All Chapters of The Billionaire’s Marked Mate: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

The silence after Zaria’s whispered confession was worse than any roar. Every heartbeat in the chamber seemed to echo against marble, amplifying the truth she had dared to let slip: He knows me. The words had been soft, almost broken, yet they cut the Conclave like steel. Now the chamber erupted. Alphas surged to their feet, chairs scraping violently across polished stone, the veneer of civility cracking under raw fear. Fur bristled along arms where wolves pressed too close to the surface. Gold and silver eyes gleamed with accusation. “She admitted it!” “She is linked to him—tethered!” “Exile her before he walks straight into our walls!” The air filled with snarls and perfume, wolf musk mixing with the scent of old oak, burning ward-stones, and fear. The chandeliers rattled overhead. Zaria sat frozen in her seat at Lucien’s side, her body stiff but her mind spinning. Every word struck like a lash, but she forced her face into stillness. She would not flinch. Not in front of t

The suite was quiet. Too quiet.Zaria lay beneath silk sheets embroidered with gold thread, the faint scent of sandalwood and expensive leather lingering from Lucien’s presence. The glass walls of the penthouse framed the city below—a kingdom of steel and light stretching endlessly, its heartbeat pulsing with neon veins. Somewhere in that vastness, Kael’s forces gathered, and the Conclave whispered of her blood like it was poison.Sleep came not as peace, but as surrender.And with it, the nightmare.⸻She ran.Not as herself—not as Zaria of the glass towers and crystal goblets, but as something more. Something feral. The ground beneath her was not marble or silk carpet but soil, rich and damp, the scent of pine needles sharp in her nostrils. Her muscles surged, carrying her faster than any human could dream, each stride a symphony of speed and precision. The air was alive with scents—prey, blood, ash, and smoke. She could hear heartbeats, actual heartbeats, pulsing like drums somewhe

The tribunal chamber was nothing like the ritual hall.Where the sigils and mirrors had sung with old magic, this room whispered money, politics, and power.High glass walls overlooked the glittering city below, skyscrapers rising like monuments to ambition. The table that stretched across the chamber gleamed with polished obsidian, its surface cold and flawless, scattered with crystal water decanters and gold-plated pens. Wolf law cloaked itself in the trappings of human boardrooms—tailored suits, leather chairs, hushed negotiations. But beneath the polished veneer, claws were never far from the surface.Zaria sat near the far end, deliberately silent, her hands folded neatly on the glass armrests of her chair. Protocol forbade her from speaking unless questioned directly. Her role was not that of witness or defendant, but of symbol—living proof that Kael’s shadow was not yet done haunting this Conclave.Across the table, the accused advisor shifted in his restraints. His once-immacu

The laughter still echoed in Zaria’s ears long after the dining room had emptied.She lay beneath silk sheets in her private suite of Wolfe Tower, staring at the ceiling as the city lights glimmered faintly through the glass wall to her right. Sleep eluded her. Her body was heavy from food and wine, her heart still buzzing with that rare warmth—the warmth of belonging, of Lucien’s quiet smile.For the first time in weeks, she let herself relax.She drifted into sleep with the faint hum of pack voices in the hall, the pulse of the wards shimmering like invisible thread around the tower.Safe.Or so she thought.⸻The scream of the wards shattered the silence.It wasn’t a sound exactly—it was a vibration, a tearing in the air that jolted her awake. The hair on her arms rose, her pulse thundered.Then came the crash of glass.A shadow slipped through the window in a room across the hall. Then another. Then six more, fluid and silent, their bodies encased in black, faces masked, silver bl

The night in Wolfe Tower stretched endlessly, velvet silence stitched with the hum of wards being rethreaded by Mara and Silas somewhere far below.But Zaria did not hear them.Her body lay curled against black silk sheets, Lucien’s scent cocooning her—sandalwood, smoke, aged whiskey—but her mind had slipped elsewhere.Into shadow.⸻The dream came slow, coiling.She walked barefoot across obsidian stone slick with lightless mist. Wolves prowled at the edges—massive, eyes glowing silver and crimson, fangs bared in silent reverence.And at the center: a throne of black stone, carved from some ancient mountain, polished until it reflected every tremor of fire-light from braziers that burned without flame.On it sat a figure blurred by smoke. Taller than any man, shoulders draped in shadows like armor, eyes glinting red-gold through the haze.The Shadow Alpha.His voice was not sound. It was vibration in her blood, resonance in her bones.“Daughter of night… you hear me now.”Her knees w