All Chapters of STOLEN BY THE MATE I DIDN'T WANT: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

“Did you see that?” a street urchin whispered, crouched behind a stack of crates in the market. “The bridge… it moved for them… and not for the guards.”“They’re learning,” Nessa Vale said, crouching beside the boy. Her ink-stained fingers traced a faint glyph on the edge of a crate, one she had improvised hours earlier. “Not because anyone told them. Because they’re noticing, helping, listening to each other.”Jorin Ashfall appeared from a narrow alley, carrying a bundle of shimmering threads—the raw, mutable magic of wards that had begun to flicker independently. “And teaching them to fix it themselves,” he said, eyes scanning the crowd. “Every hand here makes the network stronger.”Elder Marrow emerged from the library steps behind them, voice calm but heavy with years of knowledge. “It was never about obedience. Knowledge without practice is only dust. They are practicing, and in doing so, they’re shaping the city itself.”At the far end of the square, Captain Rhaem Calder guided

Liora noticed the change before anyone named it.It wasn’t dramatic. There was no crack of thunder, no sudden failure of wards or collapse of streets. It was quieter than that—so quiet most people mistook it for peace. The kind of stillness that settled just before something learned how to move on its own.She stood on the upper terrace of the palace, fingers resting lightly on the stone rail, watching the city breathe. The air hummed with motion: lanterns adjusting their glow as dusk deepened, wards bending subtly to human intention, voices overlapping in new rhythms that no longer followed prescribed order. Choice had become common. And that, Liora knew, was where danger hid best—not in chaos, but in confidence.“Still watching?” Silver asked behind her.She didn’t turn. “Someone has to.”Silver joined her at the railing, his presence calm but weighted, as if he carried the same unspoken awareness and simply chose to wear it differently. “You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”“Yes,”

Night did not fall all at once.It crept in slowly, as if the city itself hesitated to let go of the light.Lanterns ignited one by one along the upper terraces, their glow uneven, uncertain—some bright, some flickering, some refusing to stay lit at all until their keepers adjusted their touch, their breath, their intent. The air carried no single rhythm anymore. It carried many, overlapping and unfinished, like a city learning how to breathe without instruction.Draven stood at the edge of the eastern parapet, hands resting on cold stone worn smooth by centuries of authority. He could feel the faint vibration beneath his palms—not power rising, but power redistributing, flowing sideways instead of upward.Below him, Varenth breathed.The city no longer pulsed with obedience. It murmured instead—soft, layered sounds of people learning, correcting, listening. Footsteps paused where they once hurried. Arguments stalled where they once escalated. Magic no longer snapped to command. It be

The city did not erupt.That, more than anything, unsettled those who had prepared for chaos.There were no riots tearing through the lower quarters, no mass failures of wards cascading from tower to tower, no desperate crowds gathering beneath council balconies demanding answers. Instead, Varenth absorbed Draven’s words the way stone absorbed heat—slowly, unevenly, invisibly at first, holding the change beneath its surface until the pressure reshaped everything that followed.The absence of disaster felt wrong to those who had spent their lives predicting it.People talked.Not shouted.Not pleaded.They talked.In taverns thick with the smell of smoke and bread, conversations lingered long after cups emptied. In courtyards where children once played under enforced safety charms, adults stood in loose circles, voices low, cautious, uncertain. On bridges and stairwells—those narrow spaces where people were forced to face one another—questions replaced instructions.What does safety me

The break did not come with thunder.It did not split the sky or crack the towers or announce itself with spectacle.It came with hesitation.Varenth woke beneath a sky the color of bruised steel, clouds pressing low enough to make the towers feel smaller than they had the day before. Wind threaded through the streets without direction, tugging at banners stripped of council sigils, lifting corners of loose parchment covered in proposals, grievances, and half-formed agreements written in many hands.The city was deciding whether to lean forward—or pull back.That decision hung everywhere. In doorways. In glances held a moment too long. In hands that hovered before acting.Draven felt it as resistance in his steps.Not from the people.From the moment itself.Each pace carried weight, as though Varenth were asking him—asking everyone—Are you certain? Not challenging. Not forbidding. Merely refusing to rush.He crossed the eastern bridge just after dawn, where the grain delay had been r