Semua Bab The Alpha’s Forgotten Bride: Bab 51 - Bab 60

(Calla’s POV)I waited a few seconds, watching Rowan stand there. His arms were still tight, his chest going up and down from what almost happened between us. The kitchen felt smaller now, like there was electricity in the air.His wolf had almost taken me completely, and I could still feel that hunger hanging between us. My skin remembered where his mouth had been. My lips still felt tingly from his kiss. I barely pushed him away, my hands were shaking when I pressed against his chest and felt his heart beating so hard. We were both shaking for different reasons.It got quiet, really quiet. I could hear the clock ticking, the fridge humming, and even my own heartbeat. But louder than all that was Rowan still breathing rough.Now he stood there, getting himself together from whatever almost happened, and I had to make sure it would not happen again. Because if it did, I will not be sure I will be able to stop him or myself next time."It cannot," I said, my voice was still shaky. "Thi

(Calla's POV)There was nothing but silence this morning. No birds, no thudding door for the hallway, not even the merriment echoing through Asher's room at an ungodly hour of the day. Only a glacial quiet that burrowed under your skin, and for one swift moment, you were aware that something in you had changed sometime during the night, as if absolutely nothing had.I leaned against the ceiling for hours, tracing the familiar contours in the plaster with my eyes. This bedroom, Rowan's guest room, still held resonances of the life I'd imagined here.The same crown molding, the same fall of morning light across hardwood floors in golden rectangles. It all seemed different to me now, though, poisoned by years lost, and the weights of secrets I carried like boulders in my chest.There was a heaviness creeping into my chest, not fear, but doubt, keen-edged and unspoken, but suffocating.What was I doing?I had come back to this town to protect Asher, to enable him to recover. To rescue hi

(Calla's POV)The air within the cabin had been too still, too parched. I still sat with my back against the window seat with the same book that I couldn't understand all afternoon, following the lines of the page where it was thinning out and cracking into fragments in my mind as it whirled round and round.My book cover, soft leather, was toasty against the palms of my hands, creased from nights of sleepless clutching, but the words on the page could have been some alien tongue. I wasn't reading. Barely got through it, scanning my eyes over it, reading the letters out with my eyes without making anything of it.The heroine of the tale was doing it right, brazenly, boldly, shamelessly. None of it, I was doing. I envied her confidence, the manner in which she appeared to know what she desired and strove to obtain it without questioning each breath, each pulse of her heart, each nervously raised eyebrow.I should have shoved open the cabin door and step outside into new air, down by th

(Calla’s POV)The sun had barely stretched its fingers across the horizon when Asher stirred beside me, his tiny body tangled in the soft linens. I had returned to bed not long before—mind buzzing from the whispers I’d heard earlier near the servants’ wing, and the strange, yellow eyes that still haunted my thoughts.I must’ve drifted, somewhere between anxious wakefulness and shallow sleep. But now, with the weight of my son’s hand on my arm and the shift in his breath, I knew something was wrong.“Asher?” I whispered, brushing the damp curls from his forehead. The moment my palm met his skin, my chest tightened.He was burning up.Again.His fever had returned—worse this time. His cheeks were flushed a worrying red, yet the skin around his eyes looked grey and sunken. His eyelids fluttered before his lashes parted, revealing those sweet hazel eyes now dull and glassy.I reached for the damp cloth on the bedside table, gently pressing it to his head. “How do you feel, baby?”He blink

(Rowan’s POV)The council room was unusually quiet when I entered—no idle chatter, no sips of wine from goblets. Nothing like what elders usually do whenever they gather like this.All I could feel was just a low, simmering tension. The tension was thick and choking that if I had magical eyes, I would e able to see it physically. I could feel it wrap around me, a robe of expectation waiting to be thrown off or accepted.I walked in with chin high as I ignored the piercing gazes and half-hidden sneers. These were my elder council, the pupil that ruled this pack, this kingdom by my side. But most of them feels superior over me at times.My seat was at the far end, carved from the bones of a great beast slain by my grandfather—an old show of strength. I should have sat in to remind them exactly who their alphas is, but I didn’t.I didn’t bother to sit.Instead, I stood behind the high-backed chair, fingers resting lightly on its frame, and scanned the room.Lena and her father were alrea