All Chapters of Mated Twice: A Wolf’s Dilemma: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

The battlefield still smelled of scorched earth and soul-fire. The ashes of the Boundless Wolf hung in the air like sorrow, drifting over the stunned faces of the gathered packs. But Racheal didn’t flinch.She stood at the center of it all—shoulders squared, silver glowing faintly beneath her skin, flanked by the only two wolves who had never tried to cage her.Kade at her right, silent and fierce.Jaxon at her left, alert and steady.The Elders had gone quiet. Elder Thorne’s robes were torn and dust-smeared, the arrogance in his posture dimmed but not gone. Yet when he opened his mouth to speak, it was not his voice the wolves listened for.It was hers.“Racheal Dareth,” came the voice of Elder Myra, stepping forward from the Council line, her weathered hands folded with surprising calm. “The Council has fallen. The packs stand on the edge of something we’ve never seen before. What will you offer them in its place?”The wind whispered. Somewhere beyond the clearing, a lone wolf howle

The letter arrived just before midnight.No scout had seen the messenger. No scent lingered on the parchment. But there it was—perched on Racheal’s windowsill, pinned in place by a feather scorched at the tip.Not burned. Branded.She stood in silence, staring at it as moonlight spilled across the page. The seal was broken, as if it had never been sealed at all. Just… delivered. Meant to be read.Meant for her.Jaxon stirred behind her. “You’re not going to open that alone.”“I already did,” she murmured, voice tight.He crossed the room quickly. Kade, ever alert, followed seconds later.Racheal passed the letter to them both, fingers trembling.> Racheal Dareth,You’ve built a throne on borrowed blood. But you do not know what flows in your own veins.Come to the Crimson Hollow, alone.There, you’ll find the truth of your birth… and the chains that still bind you.Before the Flame retur

They emerged from Crimson Hollow before dawn, silent and changed.The first light of morning touched Racheal’s skin like a question she didn’t know how to answer. Something inside her had shifted—like the air before a storm, heavy with warning. The truth was no longer hiding beneath her skin. It was awake.Jaxon walked beside her, eyes sharp but quiet. Kade followed, a protective shadow one step behind, every breath he took measured against hers.They hadn’t spoken much since the chamber.There weren’t words for what they’d seen.When they reached the ridge overlooking the Ashroot valley, Racheal stopped.Smoke curled from the northern treeline.Her blood ran cold.“That’s not campfire smoke,” Kade said.Jaxon raised a scope to his eye. “It’s the old Crescent Watchtower. Or… what’s left of it.”Racheal didn’t hesitate. “We ride now.”---The tower was already ash by the t

Alec slept in her tent, surrounded by wards and guarded by wolves who didn’t yet know who he truly was—or why Racheal had returned with blood on her boots and stormlight in her eyes.Kade sat outside the flap, blade in his lap, watching every flicker of movement in the trees.Jaxon stood across the camp, watching the Assembly’s main fire, where murmurs turned to arguments and back again.Inside, Racheal paced.Her hands shook when she finally stopped and looked at her reflection in the polished steel hanging from her armor rack.She didn’t see the Guide.She saw a daughter of flame.The words echoed in her skull like a prophecy rewritten.> You are his daughter.Liora hadn’t needed to lie. Because Racheal had always felt it.The way the fire had never hurt her. The way the Moon’s blessings came late. The way every Council seer had avoided her eyes when she was still just a child in the training halls.They knew.Her mother knew.And now… so did she.A cough from behind her made her tu

The nightmares returned before dawn.Not dreams—memories.Racheal stood in the burning Hollow again. The crown of coal. The mirror of blood. And her own voice screaming from a distance she couldn’t measure.“She must never be claimed.”When she woke, her hands were scorched with flame again—faint but real. Her power was slipping through her fingers like smoke.The fire wanted out.And worse, it was beginning to feel... familiar.She sat in the cold silence of her tent, breathing against the fire inside her chest, when a figure stepped through the flap.Not Kade. Not Jaxon. Not Alec.But Alpha Myra—silver-haired, sharp-eyed, and always too quiet.“You’re not on the war council this morning,” Racheal said, voice rough.“I’m not here as an Alpha,” Myra said, closing the flap behind her. “I’m here as something much older.”That got Racheal’s attention.Myra stepped forward and reached into the folds of her cloak. From it, she withdrew a long object wrapped in black velvet and bound with s