Chapter 26. No access to the Palace

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• 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

• Against All Odds   Chapter 75. Cerberus struggles and rescue

  * Zeina *We found him just past the ridge, collapsed beneath the outstretched arms of an ancient pine, its limbs heavy with frost. The snow had softened around him, melted in a strange circle that pulsed faintly with old, wild magic. A ward. A last desperate barrier, flickering and fading as if it had devoured the last of his strength.Cerberus lay still in the center, half-shifted, caught between man and beast. His claws had gouged the earth, steam still rising faintly from where his blood had met snow. The silver in his fur shimmered with frost, his breath shallow but steady, the pulse at his throat barely visible beneath his torn collar.I dropped to my knees beside him, the cold forgotten. My fingers brushed his jaw, tracing the angle of it, the stubble rough against my skin. His body was warm, too warm."Donna!" I snapped, not caring how wild I sounded. "Help me break the ward. I think it's draining him now."She was already moving, Beta Kael right behind her. The two of them cr

• Against All Odds   Chapter 74. Zeina’s Awakening

  * Zeina *The hours that followed bled together in silken threads of pain, exhaustion, and silenceeach one binding me tighter to a stillness I had not chosen. Donna barely left my side, and when she did, Beta Kael filled the space with his solid presence, like a stone wall placed against the crumbling edge of a cliff. He rarely spoke. He didn't need to. The worry was etched in the lines of his jaw, in the way his arms stayed crossed over his chest like a man expecting a war at any moment.I hated it.Hated the quiet reverence they offered me, as though I might fall apart with the wrong word. I hated the hushed footsteps, the way the others whispered beyond my door like ghosts afraid to disturb the dead. I hated that I had become something fragile in their eyes.But I let them. For now.The pain in my ribs had dulled to a persistent ache. My shoulder burned less each time I moved, and the bite wounds that Celine had torn into my leg itched with the slow knitting of skin and bone. Even