All Chapters of Alpha Asher's Forbidden Mate: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

“Exile taught me how to survive shame, but nothing prepared me for returning to the wolves who wanted me gone.”The Shadowfang border is both familiar and foreign, like touching a scar that still aches beneath the skin. My boots sink into soil I once called home, damp with evening mist. Each step is heavier than the last, as if the land itself resists me, remembering the decree that banished me three years ago.The trees whisper with the wind, and I swear they carry voices. She’s back. The disgraced one. The cursed heir.My wolf paces beneath my skin, restless, uneasy. She wants to howl, to announce our return, but I bite down on the urge until blood fills my mouth. The pack doesn’t deserve my voice. Not yet. Not when their last memory of me is Damien’s rejection, the sneer of the council, and the exile that carved me hollow.The path curves toward the heart of the territory, and every step sends another wave of memory crashing into me. Nights of laughter that turned to silence. Faces

The council chamber burned with whispers. The altar still pulsed red from the blood flames that had nearly consumed Damien, and the air was so thick with disbelief I could taste it on my tongue—like iron, like ash.I hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. I’d only walked into the sacred circle, ready to endure the stares, the venom on their lips, the curse of being the disgraced Thorn. But instead, the fire had roared to life, rejecting Damien, threatening to burn him alive, and then curling toward me as if it had been waiting for my return all along.The looks on their faces said everything—fear, rage, awe.“Impossible,” Damien rasped, clutching his hand where the altar flame had scorched him. His proud jaw trembled with fury. “She doesn’t belong here. She was banished. Exiled.” His voice cracked on the word like he still couldn’t believe I had the audacity to stand in front of him, to breathe the same air.But I wasn’t looking at Damien.The heavy air shifted—so suddenly, so sharpl

The courtyard had never been this silent. Not even during a hunt. Not even during a death.Every breath seemed trapped in throats as the mark seared across my wrist, blazing with silver fire. I gasped, clutching my skin, but the pain wasn’t just mine—it resonated, rippling through the air like thunder.“The Moonlight bond…” someone whispered.Another voice gasped. “It’s glowing for her!”The pack erupted, voices colliding in disbelief and awe. My vision blurred, the mark etching deeper into my flesh, glowing brighter with each passing heartbeat.No—this couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not to me.I staggered back, but my eyes betrayed me, dragging themselves upward… to him.Alpha Riven Cade.His gaze locked onto mine with a force that rooted me where I stood. There was no softness in those storm-gray eyes, no welcome, no warmth. But something stirred—something I couldn’t name.The air between us shimmered, heavy, charged. I could feel it even from across the courtyard, as if invisible

The echo of the dagger hitting stone still rattled in my bones. My breath caught, every sense straining, waiting for the next strike. The corridor seemed to shrink around me, shadows thickening, whispering promises of death.Then I heard it—the whisper of steel slicing air.I dropped instinctively, my palms scraping the floor as another blade hissed past, so close I felt the sting as it grazed the edge of my arm. Pain bloomed hot and sharp, but fear shoved it aside. Whoever lurked in the dark wasn’t finished.I forced myself to my feet, eyes darting. For a heartbeat, I caught the glint of a figure melting back into the black—too fast, too practiced. But what froze me wasn’t the shadow. It was the dagger that had missed me, now quivering upright in the ground.The hilt bore the unmistakable crest.A wolf’s skull, crowned in iron thorns.Shadowfang.My blood turned to ice. That crest belonged to my father’s bloodline. My bloodline.“No,” I whispered, stumbling back. “Not possible.”But

The council chamber felt like a tomb. Cold stone walls, etched with the history of my ancestors, rose high above us, trapping every whisper, every heartbeat, every judgment that now pressed down on me. I stood in the center of the crescent chamber, the floor etched with the Moonlight crest, its silver veins glinting faintly under the torchlight.The eyes of the pack—my pack—pinned me like daggers. Some glittered with suspicion. Others brimmed with barely restrained hatred. And a few, only a few, shone with something softer, pity maybe, though pity stung sharper than blades.Alpha Riven sat on the high seat, his presence a storm contained within flesh. Broad-shouldered, cold-eyed, his jaw tight enough to break stone. He hadn’t spoken since declaring the trial. He didn’t need to. His silence was heavier than any words.And Damien—damn him—looked carved out of light beside me. His golden hair caught the fire, his shoulders proud, his smirk practiced just enough to pass as sympathetic. He