unease curdled in my gut, thicker than blood. Lupine Academy accepted only the heirs of powerful packs. If Ryker had no claim, no heritage, how had he crossed the gates? Could he be an intruder, a shadow wearing the skin of legitimacy?

Memories clawed back, Dante’s mysterious death, his body laid before my eyes. Then, Ryker’s sudden, uncanny arrival.

“Wait,” I muttered, the papers crumpling beneath the force of my grip. The edges bit into my palm as the pieces fell together in a way I could no longer ignore. “Why does it feel like Dante and Ryker are not brothers at all…but the same person?”

Mace’s eyes widened. His head jerked back in disbelief. “The same person? Alpha, that’s- no. Impossible. Dante Blackwood is dead. I saw it myself. You can’t mean-”

His words bled away as another memory crashed into me.

The night Seraphina was found unconscious at the base of the mountain. How I had carried her to the healer’s wing, her skin clammy, her body trembling. How she had thrashed in her sleep, whispering broken words that still echoed in my mind.

He tore his own face.

Chapter 200 The Dead Man’s Name

Those words clawed their way back now, fitting into the cracks of this revelation like they had been waiting all along.

I turned back to the photographs in the file, Dante’s parents staring out with frozen expressions. I studied them once, twice, again and again until my vision sharpened with clarity. Their eyes, facial features, and everything else. The truth had been staring at me, waiting for me to admit it.

“Alpha?” Mace’s voice was thin with impatience, with unease. “Are they truly the same?”

A dark chuckle scraped free from my throat, hollow and edged like broken glass. Slowly, I began tearing the pages apart, each rip a jagged echo in the silence. The fragments fluttered upward, snatched by the night air, drifting like ash. “Dante. Ryker. Not only are they the same but he is not even the son of the Blackwood Alpha.”

Mace’s eyes went wide, surprise flashing across his face. “Then who is he?”

I turned back toward the Academy, the pull of Seraphina’s emotions crashing into me, heavy and undeniable. Fear. Turmoil. My heart hammered, Verkas snarling, tearing, desperate to break free.

My voice came low, “Someone else.”