Lahat ng Kabanata ng Save Me, Claim Me: Kabanata 151 - Kabanata 160

Tessa POVI stared into the fire.The flames didn't crackle. They whispered. Not in words - but in sounds I almost recognized. A lullaby. A warning.“Love or life,” I echoed.The Seer didn’t speak. Just watched. As if she already knew which one I’d choose. I curled my hands into fists, nails biting into skin.“How many times has this happened?” I asked.Her head tilted, braids shifting like river reeds in windless water. “This? Only once. You are the only one who lived long enough to reach this part of the thread.”I swallowed the rising heat in my throat. “So I’m a mistake.”“No,” she said. “You are a correction.”“Then what was Velarion?”Her eyes turned sharper, gold flecks flickering. “A wound.”A pause. “He was born of broken oaths. A child conceived in sacrifice, raised in silence. The Council took pieces of ancient bloodlines, bent them through time and death, and forced him into being. Not as a weapon. As a gatekeeper.”“For what?”“The Otherworld. The Hollow Between. The real

Tessa POVThe forest changed on the way back. Not all at once. Not loud.Quiet.Like a breath held too long.The glow in the leaves dimmed. The trees lost their unnatural shimmer, the silver veining dulling as though the Seer’s power had bled out of the land itself. Shadows stretched farther than they should have. The moss no longer pulsed with breath beneath our boots. It lay still.Dead.We rode in silence. Rylan beside me, Galen and the others trailing behind, alert. But I could barely feel them.My thoughts were too loud.Love or life.He was never meant to exist. Neither were you.I could still see my mother’s face, terrified in the circle of robed figures. I could still hear the Seer’s voice naming me a correction, not a daughter. Not a queen.Not even real.The ache behind my ribs throbbed with something deeper than sorrow. Something furious.“Tessa,” Rylan murmured, riding closer. “You’re tense.”I blinked. I hadn’t realized my hands were clenched on the reins. My wolf was too

Tessa POVThe canvas walls of the war tent flapped like lungs around us, swollen with smoke and tension. The scent inside was thick - ink, sweat, blood and burning wax. Maps covered the long table in the center, weighed down by stones and daggers, blotched with fresh markings.Marcus stood at the far end, already waiting. He didn’t greet us. Just studied me like a wolf scenting a storm.Dorian hadn’t left my side since the moment we dismounted. He hadn’t asked anything yet. But the heat of his body at my back, the twitch of his fingers at his sides, the way his eyes kept flicking to me as if checking I hadn’t vanished - it said enough.I stepped forward, my palms bare, my posture straight.“We need to talk.”Marcus gave a curt nod. “Then talk.”Galen and Rylan took positions near the tent’s entrance, silent but coiled. Dorian didn’t move from my side.I looked to the map. Then at Marcus. “You said we have a lead. On Velarion.”He didn’t blink. “He’s not hiding anymore. He’s drawing yo

Tessa POVThe world was barely breathing.A faint mist clung to the edges of the tent walls. Soft gray light spilled through the canvas, kissed with the first pale blush of dawn. It painted everything in muted silver - our skin, the tangled sheets, the soft rise and fall of Dorian’s chest beside mine.He was still asleep. Or… I thought he was. Until his hand slid slowly along the curve of my hip, fingers splaying with a quiet kind of reverence, like he was reacquainting himself with something sacred.“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I whispered.His voice was low, gravel-rough from sleep. “You didn’t.”I turned to face him. His eyes were already on me - soft in this light, though still heavy with something darker. Fierce. Protective. Devoted.His thumb traced the edge of my cheekbone. “Couldn’t sleep. You were making these little sounds.”My brow lifted. “Good sounds?”He gave a slow, lazy smile that did terrible things to my heartbeat. “Hungry sounds.”Heat flushed across my skin. Before

Dorian POVThe fire burned low.Not out of fuel - there was plenty stacked nearby - but as if it knew how the night felt. Like flame should keep quiet, too. Crackling only when necessary. Holding its breath with the rest of us.I saw them before they saw me.Galen sat with one forearm draped over his raised knee, a dark bottle cradled in his other hand, his profile stone-cut and distant. Rylan leaned back on his elbows, legs stretched out, the tips of his boots catching the flicker of firelight. His flask hung loosely from two fingers, half-forgotten.They were silent. Not with the ease of warriors resting - but with the weight of men who'd seen something and didn't know what to name it yet.I stepped into the ring of firelight without announcing myself. Both of them looked up at once. Not surprised. Just aware. Always aware.The fire crackled low between us. It threw flickers of gold across their faces - Rylan’s eyes shadowed with quiet thought, Galen’s posture still tense, always ha