Chapter 14. A mysterious note

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• Against All Odds   Chapter 81. Celine’s dark awakening

  * Zeina *The crack of her bones was the thunder.Celine's wolf exploded from her human form, sleek, jet-black, unnaturally tall. Her fur shimmered like obsidian, her limbs built for killing, not for running. Eyes, still hers, still void of warmth, locked on mine like a curse spoken in a forgotten tongue.I let her come. And I shifted.Fire didn't burn as hot as what tore through me. My spine arched with the scream of transformation, bones stretching, snapping, reforming into a creature older than the bloodlines they'd tried to bury. My coat wasn't white or silver like prophecy had whispered, it was molten gold streaked with ember black. A queen's flame and a warrior's scars. My fangs glinted like forged iron as I stood tall on four limbs, tail high, hackles raised.She lunged first.Claws scraped stone as she surged toward me, teeth bared. I met her head-on, jaws crashing into hers in a collision that echoed across the ridge like a war drum. Pain lanced through my neck as her teeth c

• Against All Odds   Chapter 80. Zeina’s Battle

  * Cerberus *The scent of storm hung heavy in the air. Not just rain, power. Old. Unforgiving. The kind that didn't just roll over a mountain, it claimed it.Zeina stood beside me, her silhouette framed in silver lightning. Her hair whipped around her like a living banner, and her pulse, gods, her pulse, beat steady again, finally tethered to mine through the bond. But I felt it. The tremor beneath her skin. The echo of the blade that almost touched her soul.I clenched my fists against the railing of the balcony, iron groaning beneath my grip. Celine had always been a ghost in my bloodline, a half-sister forged from silence and shadows. The pack lead by my father had raised her when our father fell, carved the girl into a weapon so cold it no longer remembered warmth.And now they'd unleashed her on my mate.Zeina. The only thing in this shattered world that anchored me.I turned to her, not the princess, not the prophecy, but the Alpha who stood beside me, unflinching in the face of

• Against All Odds   Chapter 79. Bonded in fire

  * Zeina *I was drowning.The throne room was ablaze, not with fire, but with screaming light. Blinding, divine, merciless. It poured from every crevice of the marble floor, bleeding from the carved eyes of statues, licking up the pillars like holy judgment.And in the center stood Celine.Celine, Firstborn of the Rogue Alpha father of Cerberus, Celine, the blade the Council kept sheathed in ceremony but forged in punishment. Now my executioner.She wore her ceremonial robes, silk as white as bone, stitched with silver runes that shimmered like frostbite. Her eyes were no longer the dark night I remembered when she was with Alpha Robert. They were lightless now. Starless. Eyes hollowed by prophecy and power and the Council's cruel favor."You were the jewel," she said. Her voice rang like bells underwater, muffled, warped, choking. "You were supposed to end the bloodline wars. Not ignite a new one."My body felt frozen in place, knees half-buckled, my hands wrapped in chains I couldn'

• Against All Odds   Chapter 78. Bonded warriors

  * Cerberus *Everything Zeina said, everything she stood for, ignited something ancient in my blood. Not just the wolf. Not just the Alpha. But the man who'd been forged in exile, tempered by betrayal, and sharpened in the wilderness of survival.This, her, was my center now. And the chaos outside these walls? It would burn before it took her from me.I turned toward the mirror by the far wall, the polished obsidian surface revealing the scars mapped across my body covered by tattoos, the old ones and the fresh. None of them ached. Not anymore. Zeina's bond didn't just heal, it remade me.I pulled on my black shirt, the fabric clinging to newly restored muscle. The moment my fingers brushed the hem, I felt the brand, the shimmer of the magic tether beneath my ribs. It pulsed in time with hers, not a chain, but a vow.Behind me, Zeina moved with the grace of the moon itself. Regal. Commanding. Mine.Donna was already halfway through lecturing us both with her usual blend of exasperated

• Against All Odds   Chapter 77. Alpha bond awakening

  * Zeina *Cerberus slept, but it wasn't the fitful sleep of a wounded beast. It was deep, untroubled, the kind of sleep that only comes after a soul has been restored.I remained curled against his side, my head rising and falling with each breath he took. His chest was solid beneath me again no longer sunken with exhaustion, no longer shaking from the effort of staying conscious. There was life humming in him now. Wild and free. Mine.And gods help anyone who dared try to take him again.I shifted carefully and pressed a lingering kiss to his collarbone before rising from the bed, wrapping myself in a silk robe. The spell circle still shimmered faintly across the stone floor, charged with what we'd done, power and love woven into the very air.Cerberus was no longer broken. But he was still a rogue.The thought turned cold in my stomach, even as I pressed my palm over my lower belly, over the bond still tingling beneath my skin. We had chosen each other. Against fate. Against politic

• Against All Odds   Chapter 76. Passionate mate connection

  * Cerberus *Pain was a dull throb now, distant. A background drumbeat I could ignore so long as I kept my eyes on her. Princess Zeina, my mate.She sat beside me, her silhouette half-wrapped in moonlight and shadow, the silver glow catching on the curve of her cheek, the defiant line of her jaw, the quiet storm that never quite left her eyes. Her presence was more powerful than any healing chant or ancient elixir. Her scent, wild jasmine, crushed snow, the sharp ozone of stormlight, was enough to still the trembling in my limbs, to coax my wolf from the dark edge of death.I reached for her hand. She took mine instantly, fingers threading through mine like they were made to fit, like the space between them had waited lifetimes to be filled."You should rest," she whispered, her voice softer than I'd ever heard it. Her thumb brushed across my knuckles, the smallest touch anchoring me to this world. "Let the healers finish their work.""They've done what they can," I murmured, not look