Librairie
Rechercher
Accueil / Werewolf / Alpha’s Forbidden Mate / Closer Than Breath

Share

Closer Than Breath

Auteur: Big Queen
last update Date de publication: 2026-04-09 02:06:25

The world didn’t explode this time.

It quieted.

Carolina stood at the edge of the training field, the tension from earlier still lingering in the air—but something between her and Xander had shifted.

Not broken.

Not unstable.

Stronger.

Different.

She felt it in the bond.

It wasn’t just a pull anymore.

It was awareness.

Of him.

Always him.

“You’re doing it again.”

Carolina blinked, snapping out of her thoughts.

Xander leaned casually against one of the wooden posts, arms crossed—but his eyes were fixed on her.

“What?” she asked.

“Staring at nothing like you’re having a full conversation in your head.”

A small smile tugged at her lips.

“Maybe I am.”

His mouth twitched slightly in response.

The smallest reaction—

But she felt it anyway.

Through the bond.

That warmth.

That quiet approval.

It made her chest tighten in a way that had nothing to do with fear anymore.

“I wanted to try something,” he said after a moment.

Her brows pulled together slightly.

“That sounds dangerous.”

“It might be.”

That should’ve worried her.

But it didn’t.

Not with him.

“What kind of something?” she asked.

Xander pushed off the post and stepped toward her.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Carolina felt every step like it echoed inside her.

The closer he got—

The stronger it became.

The bond responded instantly.

Not wild.

Not painful.

Drawn.

Like gravity.

“Stand still,” he said quietly.

“I am standing still.”

“More still.”

She rolled her eyes slightly—but didn’t move.

Xander stopped just in front of her.

Close.

Not touching.

But close enough that her breath hitched anyway.

“Okay…” she said, her voice softer now. “Now what?”

He didn’t answer right away.

Instead—

He lifted his hand.

Slowly.

Carolina’s breath caught.

Not from fear.

From anticipation.

“Tell me if it feels like too much,” he said.

She nodded.

Barely.

His hand hovered near her arm.

Not touching yet.

And even that—

Even that—

She felt.

The bond stretched between them, humming softly.

“Do you feel that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Her voice was quiet.

Honest.

“It’s… different.”

“Yeah,” he said.

And then—

He touched her.

Just lightly.

Fingers brushing her arm.

Carolina inhaled sharply.

The bond flared—

But not out of control.

Not explosive.

It deepened.

Warmth spread through her chest, steady and grounding instead of chaotic.

Her shoulders relaxed without her even realizing it.

“That’s new,” she whispered.

Xander’s eyes didn’t leave hers.

“You’re not fighting it.”

“I’m not scared of it,” she admitted.

That changed something.

She saw it in his expression.

Felt it in the bond.

That shift.

Pride.

Relief.

Something softer.

His hand stayed where it was—but his thumb moved slightly.

A small motion.

But it sent a ripple through her.

Not overwhelming.

Just… felt.

Carolina let out a slow breath.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said.

“It’s not supposed to.”

His voice had dropped slightly.

Quieter.

Closer.

“When it’s right,” he added.

Her heart skipped.

“Is this… right?” she asked.

A dangerous question.

One that hung between them.

Xander stepped closer.

The space between them shrank to almost nothing.

“It feels right,” he said.

The bond surged in agreement.

Carolina swallowed.

“It does.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper now.

Neither of them moved.

But everything shifted.

The air.

The space.

The distance that didn’t exist anymore.

Xander’s hand slid from her arm to her hand.

Slow.

Intentional.

Their fingers brushed—

Then intertwined.

Carolina’s breath caught again.

But this time—

She didn’t pull away.

The bond wrapped around them, steady and warm.

Not demanding.

Not overwhelming.

Just there.

Holding.

“You feel that?” he asked softly.

She nodded.

“It’s… calm.”

That surprised her.

More than anything else.

Xander’s gaze softened slightly.

“That’s what it’s supposed to be.”

Carolina looked at him—really looked this time.

Not just the future Alpha.

Not just the boy everyone expected him to be.

Him.

“You make it feel like that,” she said quietly.

Something flickered in his eyes.

Something real.

His grip on her hand tightened just slightly.

“You do the same,” he admitted.

The honesty of it settled deep in her chest.

The bond responded—stronger, steadier.

Carolina took a small step closer.

Not thinking.

Just… following it.

Now there was no space between them at all.

Her free hand lifted slightly—

Then rested lightly against his chest.

She felt his heartbeat.

Fast.

Not as controlled as he looked.

That made her smile just a little.

“Not so calm now,” she murmured.

His lips almost curved.

“Don’t ruin it.”

“Too late.”

But she didn’t move her hand.

Didn’t step back.

Neither did he.

For a moment—

Everything else disappeared.

No pack.

No rules.

No expectations.

Just this.

Just them.

And the bond between them—

No longer something to fight.

But something to understand.

To build.

To trust.

Xander exhaled slowly.

“We’re going to have to be careful,” he said.

Carolina nodded.

“I know.”

But neither of them stepped away.

Not yet.

Because for the first time—

The bond didn’t feel like a threat.

It felt like something they might actually be able to hold onto.

Together.

Continuez à lire ce livre gratuitement
Scanner le code pour télécharger l'application
Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Latest chapter

  • Alpha’s Forbidden Mate   Ch. 35

    The pack drifted to their chosen corners as the light faded, no curfew but a thousand years of evolutionary etiquette dictating it was time to cave inward, to lick wounds and plot dreams behind half-closed doors. By ten, the piano had gone quiet, and so had Briony, curled on a pile of coats like a satisfied cat. Even Cas and Marcus, who once would have prowled the length of the hall to keep vigil or stir up mischief, lay side by side in a nest of blankets under the ruined chandelier, sky-blue moonlight striping the floor around them.Xander found her on the balcony. They were both too tired to speak, so he just folded her into his arms, pressing his jaw above her ear, his hands unsteady but certain as they crept under the hem of her shirt. Carolina didn’t resist. She tilted her head back and bit his shoulder hard enough to leave a crescent. He lifted her off her feet and staggered with her toward the nearest empty bedroom, not caring that it still smelled of smoke and dried blood. Ins

  • Alpha’s Forbidden Mate   Ch. 34

    The house smelled like gunpowder and rot, a perfume thickened by the dead winter air and the blood soaking every threshold and stripped wall. Someone, probably Cas, started a fire in a barrel in the foyer; it filled the space with dangerous heat and a sense of ritual. Within the hour all the new wolves, Teagan's and Carolina's, had claimed territory: the foyer, the kitchen, the old den with the pool table whose felt had been burned away to the naked slate. Lyra lit candles on every sill, and Briony raided the pantry for anything edible, casting tins of beans into a communal pile on the kitchen counter.Carolina thought they would sleep, or crash in a heap and let exhaustion do its work, but Xander had other ideas. He vanished into the yard, came back with armfuls of scavenged wood, and began, without invitation, to board up windows and jury-rig barricades. The frenzy caught, and soon everyone was in motion, fixing—no, resurrecting—the place. Lyra used a crowbar to pry nails from half-

  • Alpha’s Forbidden Mate   Ch. 33

    The first assault hit at noon, though afterwards Carolina would remember it as happening in the colorless ambiguity between hour and moment, with the sunlight so sharp it broke the stained-glass tape and painted killshot halos everywhere. Sybil’s mercs—twenty maybe, but the way they moved it felt like more—came through the side door with military symmetry, rifles up, gas masks huffing, not bothering with announcements. Sybil herself, petite and iron-strung, stalked directly behind, dressed in a suit that looked plucked from the 1930s but cut to look faster, meaner, entirely modern. When she saw the altar, the pack crowded on and around it, she smiled a cut-glass smile.Xander was already moving. He sprinted the nave, hit the first merc from behind and brought him down in a tangle of knees and teeth. Gunfire erupted: three percussion cracks, then the whole room deafened by echo. Carolina’s ears rang, but her eyes stayed wide open; she counted how many guns, saw three of her own already

  • Alpha’s Forbidden Mate   Ch. 32

    They slid through the woods like a rumor, silent except for the crunch of frost underfoot and the sourceless panting of exertion. The team fell in and out of formation, Lyra always just off Carolina’s peripheral, Cas and Marcus leapfrogging in the shadowed geometry of the trees. Ahead, Xander marked the path, sniffing the air for drift of pack, human, or worse. The world was stripped to black and silver—branches crosshatched the moonlight, calling up a memory of old prison stripes. Carolina found she breathed easier in the open, even with danger at their backs; no walls, no ceilings, no one watching unless you chose to be seen.They didn’t talk for hours—the sounds belonged to the animals, the unsleeping pines, and the creek that dogged them valley to valley. It was Lyra who broke the hush, when the river drove them up a scree bank. “We take the east ridge, we lose them,” she said, voice pitched for Carolina only. “Sybil expects a straight run. So we don’t give her one.”Carolina cut

  • Alpha’s Forbidden Mate   Ch. 31

    There was no sleep in the house, not really; the oldest parts of the pack had always run on violence and adrenaline, the electric current of fear coiled with joy. The return walk felt like the tail end of a riot, the pack still high off the hunt, blood on their jeans, on their teeth, sidelong glances full of envy and respect. They brought the woods back with them: the spiral of the trees, the crooked shadows, the taste of conquest under their tongues.Carolina hadn’t realized she was leading until the doors swung open and everyone poured through behind her, their noise slamming off the hard floors and up the stairwell. Cas pushed past, whooping, Lyra flicked her head to the side and disappeared into the kitchen, and Marcus—who was very pointedly *still here*—headed for the den, where the oldest wolves nursed their wounds and their power. The house was split by the new order and the old, and each step up the stairs was tacit proof that only one side of the schism really mattered anymor

  • Alpha’s Forbidden Mate   Ch. 30

    The morning after was an anti-revelation. Carolina woke to a sky the color of old teeth, the wind blowing fresh from the east. Xander was gone, but a cup of coffee steamed on the nightstand, cream and honey just the way she never admitted she liked it. The mark on her shoulder stung under the bandage, but she didn’t try to hide it. She let the covers fall as she rolled to her feet, let her nakedness feel like armor.She heard the house before she saw it: voices rising, shoes thumping, and someone—probably Cas—howling spectral at the sunrise. The pack had felt the shift overnight. Old loyalties had already begun to erode, replaced by a careful, watchful hunger.She padded down to the kitchen, hair still tangled around her head, and found Lyra posted at the counter, stirring oatmeal and smoking a cigarette.“Coffee’s shit,” Lyra said, not turning.Carolina grinned. “Always is.”“You look different.”“I am different.”Lyra snorted. “Congratulations on surviving the wild, wild night.” She

Plus de chapitres

Vous vous intéresseriez aussi à

Découvrez et lisez de bons romans gratuitement
Accédez gratuitement à un grand nombre de bons romans sur GoodNovel. Téléchargez les livres que vous aimez et lisez où et quand vous voulez.
Lisez des livres gratuitement sur l'APP
Scanner le code pour lire sur l'application
DMCA.com Protection Status