Semua Bab THE ALPHA'S BARGAINED BRIDE : Bab 21 - Bab 30

The cold bit into my bones, but it wasn’t the chill of the cave that unsettled me most. It was the silence. A silence broken only by the sound of dripping water somewhere in the darkness, and the faint scrape of boots against stone as the hunters paced in and out of sight.My wrists burned where silver chains dug into them. Wolfsbane had been smeared into the metal, its poison seeping into my blood until I could barely lift my head. My body felt like lead, but my mind–my mind was alive with fire and bitterness.They wanted me broken.They wanted me afraid.But I had already lived too long with fear to let it show now.“Well now, look at this, boys. Little Luna still breathin’. Guess wolves don’t die as easy as we were told.” He chuckled, the laugh breaking into a crack that echoed off the stone. The others snorted, their laughter spilling like broken glass.“Eat,” one of them sneered, pushing a half-burnt piece of bread against my lips. When I turned my face away, his boot nudged my r

My eyes flew open. For one agonizing second I thought it would be Xavier’s blood staining my skin, the end of everything I had dreaded and hoped for twisted into one brutal finale. But when my gaze landed on him, his golden eyes were still locked on mine, wide with shock, his chest still heaving with air. It wasn’t his blood and it wasn't mine either. I turned my head slowly, almost too afraid to see what truth waited there, and what I saw rooted me to the chains. The hunter who had pressed the gun to Xavier’s temple was no longer standing. His throat was torn wide open, blood pouring in hot streams across the stone floor. And behind him—moving so quickly my eyes struggled to follow—was a blur of fur and fangs, a beast tearing through the cave like the storm itself had taken form. The hunters barely had time to scream. One after another, they fell. Limbs crushed, throats ripped, silver blades clattering uselessly to the ground. The cave filled with the sounds of wet cracks, snarl

Kai’s body jerked, another cough ripping through him, blood spilling down his lip and splattering on the dirt. My chest tightened so painfully I almost doubled over. His lips were cracked, trembling, but his arms pressed into the ground anyway, stubborn as always. He was trying to stand, shaking so hard I thought his bones might snap, but still he fought to rise. My heart ached. I couldn’t stop staring at the fire in his eyes—dark, burning, unbroken. He wouldn’t yield, even when his body already had. “Kai…” The whisper scraped out of me before I could swallow it. My wolf whimpered inside, restless, desperate to run to him, to catch him before he fell again. But Xavier’s presence weighed me down like chains, his command coiling in the air, suffocating. Then the sound came. Heavy footsteps. The ground seemed to tremble beneath them, the air thickening with the sharp bite of steel and dominance. My stomach twisted as the figures emerged from the trees—Xavier’s betas. They moved like

My lungs burned, but no air came. The words wrapped around me like a noose, dragging me deeper into the dark. Not Xavier’s.The child Selena carried—the very weapon she wielded against me—wasn’t hisMy mind reeled. My body swayed where I stood. It was impossible, yet Angela’s eyes carried no shadow of doubt. The silence stretched thick between us, wrapping around my throat until I thought I might choke.“Are you certain?” I whispered, My hand clutched at my chest, nails biting into flesh. “Are you sure?”Angela’s expression was drawn, her face pale, but her voice carried a quiet strength. “Yes, Larissa. I checked twice, in secret. I would not risk telling you this if I was not sure. The bloodline markers don’t match. Larissa, I swear on the Moon Goddess herself—the child cannot be Xavier’s.”She spoke with the same voice she had used when we were children and I had scraped my knees climbing too high, the same voice that always steadied me when fear wrapped its claws around my heart.

The silence in the cell was always heavy, like an extra weight pressing down on my chest. I thought I had grown used to it, to the cold stone walls and the stale air that smelled faintly of damp earth, but tonight my mind would not let me rest. Angela’s words still echoed in me, her discovery gnawing at my thoughts. Selene’s pregnancy was not Xavier’s, yet who it belonged to remains a cruel mystery. That secret burned brighter than the torches outside, and though Angela had sworn to find proof, the knowledge alone twisted inside me like a knife. My thoughts spun through every step that had led me here. The betrayal, the trial, the sentence of exile. Xavier’s eyes turned hard against me when once they had been soft, his voice carrying accusations I had never deserved. Then Kai—always Kai. Saving me from the hunters’ chains, pulling me from the brink when death had clawed too close, shielding me when Xavier had left me to the world’s cruelty. I remembered the sharp sting of the needle,