บททั้งหมดของ The Alpha Prince's Forbidden Scent : บทที่ 51 - บทที่ 60

Up in this territory? Forget Blackwood’s sky. Here, it’s just a dead, washed-out gray—clouds stuck up there like they don’t remember how to let loose a single drop. The streets twist and double back, all busted cobblestones, rusted signs hanging on for dear life, and shadows that slither around like stray dogs with too many teeth.Elara’s got her hood pulled down, cloak cinched tight. Not that it really hides the curve of her belly, but she keeps trying anyway, hand cupped around her bump like she can block out the whole rotten world.She knows damn well she shouldn’t be here.But after the fourth landlord slammed the door in her face and the fifth didn’t even bother calling back, it’s kind of obvious—nobody wants her. Not the prim-and-proper townsfolk. Not the pack loyalists. Not anyone smart enough to be scared of Damon Blackwood and his brand of crazy.So, yeah. She landed here.The last stop for the desperate. The place where names get traded for silence and secrets are worth more

Trigger Warning: Descriptions of traumatic labor, isolation, and emotional distress.—The clock ticked. The walls pulsed with silence and sterilized indifference. Overhead, the fluorescent lights buzzed — merciless, too bright — as if mocking the suffering that swelled in the sterile, white hospital room.Elara’s scream tore through it all.She clutched the metal bed rail until her knuckles paled, until her bones screamed back at her. Her gown clung to her soaked skin, damp with sweat and desperation, and her bare feet trembled against the cold tile floor. Her contractions didn’t come in waves anymore — they were a storm, relentless, with no pause to breathe in between.And still… no baby.“I can’t… I can’t do this anymore,” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse, shredded, not from weakness — but from begging.The nurse had stopped checking hours ago. No change. Still stuck. Still no progress. Still no help.No consent.Damon hadn’t signed the damn paper.Her knees buckled, but she cau

(Elara's POV)It’s always when the silence settles that my thoughts start bleeding.Kaelen’s scent still lingers faintly in the sheets—citrus and pine and something unnamable, something I shouldn’t know as well as I do. He’s gone now, of course. The crown doesn’t wait. Neither does his betrothed. A suitable Omega with royal lineage and perfect manners, no doubt taught how to smile with her lips and keep her soul hidden beneath layers of silk.I shouldn't care. I really shouldn't.But I do.Because he stayed, when no one else did. And now he’s gone too.My fingers curl around the fabric of the blanket, the same blanket I’ve sweated and bled and cried into. I pull it up to my chest, try to push the ache in my heart down into my bones where no one can see it.I paid for that apartment. In full. A whole moon cycle’s rent in cash. It’s waiting for me. My escape. My ending, or my beginning—I don’t know which yet. I just know it’s not here.Not in this cursed room.Not in this cursed Pack Ho

(Elara's POV)There are no words heavy enough to carry what I’m feeling.There’s no breath light enough to keep me from drowning.I don’t remember deciding to leave the court.I don’t remember the guards letting me pass, or if they even tried to stop me.I just remember my legs moving—wooden, numb, determined—and the trees opening around me like they knew I needed hiding.The forest has always been a place where things go to be forgotten.Wolves. Secrets. The last pieces of yourself you’re too ashamed to keep.Maybe that’s why I came.I walked until the thorns no longer bit, until my feet didn’t sting from the earth. I walked past the roots that wanted to trip me, past the judging branches, past the last place where anyone would think to look.And then I stopped.I stood in a clearing ringed with stillness. The wind was too quiet. The sky too clean. No birdsong. No voices. No eyes.Just me.Just me and the weight in my belly that felt like it might split me in two, not from the babies

(Elara's POV)Kaelen dropped me near the entrance.Not close enough to stir questions, not far enough to be unkind. Just enough space to make me walk those last few steps alone.The gravel was sharp beneath my feet, biting into my soles, but I didn’t flinch. I’d already walked on worse.The pack house loomed in the dusk, windows lit like eyes watching my return. Every brick in the wall remembered what I was meant to be. Every crack whispered what I’d become.The wind shifted.And then came him.Damon.He stepped out from the shadow of the columns like rot surfacing beneath clean water. Same expensive coat. Same crooked smile. The kind that used to make girls blush. The kind that now made my skin crawl.“Look who decided to crawl home,” he said, voice soaked in contempt. “You look like a damn rogue, Elara. Barefoot and filthy. Is this how low you’ve fallen?”I didn’t stop walking. Just angled my body to the side, avoiding his touch, his shadow.“I want to stay at the greenhouse,” I sai