All Chapters of Alpha’s Claimed Mate.: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

**NEUTRAL POV** The courtyard ran red. Bodies shifted in and out of fur—wolves in full transformation, claws flashing, teeth tearing, roars and growls blurring with human screams. The scent of iron and ash choked the air. Above them, the blood moon burned like a watching god. Asher moved like a storm through the wreckage of his home. He took down two of them in a single motion—black-furred wolves lunging from opposite ends. His claws ripped across a flank, his jaws crushed a throat. He didn’t recognize the faces until they shifted mid-collapse. Young. Too young. Julian’s wolves. Trained. Fast. Loyal. And now dead. *Damn you, Julian. You made this a war.* A third came at him—larger, silver-eyed, too fast for his claws. Asher was slammed into the side wall, ribs cracking against stone. He growled, shoved off the wall, and leapt, transforming mid-air. Wolf into man again, using the shift for speed. He landed hard, fists swinging. The wolf fell. And then— Julian s

NEUTRAL POV.The courtyard of the Big House buzzed with low murmurs and shifting feet. The air was thick with smoke and dust from the fires still smoldering beyond the walls. Asher stood at the center, arms crossed over his chest, feeling the weight of a pack trying to heal — and the cracks left behind by betrayal.Humans and wolves alike had gathered: warriors with bandaged arms, healers with tired eyes, even some of the townspeople who had refused to flee when the blood moon rose.Akira was the first to step forward, wiping her soot-streaked hands on her trousers."We've cleared the eastern fields," she reported, voice steady. "The livestock's been accounted for. No major losses there.""And the wounded?" Asher asked, his voice carrying over the crowd."Recovering," she said. "Some might not shift for a while. The magic in the blood moon... it lingers."He nodded grimly. "And the repairs?""We're working on it," another called from the crowd — a human man Asher recognized as Luck, o

*POV: Asher Nightshade* The tunnel narrowed until we had to move single file, shoulders brushing damp, living stone. The air grew colder with each step — thin, sharp, unnatural. I caught the shift before I saw it: the faint shimmer, like heat waves, stretching across the passage ahead. Akira grabbed my arm without warning. "Stop." Her voice was low but commanding. I froze. A few steps ahead, figures were forming out of the mist — familiar faces. Dead faces. Wolves I had failed. Friends who had bled out on battlefields long since claimed by dust. They weren’t real. But gods, they looked it. One of them, a boy with silver hair and sunken eyes, stepped forward. His mouth moved, but the voice that came out was wrong — hollow, rasping. "You left us behind, Asher." Another figure, a woman with a crushed throat, pointed at Akira. "And you, little witch—you abandoned the old ways." I flexed my hands, trying to ground myself. The dagger at my hip felt heavier, almost pulling m

POV: Asher Nightshade.The mountain swallowed us whole.The moment Akira and I stepped toward the paths, the ground trembled and split us apart—not with violence, but inevitability. One blink, and she was gone. No scream. No flash of light. Just... gone.The path before me shimmered, a corridor of jagged stone and whispering dark. I stepped forward.THE TRIAL.The world bent around me. I walked through memory, not earth—rooms from my childhood flickered past, voices echoing. I think the face that flickered belonged to my mother. She sat on my bed singing me soft lullaby. My father’s command. Blood on snow. Flames rising from a burning village.I walked through all of it.Through the faces I failed.Through the moment I turned away when I should’ve stood tall.Through the weight of every name etched into my bones.I thought I was ready.I wasn’t.But I didn’t stop.Because Akira wouldn’t stop either.THE RETURN.I don’t remember leaving the mountain.One moment I was stepping through a

POV: EMBER WELLESLEY.The lights were too bright. The kind that made you feel like you were being seen down to the bone.**Ember** sat on the edge of the lab bed, her sleeves rolled up, arm bare. **Augustus** moved efficiently, attaching a pressure cuff to her bicep while a nurse prepped the equipment.The needle glinted under the lights.**EMBER (quietly)** “Tell me again this will help him.”Augustus paused. His voice softened just enough.**AUGUSTUS** “We don’t know everything. But your blood reacted with Julian’s markers when we tested the first vial. Not just stabilized—*reversed* damage. Whatever’s in your system… it’s fighting the poison.”**EMBER** swallowed. Her other hand rested over the slight swell of her stomach.**EMBER** “It’s not just me, is it?”Augustus met her eyes.**AUGUSTUS** “It’s your child. The bond of blood. Wellesley and Nightshade—united.”She looked away, blinking fast. The nurse nodded, inserting the needle into her arm. Blood flowed through the t