Semua Bab Mated to Three Alphas: Bab 51 - Bab 60

Damian’s POV I found him where I knew he would hide—near the east wing, where Lyra slept. The moon was a thin blade above the roofs, and the guard posts cast long, sleepy shadows. Damon moved like a shadow too, but he did not try to blend. He leaned in the doorway of a servant’s passage with that lazy, dangerous smirk I had seen a thousand times. He looked like he owned the night. My boots made no sound on the stone. I wanted them to. I wanted the world to know I was there. I wanted Damon to know I had followed him. I wanted him to know I had been watching, waiting for the right moment to cut him down. He straightened when I stepped into the light, his face cool as always. “Damian,” he said like we were trading pleasantries. He did not attempt to hide what he had been doing. He did not try to take the lie of innocence. That only angered me more. “You were with her,” I said. My voice stayed low, but the words carried, My hands found the hilt at my hip before I thought. My finge

Damian’s POVThe alarm came like a blade through sleep. Men shouted. Lanterns swung. I was on my feet before my mind finished waking. The courtyard smelled of smoke and blood. Masks of night peeled off faces. I ran. Rowan met me at the gate, his face white and tight. “Rogues,” he barked. “They hit the eastern village. Children taken. They left signs of Council steel.” My stomach dropped. I had felt the sting of the Council’s hand before. Those steel blades had become proof, a stain that led back to Dominic whether men wanted to see it or not. I did not wait for words. I moved with the pack that loved me and feared me both. We struck hard and fast. The rogues did not expect a lord to answer with the speed of a hunted wolf. They had thought the keep would lounge and let the world turn. They had thought wrong. The first hut burned as we approached. Screams cut the air, raw and thin. Mothers clawed at the air as we broke in. I felt anger grow inside me like a living thing. The kin

Damian’s POV Night wrapped the keep in silence, but it was the silence of a grave. Every corner hummed with unease, every warrior too tired to sleep yet too restless to stay still. The battle at dawn had bled us, and the promise of Dominic’s return gnawed at what little strength remained. I stood at the high tower, staring into the black stretch of forest. Torches flickered along the ramparts, their light fragile against the weight of shadow. The night smelled of blood, ash, and fear. Behind me, boots scraped stone. I didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Lyra’s presence had become too sharp, too constant, like a blade pressed against the back of my neck. “You should rest,” I said, my voice low. Her laugh was bitter, hollow. “Rest? With an army waiting to tear us apart? With your father whispering my name like a curse?” I turned then. Her eyes glowed faintly in the dark, silver threaded with steel. She looked tired, but beneath it burned defiance. That fire unsettled me m

Damon’s POV I sat in the dim of my private room and thought of plans. They always began the same way for me: a clear step one, then room to bend as needed. Step one tonight would be to get inside the inner ring without setting the whole keep on fire. Step two would be to make sure Damian’s men did not think to follow. Step three would be to gather the piece I needed—Lyra—and vanish before Dominic had time to flinch. It sounded simple on the paper. It never was. But I had been patient long enough to know how to shape simplicity into truth. I picked up a small leather-bound journal from the table. Dominic’s men had kept records in hidden places. Honestly, I did not care what their rites said anymore. What mattered was the leverage. The thing that shifted the scale in my favor was truth made public. If the elders believed that the mark called her blood and not a witch, they would fall like dry brush. I had plans to use that truth like fire. But before that, I needed her. I tho

Damon’s POVSomeone shouted in the hall and the noise came like the cracking of dried wood. A shadow moved under the door and a blade flashed. Not mine. Not one of mine. Damian’s men were awake and they came like fanatics. The plan that had been a clean cut now had edges. I had to decide fast. Stay and fight a war that would wake the keep, or leave with what little advantage I still held. I let go. It was not surrender. It was a calculation. I stepped back and laughed softly. My men slipped into the shadows, and I left open the door like an invitation. Let them see me flee. Let them think they had won. They would see later that I had taken enough from them to make the ground shift. Lyra did not watch me go. She did not look at my men as we melted into the passages. She watched the door like it might reopen and claim her. In that look I felt a sharp thing land in me. Not ownership. Not love. Something thin and dangerous. When I reached the outer wall, I tasted iron in my mouth and