All Chapters of Alpha’s Enemy, Alpha’s Mate: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The council chamber buzzed like a hive of angry wasps.Elders packed the long oak table, voices clashing in sharp bursts. Adrian Blackthorn sat at the head, grim as stone. Lucien Veyron mirrored him, golden eyes hard enough to cut glass. Between them, Aiden and Dante stood stiff as statues, bruises still fresh from the safehouse attack.“The safehouse was compromised,” Elder Morrell barked. “Neutral ground, neutral guards—yet rogues walked through it like they had keys. Someone fed them.”Murmurs rippled. All eyes slid toward Dante.Aiden’s chest tightened. He remembered the fight—the rogues wearing no crest this time, their movements too precise, too trained. He remembered Dante’s fists slamming into flesh, his voice snarling at his side. He remembered the bandage Dante’s hands had wrapped around his ribs.He wanted to defend him. But his father’s glare pinned him down.Dante, infuriating as ever, smirked faintly. “If I’d planned the hit, I wouldn’t be standing here covered in someon

The safehouse stank of blood and smoke.Aiden sat slumped against the wall, shirt torn, bandages already spotted red across his ribs. His skin burned hot, his wolf restless beneath it, pacing, snarling. Every bone in his body screamed for rest, but sleep refused to come.Across the room, Dante leaned against the windowsill, one arm wrapped tight where claws had torn into his shoulder. Golden eyes glowed faintly in the dark, restless as his wolf prowled beneath his skin.For a long time, neither spoke.Finally, Dante’s voice cut low. “You bleed too much.”Aiden huffed a bitter laugh. “And you talk too much.”“Talking keeps me from ripping your throat out.”Aiden turned his head, gray eyes locking on him. “Try it. See what happens.”The silence stretched again, but it wasn’t cold this time. It burned.Dante pushed off the wall, crossing the room. He crouched in front of Aiden, pulling the bandage tighter across his ribs. His fingers brushed skin, warm and steady despite the fire in his

The council chamber had never been so silent.Blood stained the marble floor where a wounded guard had collapsed only hours before. The air reeked of antiseptic and rage.Aiden stood stiff before the elders, his shirt freshly changed but his wounds far from healed. Every breath hurt, and every eye in the room felt like a blade against his skin.“Two patrols in a month,” Elder Morrell spat, “both ambushed, both failures. And every time—every single time—the Veyron heir walks away unscathed.”Dante leaned against the far pillar, arms crossed, jaw tight. “Maybe because I know how to fight.”Morrell’s glare sharpened. “Or maybe because you knew where the rogues would be.”The room erupted in argument again.Lucien Veyron slammed a hand on the table, the wood cracking under his palm. “Enough! You accuse my son without proof!”“Proof?” Adrian Blackthorn snapped back. “We have bodies, Lucien. That’s proof enough of failure. If this continues, neither of our packs will survive the winter.”Ai

The city didn’t sleep after the tunnels.Rumours spread faster than blood dried. Two heirs had walked out alive when both packs had expected bodies. Every newsfeed repeated the image of Aiden and Dante side by side, battered and defiant. To the council it looked like defiance; to Julian, it looked like opportunity.He watched the footage again on a loop, cigarette smoke blurring the screen. “They’re stronger now,” Leo said from the window. “Whatever you tried before only welded them together.”Julian smiled thinly. “Then we melt the metal.”He opened a folder: photographs, coded reports, a forged transcript. “You’ll leak this through one of Dante’s men. Make it look as if he’s been feeding the rogues information in exchange for territory.”Leo frowned. “That’ll put the council on his throat.”“Exactly,” Julian said. “And when Blackthorn hesitates to defend him again, the trust dies. Wolves don’t survive once the pack doubts the Alpha.”Across town, Aiden stared at his reflection in th

The cabin smelled of pine sap and smoke. Outside, the forest whispered under rain-heavy clouds; inside, two fugitives tried to remember how to breathe like men instead of prey.Aiden fed the small fire with broken chair legs. Dante sat across from him, head tipped back against the wall, the orange light cutting across his throat and the scar on his shoulder.“How long before they find us?” Aiden asked.“Hours,” Dante said. “Maybe less. Julian’s good at cleaning up loose ends.”Aiden’s jaw tightened. “We’re not his loose ends.”“No,” Dante murmured. “We’re the mess he didn’t plan for.”Silence stretched between them. It wasn’t hostile anymore—just heavy, alive. Every creak of the cabin seemed to echo their unspoken questions.By nightfall, the rain had turned to mist. Aiden dozed in the chair, half-dreaming of sirens and tunnels. When he woke, Dante was gone. Panic clawed at his throat until he saw the glint of a lighter outside.Dante stood in the doorway, cigarette burning between hi