All Chapters of THE SUBSTITUTE MATE FOR THE ALPHA KING: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

The next node was a sunken pool in a grove of silver-barked trees. The water should have been clear, but it held a murky, grey haze, like diluted ink. The sight of it, the lingering wrongness we were now forbidden to fix properly, made my skin itch.Assessor Seven glided to the water’s edge. “Implement Protocol 77-B. Begin with harmonic calibration of the local reality substrate.”Kairi shot me a loaded look. Play along, it said. He knelt, his hands hovering over the damp earth. I saw the effort it took him to summon not the Living Law, but the bland, generic energy of the Watchers’ standardized protocol. A low, monotonous hum filled the air, a sound with all the personality of dust.“Thrilling,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “Really capturing the majestic spirit of healing.”“Silence is required for precise calibration,” Assessor Seven intoned, its stylus scratching.“My wife’s commentary is a local atmospheric condition,” Kairi said without looking up, a faint smirk on his lips. “Co

The victory was sweet, but short-lived. We returned to the cottage, the iron key now hanging on a nail by the door—a trophy and a warning. The grove was healed, Assessor Seven was a pile of malfunctioning data, and for a few days, we dared to breathe. Kairi pruned the apple tree (compromising, he insisted, for the carrots’ “photonics”). I didn't burn anything. It was bliss.Then, the wolves came.Not Maia’s kind of wolf. These were bigger, their fur the color of charcoal and dried blood. They moved through the edge of the Wildwood with a deliberate, menacing silence, five of them, shadows among the trees. They didn't attack. They just watched. And they stank of territorial aggression and raw, physical power.Maia went rigid the moment they entered her range. She appeared at the cottage door, a low, c

We sent the invitation not on parchment, but on the wind—a clear, carrying note from Silas, stripped of mockery, holding only the formal request for a parley. The location was the neutral ground of the healed grove, where the void had been cleansed. A place of our victory, but also of renewal.They came at dusk. Karn and four of his lieutenants, their forms dark cuts in the twilight. They did not skulk this time. They stood at the edge of the clearing, proud and hostile.We stood opposite: Kairi and I, with Maia a solid presence at his side, and Silas lingering near the trees, a living recording device. Elisse had insisted on observing from a hidden vantage point with her guards; a queen needed to see how justice was served, even the cosmic kind.“You summon us to the place you allow us to stand,&rd

The aftermath of the sealed-grief felt like a psychic hangover. For days, my dreams were filled with the silent howl of disconnected constellations and the taste of frozen moonlight. I was jumpy, irritable, and Kairi’s relentless, logical cheerfulness was like a hammer on an anvil inside my skull.“The silver-moss exhibits fascinating non-photosynthetic bioluminescence,” he announced one morning, returning from checking on the stone circle. “It seems to be drawing ambient emotional resonance from the environment and transmuting it into a benign photonic—”“If you use the word ‘photonic’ one more time,” I growled from where I was attempting to whittle a piece of firewood into something that wasn't just smaller firewood, “I am going to use this knife to redefine the local concept of ‘annoying husband.

The “Law of Inefficient Joy” held for a glorious, messy week. The white intrusions were gone, and the world seemed to have remembered its own vibrant, chaotic self. We were riding a wave of post-party euphoria, which for us meant aggressively normal bickering.“The problem,” Kairi declared, pointing a trowel at the compost heap, “is a lack of systematic layering. Greens should not fraternize with browns in this haphazard manner. It’s anarchy.”“It’s rotting vegetable matter,” I countered, stirring the offending heap with a stick. “It’s the definition of anarchy. You can’t legislate decay.”“I can optimiz