Semua Bab The Ruthless Alpha’s Breeder: Bab 51 - Bab 60

CelineI noticed something I didn't expect.It came as a small, wrong thread, a sound pulled at the edge of me and everything snapped into sharper focus. A footstep down the hall, the change of a guard’s weight, the rustle of parchment in the scribe’s room, all of it landed inside my chest like someone had turned up the volume and I had become the speaker. My pulse jumped. Heat climbed up my arm, hard and fast, from the palm to the shoulder, and the world tightened around every shape and edge.I froze. There was no choice. The tile under my bare feet was cold, and I counted the squares until my breath measured out slow enough not to betray me. One, two, three. Keep it small. Keep it ordinary.Jerome’s boots sounded before I saw him. He opened the door like he had a right, and maybe he did. He did not bother with the ceremony. The half-smile he wore for the court wasn’t there. His face was a different kind of careful, softer at the mouth, sharper at the eyes. He stepped straight toward

CelineI felt him move before I heard him. The chair scraped once, soft and familiar, then his weight shifted on the mattress a breath later. He didn’t make a show of it. No footsteps, just the quiet motion of a man who knew exactly where he belonged. His hand slid to my waist like it was a map he’d read a thousand times.The touch was warm and steady. I didn’t pull away. That surprised me. My body answered before my head could find the list of reasons to hate him louder than anything that might want him. The mark at the base of my throat prickled where his palm rested; his thumb traced the edge of the scar there as if making sure it was real.He bent and kissed the mark. Not a soft thing. Not a reverence meant to charm. He pressed his mouth to the skin and for one hard second everything in me flattened into that contact, heat, shame, a small animal recognition. The bond thrummed low and certain, like a string tuned tight.He straightened and didn’t speak for a long beat. Then he aske

CelineI saw it when he dragged his shirt over his head. The lamp hit his side and the fabric caught, and the mark showed itself. Not a clean cut. Three rough lines, raised and pale, crossing his ribs toward his back, like someone had carved rules into him and left them to heal wrong.He felt my stare. The shirt hung at his elbows. He just stood there and only watched me watch him.“Your side,” I said.He looked down as if remembering his own skin, then let the shirt fall to the floor. Bare chest. The scar opened to the room.“Old,” he said.“How old.”“Old enough,” he said. His voice was flat, not proud, not ashamed.I sat on the edge of the bed. “How did you get it?”He poured water, drank, kept his hand around the cup a second too long. “My father gave me a lesson with that.”The words were simple. My mouth went dry anyway.“What lesson was worth that,” I asked.“He said pain makes a lesson stay,” Alaric said. “He said love makes men soft. He said an alpha who lets a soft thing nea

CelineThe drums woke me. Not a distant thud but a slow, hard pounding that rolled through the stone and vibrated my teeth. For a second I lay there and let the sound find me, metal ringing, the slap of boots, a shout breaking into a high note. It was close enough that I could tell the difference between a sword strike and a spear catching leather.It should have been noise, background. Instead my skin tightened like a wire. The world turned to fight when drums started. I knew the routes, which gates would open, where men would gather. I knew enough to be afraid.I pushed myself up. The room looked the same, heavy curtains, the shirt he’d left on the chair. The door was locked. Guards in the hall shifted like animals and would not meet my eyes. They watched me like I was something to keep behind a barrier. The way they stood made my stomach fold.“Open it,” I told the nearest one.He straightened and said no. “Orders from Alpha says no one goes near the doors. Not even you.”I asked w

CelineA few hours ago, the sound came as a crash, men shouting. Jolted Alaric and I awake…Swords against stone. Then boots, heavier than the ones that paced the hall earlier. Chaos, but close—too close.I left the bed without thinking. My wool slipped down my shoulders and I shoved it fast, the way you pull a hood up to hide. The corridor stank of smoke and iron. Guards were running past, faces set, voices clipped.One of them braked and looked at me like I was a thing misplaced. “Their men are at the outer gate—rogues broke through,” he said. “We’re moving to—”He didn’t finish. A shout cut him off and he was gone like a stone through water. “What the hell? Did they invade us because I was wounded yesterday in the battlefield?” Alaric grits out. “And it's dead in the night….” He tries to get up gritting his teeth.I stayed because Cade begged me. He came up the stairs with dust in his hair. "Stay," he said, like a man who had lost his plans.Alaric lay on the cot with blood matting