LOGINShare
Chapter 19
publish date:
2026-08-03 21:26:30
Deborah BenjaminWar table energy. I live for the whole found-family crew plotting together — who's your favorite side character so far? Tell me below.
Latest chapter
Claimed by my Sister's Fiancé Chapter 307
BRIDIE POV "I need to tell you something, and I need you to actually sit down first, because I don't entirely trust your knees to hold you upright once you hear it."I said it to Cormac that evening, both of us finally alone after a full day spent drafting the regional branch proposal with Elira and Isla.The cottage was quiet around us, save for the soft pop of apple-wood in the hearth and the gentle tap of rain against the glass. The smell of ink and drying tallow still hung heavy in the room, sheets of boundary maps and scribbled rosters littering the rug between our boots. Cormac was halfway through untying his leather vambraces, his brow furrowed with that habitual, brooding focus he always wore when there were ten more problems than hours left in the night."Bridie, you're worrying me.""Good worrying, I promise." I took his hands, pulling gently until he sank onto the edge of the low oak bench, my own heart racing despite how many times I'd rehearsed the sentence on the ride h
Claimed by my Sister's Fiancé Chapter 306
CORMAC POV "Eleven requests waiting, and we've only managed to properly answer four this month. Bridie, we're not keeping pace anymore, and I don't think pretending otherwise helps anyone."I laid the correspondence out across our small study, far more of it than the desk had ever comfortably held.The parchment rolls spilled off the cherrywood, stacked two deep against the brass inkstands and weighted down with anything heavy enough to keep the drafts from scattering them—a polished river stone, a lead paperweight, the brass hilt of my old dagger. The seals represented territories that hadn't spoken to each other in three generations: high crests of the western pine valleys, rough tallow stamps from the peat bogs, and coastal trade marks from ports past the Sunken Teeth. Every single one of them carried the same underlying tremor of panic, bewilderment, and a quiet, desperate plea for someone to arrive before a child was cast out into the cold."We built this to answer exactly this
Claimed by my Sister's Fiancé Chapter 305
BRIDIE POV "Then let that be exactly what we build toward. Not a shrine. Not renewed silence. Simply a childhood, same as every child in this hall was once permitted before fear or reverence decided otherwise."I said it into the hall's uncertain quiet, and watched something shift slowly across the gathered council's weathered faces.The heavy, suffocating weight that had pressed down upon the longhouse began to lift, like ice groaning and parting beneath the first warm thaw of spring. The elder with the carved ivory beads slowly lowered his hand, his mouth softening into something thoughtful, almost humbled, as he looked back at the small girl sitting beside the fire pit.Sigrun rose, steadier now than she'd seemed since our arrival, her carved staff striking the packed earth with a firm, resonant thud. "I propose we formally connect with this Reconciliation Order the same way our southern neighbours apparently already have. Not surrendering our own ways. Simply learning what three
Claimed by my Sister's Fiancé Chapter 304
CORMAC POV"Some of the council want a shrine built. Others want the old fear restored, a return to keeping such gifts hidden entirely. Neither faction has asked Aska herself what she actually wants."Sigrun delivered the news grimly the following morning, the Vashenn's own council apparently as divided as Kelmarsh's had been, though divided by reverence rather than terror.The frost was thick along the whalebone lintels, but inside the main longhouse, the heat from two massive stone fire pits kept the wind at bay. Outside, the northern sun barely crested the horizon, casting long, bruised-blue shadows over the snowdrifts, while inside, the bitter draft of old doctrine blew just as cold."A shrine," Bridie repeated, setting down her cup of bitter willow bark tea. "You mean worship her.""Some believe her gift marks her as touched by the deep dark itself," Sigrun admitted, tracing the carved patterns on her elder’s staff. "A blessing considerably larger than an ordinary child's life co
Claimed by my Sister's Fiancé Cha
BRIDE POV"She doesn't glow, exactly. It's more like she pulls the dark in close, and something in it starts to shine."Sigrun led us into the Vashenn's settlement, built low and sturdy against the relentless cold, and into a warm, fur-lined dwelling where a young girl, perhaps six, sat quietly beside a small fire.The shelter was sunk three feet into the frozen earth to escape the wind, the dome constructed of curving whalebone arches lashed together with sinew and covered in thick, layered caribou pelts. The air inside was dense with the rich scent of burning seal oil, dried moss, and steep pine bark. It was surprisingly warm—a cozy, insulated haven carved directly out of the desolate white waste.Aska looked up as we entered, dark eyes steady and unafraid in a way that surprised me, given everything Sigrun's careful words had suggested about her people's history. She sat cross-legged on a bed of tanned sea-wolf hides, wearing a small tunic of sheared rabbit fur, a wooden needle and
Claimed by my Sister's Fiancé Chapter 302
CORMAC POV "The maps end eleven miles back. Whatever's ahead of us now, we're relying entirely on Kestra's borrowed guide and the honesty of a letter written by strangers."I said it to Bridie, both of us wrapped heavily against cold that bit far harder than anything either of us had trained for, our small party moving carefully across ice fields that stretched white and silent in every direction.The wind didn't simply blow across this desolate expanse; it hunted. It howled through the jagged rifts of blue-tinted glacier ice, churning loose needles of frost that stung any exposed sliver of skin like splinters of glass. Beneath the iron caulks of our boots, the crust groaned with hollow, ancient weight over unseen crevasses. Even the ponies Kestra had provided—stocky, shaggy beasts bred for high scree—kept their heads tucked low against their chests, their breath freezing into long plumes of hoarfrost along their flanks.Kestra's guide, a weathered tracker named Halvard, led us with
You May Also Like
Ascension of a Gamma
Caine Casann545.1K viewsThe Beast And The Blessed
Ashley Breanne760.2K viewsAlpha Reid
C.J. Primer722.6K viewsAlpha Dante
Crystal L544.9K viewsBond of Shivers
Starwrite161 viewsOne Luna, Three Alphas
Elizabeth 45 viewsThe Rejected Luna Six secret Heirs
Wealth💅153 viewsHis Mate His Mistake
ALEX J.14 views
