All Chapters of Alpha's Trial Mate: Chapter 1 - Chapter 9

**Kira, 12 Years Old** The forest was ablaze. Not with flames—initially—but with cries. Wolf howls slice through the air like knives. Trees rushed by as Kira sprinted, tripping over roots coated in blood and ash. The moon overhead was off—oversized, overly red. "Blood Moon," her mother had murmured. A negative sign. Now it became a sky executioner. “Kira—don’t stop running!” her mother had shouted. Next, the teeth. Talons. Her mother's voice, muted in the midst of wailing. She had no recollection of falling. Only the scent of fire—hair, skin, residence. The pain in her chest. The bite of sorrow intertwined with smoke. She squeezed under the roots of a weathered tree, hands trembling, her mother’s scarf clenched firmly in her grip. The scent of rosemary and pine lingered. She held it to her face and refrained from crying. Wasn't able to. Weeping produced sound. Sound led to your discovery. Her legs throbbed. Her ribs seemed sore. Blood smeared her hands, but she couldn’t tell

Ronan She smells like smoke and pine. I catch it the moment the guards drag her into the trial ring—head down, wrists bound behind her back. Her steps are slow but sure, her chin tilted just high enough to defy submission, even in the face of death. Her feet are bare. Her hair’s tangled, a mess of dirt and dried blood clinging to strands that once might’ve gleamed under moonlight. There’s blood on her lip, but it isn’t fresh. The scent hits harder than anything else. Pine needles crushed underfoot, smoke clinging to worn fabric. And something beneath that—something almost royal, but buried, feral, strange. Wrong. My wolf stiffens. And then he growls. I sit up straighter on the high platform where the Alphas observe the Trial Ceremony. Jehrin stands at my right, arms folded in satisfaction. A sick sort of pleasure gleams in her eyes. To my left, the elders and council members shuffle papers, whispering judgments. They don’t smell what I do. But I do. And so does the wolf. He’s

RonanShe’s an enigma.Quiet. Composed. Not meek like the omegas they parade at court.Not just the way she fights—though that’s part of it. She doesn’t fight like a wolf raised in the fold. She fights like someone who learned pain first and technique later. Raw. Sharp. She doesn't flinch when she bleeds. Doesn't look away when others do.She’s too calm.She doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t bow her head. She meets my gaze every time I catch her watching me—unflinching, unyielding.Most omegas shrink in the presence of an alpha.She doesn’t. And that unnerves me more than I want to admit.Tonight, she’s in the training ring.Again.I didn’t ask her to be.But she’s there anyway. Moving like she belongs. As if blood and ash haven’t burned her from the inside out.Her stance is practiced, patient. She takes a blow from one of my top warriors, recovers with grace, and counters fast enough to bruise his ribs.“She’s learning quick,” Thorne mutters beside me.“She’s not learning,” I say under my bre

(Ronan’s POV)The clearing behind the training barracks was colder than usual. Morning mist clung to the grass, curling around my boots like breath I couldn’t release. I stood in the center, arms crossed, eyes on the treeline.Waiting.My wolf was restless beneath my skin, pacing behind my ribs. Not from impatience—no, this was different.She was coming.I felt it before I heard her footsteps.Kira walked into the clearing like she didn’t care who was watching. She wore a loose training shirt, sleeves rolled, braid swinging against her back. The sunlight caught in her scars—silver glints along her forearms, a shadow on her jaw.My chest tightened.“You're late,” I said.She arched a brow. “You're always early. That’s not the same thing.”I didn’t answer. I tossed her a staff. She caught it easily, spinning it once in her fingers.“What’s the lesson today, Alpha?” she asked, voice light but laced with challenge. “How to keep a trial mate in check without actually touching her?”My fing

Chapter 8 – The Breach(Ronan’s POV)I didn’t sleep.Again.Not since the moment I carried her back from the woods—barefoot, eyes wide open, but lost somewhere I couldn’t reach.Sleepwalking, they called it.No one knew why.But I did.It wasn’t just trauma. It was memory.She walked the same path she’d run twelve years ago.Back then, she was just a girl bleeding beneath the roots of an ash tree. I had bitten her to shut her up, to protect her, to keep her hidden. And then I left her.Now she walked again—only this time, she wasn’t screaming. She was silent. Shivering. Moonlight clinging to her skin like frost.I had wrapped my coat around her shoulders and carried her back like she weighed nothing.But she wasn’t nothing.She was everything I wasn’t allowed to want.The next morning, I stood in my office, staring at her scent lingering on the coat still draped over the back of the chair. My hands were clenched at my sides. My heart was pacing like it didn’t know where to settle.She