Moon-Crown Redemption Series by Luis Maldonado

The crown tasted me before the king ever did.I’m Mara Kestrel, a ward healer who knows how to stitch a wound with numb hands and a steady jaw. On coronation night, the Moon-Crown wakes up hungry and reaches for me through a mark that hasn’t even sealed. It drinks through the bond like a thief. Ronan Vale takes the throne with blood in his hair and a lie on his tongue—he rejects me in front of the packs to “keep order,” while Regent Maelor smiles and sharpens the knives behind the law... moreThe crown tasted me before the king ever did.I’m Mara Kestrel, a ward healer who knows how to stitch a wound with numb hands and a steady jaw. On coronation night, the Moon-Crown wakes up hungry and reaches for me through a mark that hasn’t even sealed. It drinks through the bond like a thief. Ronan Vale takes the throne with blood in his hair and a lie on his tongue—he rejects me in front of the packs to “keep order,” while Regent Maelor smiles and sharpens the knives behind the law. I’m caged, tested, and told to be quiet while the crown pulls my pulse through iron.But I don’t break. I cut.Lyric, my oldest friend, runs the side streets; the Silver Choir hides girls like me; vowsteel glints where no one’s looking. I learn the soft places in hard doors and the weak points in the oath that keeps us all on our knees. Ronan stands between duty and me, and I can’t tell if he’s my shield or another lock—until the moment his control slips and I see the man under the metal.This is a second-chance love story that fights back. It’s scars turned into terms, a bond I choose or burn, and a court that will bury me if I let it. Start here, or you’ll walk into the next book blind—without knowing why the Choir sings my name in the dark, what Maelor writes in secret, or what Ronan leaves on my bed the night I vanish. Read now, before the next vow is spoken without you. less

I wake to new laws written on my skin and a wanted poster nailed over my face. They stamped treason under my name and told the city I stole a crown’s power before sunrise. I kept walking anyway. I’ve learned to breathe through fear and make a blade out of “no.”Ronan is my mate, my mistake, my only safe place. The bond we spoke is clean—no metal, no leash, only a yes that can be taken back. It held when the world tried to rip us apart. I cling to that because everything else is breaking... moreI wake to new laws written on my skin and a wanted poster nailed over my face. They stamped treason under my name and told the city I stole a crown’s power before sunrise. I kept walking anyway. I’ve learned to breathe through fear and make a blade out of “no.”Ronan is my mate, my mistake, my only safe place. The bond we spoke is clean—no metal, no leash, only a yes that can be taken back. It held when the world tried to rip us apart. I cling to that because everything else is breaking.We found the First Mate under stone and I cut the vow that kept her caged. The chamber screamed. The ground tilted. The letters in the rock bled light like open skin. When the burning stopped, her pod stood open and empty. I can live with blood on my hands; I can’t live with not knowing what walked out of that glass.Ronan coughed silver onto the floor as the old crown died. Maelor smiled and sharpened a new kings with no mates at all. He calls it “Null.” He swears it lasts forever. If he wins, girls like me stop being people and start being fuel again.So I run messages, hide the Choir, and cut what needs cutting. I want a law built on consent, not fear. I want a crown that can hear the word no. But the streets are choosing sides, and the border hums like a live wire. If you step into this book now, you’ll feel the ash in your mouth, the tremor under your feet, and the moment I decide whether love can stand against a crown. Miss this, and you’ll miss the truth everyone else is afraid to say out loud. less

I wake to a crown gone quiet and a city holding its breath. Ronan’s pulse knocks thin under my fingers; silver still stains his lips. The clean bond we chose—the one with no chains, only yes—pulls me steady while the old Moon-Crown lies like a dead thing and everyone checks which way the power will tilt.Regent Maelor thinks he has the answer. He raised a Null Crown that doesn’t need a mate, doesn’t need love, doesn’t even need a heartbeat beside it... moreI wake to a crown gone quiet and a city holding its breath. Ronan’s pulse knocks thin under my fingers; silver still stains his lips. The clean bond we chose—the one with no chains, only yes—pulls me steady while the old Moon-Crown lies like a dead thing and everyone checks which way the power will tilt.Regent Maelor thinks he has the answer. He raised a Null Crown that doesn’t need a mate, doesn’t need love, doesn’t even need a heartbeat beside it. He promised order and called what we have “a romance,” like love is a weakness and pain is a plan. I stood in the crowd and felt the city split while Ronan stared at the thing and mapped where it would crack first.But the ground keeps giving us truths Maelor can’t clean. In the dark under the archive, we uncovered a ring carved by the first king himself. The metal burned under my palm and spelled the verdict out POWER WITHOUT CONSENT IS CURSE. I said the words so no one could pretend not to hear. The crowd breathed like it hurt. The old story bent.Now the First Mate walks without her Name. The Forsworn shadow my steps with their sharp price. The Choir gathers Shard-Keys that cut like memory. And I’m calling packs to the Lumen Howl, where we will write a new rite with our own throats and keep it with our scars. Skip what came before and you’ll still feel the bruises on these pages—but you won’t know who gave them to us, or why the bond between me and Ronan keeps holding when crowns keep breaking. The cause sits close, just out of reach, until you follow me back through the ash and into the fire. less