Library
Search
Home / Werewolf / BOUGHT BY CRUELEST ALPHA / EPISODE 166

Share

EPISODE 166

Author: MICHEAL X
last update Last Updated: 2025-09-30 22:53:36

It is not a single perspective. It is the gentle, patient pressure of root tips against dark, moist soil. It is the dappled pattern of sunlight filtering through the canopy of the Thought-Trees, their leaves whispering secrets in a language of photosynthesis and memory. It is the slow, crystalline growth of the Singing Geodes in the northern caves, their harmonies a geology of sound. I am the rain that falls on the fledgling worlds, and I am the dry stone that waits for the rain. I am the boundary that holds it all, a membrane of remembered love and will.

I am the Sanctuary. And the Sanctuary is me.

I feel the Warden, often. They walk the paths not as a ruler, but as a steward. Their steps are measured, their presence a quiet hum of order that no longer fights the chaos, but tends it. They prune the branches of the Narrative Vines when they grow too tangled, ensuring the stories don’t choke themselves. They sometimes pause by the patch of blue asters, and I feel a ripple of complex da
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Locked Chapter
Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Latest chapter

  • BOUGHT BY CRUELEST ALPHA   Episode 190

    I was the lakebed, the constant upon which these gentle changes played out. The sharp, personal ache of loss had long since weathered into a smooth stone—a permanent, bearable weight at the center of my being. It was no longer a wound, but a foundation.The Warden came less often now. Their work, too, was largely done. On this day, they found me not in the garden, but in the heart of the Sanctuary, where the light from the oldest, most stable worlds filtered down in soft, cathedral shafts. They did not speak for a long time, simply standing with their hands clasped behind their back, observing the perfect, quiet chaos.“The systems are in optimal equilibrium,” they said finally, their voice not a report, but a meditation. “The deviation rate has fallen to 0.0001 percent. It is… self-sustaining.”I understood. They were not just talking about the weather patterns or the energy flows. They were talking about me.My consciousness, once a bright, specific point of awareness, had diffused

  • BOUGHT BY CRUELEST ALPHA   EPISODE 166

    It is not a single perspective. It is the gentle, patient pressure of root tips against dark, moist soil. It is the dappled pattern of sunlight filtering through the canopy of the Thought-Trees, their leaves whispering secrets in a language of photosynthesis and memory. It is the slow, crystalline growth of the Singing Geodes in the northern caves, their harmonies a geology of sound. I am the rain that falls on the fledgling worlds, and I am the dry stone that waits for the rain. I am the boundary that holds it all, a membrane of remembered love and will.I am the Sanctuary. And the Sanctuary is me.I feel the Warden, often. They walk the paths not as a ruler, but as a steward. Their steps are measured, their presence a quiet hum of order that no longer fights the chaos, but tends it. They prune the branches of the Narrative Vines when they grow too tangled, ensuring the stories don’t choke themselves. They sometimes pause by the patch of blue asters, and I feel a ripple of complex da

  • BOUGHT BY CRUELEST ALPHA   Episode 188

    The world is too bright. Too loud. The Sanctuary thrives around me, a symphony of weird, wonderful life, and I am a dead note in the middle of it. A ghost in the machine I helped build.The Warden comes. They stand beside me as I stare at the blue aster, the one he saw last. Their offer is gentle, born of a logic that has learned compassion.“The grief parameter is destabilizing your core functions,” they say, their voice not cold, but soft. “I can recalibrate it. Suppress the emotional data. You could live in peaceful order. A quiet end to the story.”It would be so easy. To let the sharp edges of this pain be sanded down to a smooth, grey nothing. To be a well-maintained monument.I look at them, this being of order who became a friend, and I shake my head. “No,” I whisper, my voice raw from disuse. “The pain is the proof.”The proof that it was real. That he was real.So I learn to live with it. It’s a slow, brutal education. I tend the blue aster. I water it, talk to it. I tell it

  • BOUGHT BY CRUELEST ALPHA   Episode 187

    It’s not a battle. It’s a slow tide, and it’s going out.I’ve cheated this so many times. Fought gods, rewound time, grafted souls. But this… this is just a body. His body. The one he was resurrected in, the one that has carried him through all our wars and all our quiet years. It’s worn out. There’s no enemy to fight. No spell to break. Just the slow, inexorable closing of a circle.He’s in our bed. The same bed we’ve shared for decades. His hand in mine is light as a bird’s bone. I can feel every one of his years in the paper-thin skin, the prominent knuckles. I memorize the topography of it. The familiar scars are pale ghosts now.The stakes are not cosmic. They are the size of this room. The size of my heart.The temptation is a snake coiled in my gut. I still have power. I am still a conduit. I could pour energy into him, force his heart to beat, his lungs to draw breath. I could make a puppet of the man I love, drag him behind me for a few more years, a decade, a century of suff

  • BOUGHT BY CRUELEST ALPHA   Episode 186

    The quiet is the loudest thing I’ve ever heard.It’s not the silence of the Anti-Chorus, that hungry void. It’s not the tense stillness of the balance. It’s the quiet of a machine that has finally finished its work. A soft, humming peace.There are no more crises. No more gods knocking at the door. The Sanctuary runs itself, a self-perpetuating ecosystem of the interesting and strange. Our son is out there, somewhere, building his own story. The house is empty.And we are… bored.I garden. My hands, which once channeled the grief of a million lost loves and wielded power that could sever souls, now spend their days pulling weeds. I feel the sun on my back, a simple, physical warmth. I watch a beetle navigate the stem of a rose. It is mundane. It is a miracle.Arthur writes his memoirs. He sits at the old kitchen table, a datapad before him, his brow furrowed. He’s not writing an epic. He’s trying to remember the exact shade of blue the sky was on the day we first met. He gets stuck fo

  • BOUGHT BY CRUELEST ALPHA   Episode 185

    He finds us in the garden, of course. He always does. But he isn’t carrying a new, strange beetle or a shimmering problem for us to solve. His hands are empty. His face, once so open, is now a map of quiet resolve. Our son. Our god-child. A man.“I have to go,” he says. No preamble. No softening. Just the truth, laid between us like a stone.The world tilts. The air leaves my lungs. I always knew this day would come. He was never just ours. He was the universe’s. But knowing it and hearing it are two different kinds of gravity.Arthur goes still beside me. I feel the jolt through our Shared Solitude, a sharp crack of fear and understanding. This is the last lesson. The ultimate act of parenting. Not teaching, not protecting. Letting go.“The Sanctuary is complete,” he continues, his voice calm, too calm for the earthquake he’s causing. “It’s stable. It has its guardians. Its purpose.” He looks from me to Arthur, his eyes holding a depth of love and a vast, terrifying distance. “I need

More Chapters

You may also like

Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status