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After I Repaid My Debt to the Alpha, He Begged Me Back

After I Repaid My Debt to the Alpha, He Begged Me Back

Cerita Pendek · Werewolf
Oleh:  Felix DanTamat
Bahasa: English
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Sinopsis

Tragic Love

Plot Twists

Obsessive

Alpha

Luna

Mate

Marriage

Winning Back the Wife

Regret

Seven days before our bonding ceremony, my fiancé, Alpha Cassian Vale, died. The patrol said he had fallen into Deadfall Gorge, where hunters had set silver traps. All they brought back was a bloodstained badge. The elders blamed me for everything. "If he hadn't gone to gather moonflowers for your bonding ceremony, the Alpha would still be alive!" "You're the jinx who brought death to your entire pack, and now you've killed our Alpha too!" Cassian's childhood friend, Vera Holt, sobbed as she crushed an echo stone, releasing a recording of his final words. "Eileen, don't come looking for me. Live a good life." I clutched the badge and went into Deadfall Gorge alone. I searched for three days and nights before a silver spike pierced my abdomen, forcing me to crawl back. On the fourth day, I dragged myself up the cliff, bleeding heavily. The moment I climbed over the stone railing at the cliff's edge, cheers erupted from the woods. Vera ran up to me, clapping and laughing until she cried. "I win! Cassian, she was actually stupid enough to go down there looking for your body!" The crowd parted, and Cassian walked out without a scratch on him. He turned to Vera first, his voice warm and indulgent. "Happy now? No more games after this." Vera hooked a finger under the wolf-fang necklace around her neck and smiled. "Don't I deserve some credit for proving how much she loves you?" "You do." Cassian smiled and nodded. "I was saving it for our bonding night. But if you like it, wear it for now." Only then did he hold out his hand to me. "Surprised? "Vera was upset that you'd stolen me from her. That's why I went along with it this once. "Now that you've passed the test, we'll bond in three days, as planned." I looked at the two of them and finally understood. The fall was fake. The last words were fake. The only real things were my dying she-wolf and the wound in my stomach. I knocked his hand away and hurled the bloodstained badge at his face. "Cassian, I went down into that gorge to repay you for saving my life all those years ago. "Now we're even. The bonding is off."

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Bab 1

1

The badge cut a bloody line across Cassian's cheekbone.

He wiped at the cut and actually laughed.

"Good aim.

"Call it off? Eileen, you've had your outburst. Once is enough."

He bent down, picked up the badge, wiped it on the hem of his shirt, and tossed it back to me.

"Keep it safe. You'll need it on bonding day."

The young werewolves behind him joined in, jeering.

"Since when does a jinx get to turn down an Alpha?"

"She crawled around down there for three days, shouting Cassian's name the whole time. We heard her loud and clear from up here."

"She sounded so pathetic. Vera even did an impression for us."

Vera cleared her throat and pitched her voice high and thin.

"Cassiaaan, where aaare you?"

The crowd doubled over laughing.

Blood kept running from the wound in my stomach.

My wolf curled up inside me, too weak even to whimper.

Suddenly Vera reached into my blood-soaked collar and pulled out a flower.

Its silver-white petals shimmered in the morning light.

"A moonflower? You actually found one."

I had found it on my second day in the gorge.

I'd meant to lay it on his grave once I recovered his remains.

Cassian glanced at it.

"That's for our bonding. Vera likes it, so let her play with it for now."

I reached for it.

"That's my..."

Vera twisted out of reach and tucked the flower behind her ear.

"Your what? Something you picked for a dead man?"

Everyone laughed.

I drew my hand back and closed it around the silver spike I had just pulled out of my stomach.

The tip was new, and I recognized the scent on it.

It belonged to Vera's followers.

"Those silver spikes at the mouth of the gorge were only recently planted there."

I looked at Cassian.

"To make your little act more convincing, you buried real silver spikes in the gorge."

Vera's smile froze for a second.

Cassian frowned.

"Vera's people will go collect them. Stop making a scene."

Vera abruptly clutched her left arm, the color draining from her face.

"Cassian, my old injury's acting up again."

There was a faint silver scar on that arm.

Everyone in the pack said Vera was a silver healer blessed by the Moon Goddess.

No one knew better than I did how that scar had really healed.

Cassian immediately bent and swept her up into his arms.

"I'll take you home first."

Vera rested her head on his shoulder and deliberately swung the wolf-fang necklace in front of me.

That fang had fallen out the first time he shifted.

By pack custom, a wolf gave it only to the one they intended to bond with.

Cassian took two steps, then looked back at me.

"You've always been strong. You can make it back on your own, can't you?

"Next time, don't take it so seriously. It was just a joke."

He didn't wait for my answer.

The crowd drifted off after him.

I was the only one left in the woods.

I closed my eyes and reached for the thread in my mind that bound me to him.

All these years, every time he called through it, I answered.

This time, I cut it myself.

Far away, Cassian faltered mid-step.

I didn't wait any longer.

One painful step at a time, I made my way back to pack territory by myself.

On the way, I ran into a few pack members out early.

One look at my blood-soaked clothes, and they steered clear.

"The jinx has upset the Alpha again."

"Stay away from her. You'll catch her bad luck."

I leaned on the trees for support. Twice I fell, and twice I got back up.

Halfway there, a messenger crow landed on my shoulder.

The note was in his handwriting.

"Why aren't you answering me?

"Quit being difficult. Vera's still shaken up, so I'm staying with her tonight."

I crumpled the note, smearing it with my blood.

When Marta, the elderly healer, opened the door and saw the state I was in, she went pale.

She helped me onto the bed, then glanced back at me.

"Should I send word to the Alpha?"

I stared at the swaying lamp above me.

"No.

"I don't have an Alpha anymore."
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10 Bab
1
The badge cut a bloody line across Cassian's cheekbone.He wiped at the cut and actually laughed."Good aim."Call it off? Eileen, you've had your outburst. Once is enough."He bent down, picked up the badge, wiped it on the hem of his shirt, and tossed it back to me."Keep it safe. You'll need it on bonding day."The young werewolves behind him joined in, jeering."Since when does a jinx get to turn down an Alpha?""She crawled around down there for three days, shouting Cassian's name the whole time. We heard her loud and clear from up here.""She sounded so pathetic. Vera even did an impression for us."Vera cleared her throat and pitched her voice high and thin."Cassiaaan, where aaare you?"The crowd doubled over laughing.Blood kept running from the wound in my stomach.My wolf curled up inside me, too weak even to whimper.Suddenly Vera reached into my blood-soaked collar and pulled out a flower.Its silver-white petals shimmered in the morning light."A moonflower? You actually
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2
Marta carefully extracted the fragments from my wound with a pair of silver tongs.I bit down on a cloth and didn't make a sound.But the wolf inside me was trembling.Marta pressed a hand to my chest, over my wolf's heart, and held it there for a long time."The silver poison has reached her heart."You've been absorbing silver poison from others for years, and it's been building up inside her. This last spike pushed her past her limit."She looked at the shelf by the wall.On it sat a small clay jar holding 36 silver beads.She didn't go on."Only a moonflower can draw the silver out."I closed my eyes for a moment."Vera is wearing the moonflower in her hair."Marta sent Quinn, her apprentice, to the Alpha's house.Quinn came back red-faced."He said the flower's for the bonding. Eileen will see it in three days."Quinn hesitated, then went on even more quietly."And Vera said, 'Her wolf's dying? She had plenty of strength a minute ago when she was throwing things at people.'"Marta
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3
The day before the bonding ceremony, I returned to Cassian's house.The carved wooden wolf my mother left me was still there.It was the only thing that had survived the fire that destroyed my home.The bridal room was already decorated.All my belongings had been shoved into a wooden chest and left by the door.Vera was standing in front of the mirror in the bonding gown that should have been mine.The moonflower was still tucked behind her ear.It had already withered.The petals had curled up and turned brown, like burned paper.Cassian was leaning in the doorway. When he saw me, he raised an eyebrow."Why are you so pale? Still putting on a show?"Vera lifted her skirt and twirled."How do I look? Cassian said I get to rehearse the ceremony tomorrow for you."And if you're still throwing a tantrum, I'd be happy to take your place for real."A few people nearby chimed in."Just wait until tomorrow. There's another test coming.""He'll announce in front of everyone that he's bonding
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4
On the day of the bonding, I sat beside the boundary stone at the edge of pack territory.My release wouldn't take effect until the moon rose.I only had to wait a few more hours.At noon, the first crow came."Still throwing a fit?"At dusk, the second arrived."Come back before moonrise, and I'll pretend none of this ever happened."The third came in a hurry, its feathers ruffled."I'll overlook your little tantrum this once."But if you dare humiliate me in front of the whole pack, don't ever come back."I looked at that last line.Ten years ago, he had carried me out of the fire on his back and said he would protect me from then on.Ten years later, the one he protected was standing on the altar in my gown, wearing his fang.I didn't bother opening any of the messages that followed.I untied the notes from their legs one by one and threw them into the fire.Just before dark, one of Vera's followers, Silas, rode up looking for me.He reined in his horse and looked down at me from th
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5
Cassian's POV:When the echo stone shattered on the altar, my wolf still had his head raised.The third howl caught in his throat. He could neither force it out nor choke it back.Torches were still burning all over the mountain.No one said a word.Vera was the first to laugh."She recorded that ahead of time, right?"We tricked her into thinking the Alpha was dead, so she's tricking us into thinking her wolf is dead. She's copying us."Someone below the altar agreed."Right. The jinx is the best at playing the victim."I wanted to believe that too.But Marta stepped out of the crowd and laid a sheet of parchment on the altar.It bore her seal."Eileen's she-wolf died three days ago, when the moon set."She looked up at the withered flower behind Vera's ear."The moonflower that could have saved her is in your hair."Vera went white and reached up to cover it without thinking.The dead petals crumbled to the ground.I searched inside myself for the thread.Before, no matter how far ap
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6
Eileen's POV:The night I crossed the boundary stone, the wind poured down my collar, and the cold went straight to my bones.Back when my she-wolf curled over my heart, that spot stayed warm even on the coldest winter nights.Now I could no longer smell the forest or hear the distant water.My fingertips were still black.The silver had seeped out of her heart the night she died and stayed in me.I walked all night, holding the carved wolf with its broken leg.At dawn, I stepped into the ruins, where weeds reached my knees.In the ten years since the fire, knee-high grass had covered the scorched earth.Half of a fire-blackened stone wall still stood in the wind.Ten years ago, when the house collapsed, a teenage Cassian had dug through the burning beams beneath this wall and carried me out on his back.I pulled the weeds away from the foot of the wall and set the wooden wolf there.Missing a leg, it leaned crookedly against the wall."We're home."I stroked its rough wooden head and
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7
Vera came the next night.Silas, her follower, kept watch outside the ruins while she walked in alone.I pulled my hands back into my sleeves.She wasn't wearing the white gown from the altar. Her skirt was spattered with mud, and her eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep."Cassian's dying."A hunter's silver trap tore into his left arm. The poison's already spread past his shoulder."She stared at me."He crawled around in the gorge all day and night. When the patrol carried him back, half his body was covered in blood."He kept calling your name right up until he passed out."She said it through clenched teeth.I watched the dancing flames calmly."You're the silver healer blessed by the Moon Goddess. The whole Greyrock pack worships you. Go save him."Vera gave a little laugh."We're in the middle of nowhere. Stop pretending, Eileen."She crouched down, eye to eye with me across the fire."It's been ten years, Eileen. You sneak in at night, I show up in the morning. You save lives
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8
I didn't go after midnight.I waited until dawn.When the sun came up over the mountains, I walked onto Greyrock pack territory.The square outside Cassian's mansion was packed with pack members on their knees.Word that Cassian was hanging on by a thread had spread through the whole pack, and everyone was waiting for the silver healer to work another miracle.When the crowd saw me, they froze, then parted on their own to let me through."What's the jinx doing back here?""She left the pack, and she still has the nerve to set foot on our land?"Several elders stood on the steps. Rowan, the head elder, was at the front, his face livid."Get out! Vera's using every ounce of her divine power to save the Alpha, and you dare show your face here? You'll bring nothing but bad luck!"I didn't stop.I walked straight through that door.The room was dark, and it reeked of silver poison.Cassian lay in bed, his left arm wrapped in cloth. The black had already crept up his neck.Vera knelt beside
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Everyone in the room froze and stared at me.I looked at Cassian in the bed.His lips had already turned purple, and veins bulged in the hand gripping Marta's sleeve.Ten years.This was the first time that, with his life on the line, he had chosen me over Vera and the Greyrock pack.But it was too late."You don't need to decide for me," I said. "I was never going to draw it anyway."Ten years ago, he had been lying just like this.A hunter's silver crossbow bolt had struck him, leaving him feverish for three days and nights. I knelt beside his bed, drawing out the silver and vomiting all night.Before dawn, I left through the back door.The one keeping watch at his bedside was Vera.That night, my wolf took on the first silver bead for him.After that, she took on 35 more for this pack.She carried them to the very end, until she died over my heart."My wolf has already died for all of you once."I took a step back.Rowan was still on his knees. He didn't get up.Marta didn't look at
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Over the following months, Cassian came often.He never set foot in the ruins. He would only stop outside the stone wall for a while.Sometimes he left a bundle of firewood. Sometimes a packet of medicine Marta had prepared.He only had one good hand now, and the firewood was always tied crookedly.He would set it down, stand there a while, and go.I never went out.On the night of the first snowfall, the wind was strong.I could hear someone standing outside the stone wall for a long time.I didn't open the door.The next morning, there was a bundle of firewood in the snow, with his cloak draped over it.Two deep footprints marked the snow outside the wall. He must have stood in the same place all night.The last time he visited before spring, he came inside.He had lost a lot of weight. His left arm hung at his side, completely useless.He stood by the fire for a long time, then pulled something from inside his cloak.It was a piece of wood.The broken leg of the carved wolf had been
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