Semua Bab The Alpha’s Unbroken Mate: Bab 51 - Bab 60

The council chamber was colder than stone should be.Torches guttered along the walls, their flames too dim for the vaulted space. I sat beside Lucian at the long table carved from oak older than the fortress itself. The air carried the smell of steel and pine sap, the restless scent of wolves forced into close quarters.Every elder was present. Mirek, too, though he stood behind the circle, arms crossed, eyes fixed anywhere but on me. I could feel the weight of suspicion pressing like a physical force. My mark itched under my sleeve, hot as though the torches licked at it.Lucian leaned forward, voice calm but firm. “The Blood Eclipse draws near. Patrols must double along the borders. Food stores are to be rationed. No wolf leaves without sanction.”Murmurs rippled. An older wolf, Elder Bran, lifted his chin. “And what of her?” He didn’t bother to look at me. His voice cut across the room like a knife. “If the Shadow’s touch grows, what protection can rations or patrols offer us? We’

Sleep came like drowning.One moment I was lying in Lucian’s bed alone, the cold sheets stretching endless beside me, the bond between us thin as smoke. The next, the world fell away.When I opened my eyes, I stood beneath a sky not our own.The moon was gone. No stars, no dawn, no horizon. Only a vast ceiling of shadow, rippling like a living thing. The ground beneath me was ash, soft and hot, as though I walked on the remnants of a thousand burned worlds.And in the silence, I heard itA heartbeat.Not mine. Not Lucian’s. Deeper. Older. Each pulse a drum that shook the air.“You came.”The voice slid through me like silk, rich and low, carrying both command and invitation.I spun. And there he was.The Shadow Alpha.He didn’t wear a face like wolves or men. His form shifted, fluid, as though shadow itself clothed him. But his eyes gods, his eyes were black mirrors, swallowing everything, yet reflecting me perfectly.“I didn’t come,” I rasped, though my voice trembled. “You dragged m

The fire had not left me.Even hours after the courtyard had emptied and Darius had ridden back into the frost-bitten trees, the heat still coiled under my skin like molten iron. Every breath tasted of ash. My palms, when I looked at them, glimmered faintly as though embers were buried just beneath the flesh.I stood in the war room alone, staring at my reflection in the window’s black glass. The mark on my palm pulsed darker now, its veins spidering toward my wrist like the roots of some invasive plant. It didn’t just throb anymore. It whispered. Each beat, a syllable.Mine. Mine. Mine.I clenched my fist until my nails dug crescents into my palm. “No,” I whispered back. “Not yours.”The door opened behind me. Lucian entered, boots silent on the stone. He had stripped off his armor but not the tension in his shoulders. His golden eyes found me immediately. “You’re still burning.”“I can’t put it out,” I admitted, voice raw. “Even when I breathe slow, even when I reach for you through

The hall stank of blood and smoke.Kael’s body lay at the center of the chamber, shrouded in a black cloth marked with the crest of Lucian’s line a wolf’s head crowned with fire. Wolves knelt in silence around him, but their silence was not unity. It was the brittle quiet before a storm.I stood beside Lucian, my hands trembling, the mark on my palm searing as though it mourned with me. He hadn’t spoken since the patrol carried Kael’s broken body back through the gates. His jaw was carved from stone, his eyes two burning coals that refused to dim.Mirek broke the silence.“This is what I warned you,” he said, his voice harsh, cracking the stillness like a whip. “Shadows came for her, and Kael paid the price. How many more must we bury before you see the truth?”Dozens of eyes turned toward me. Some full of sorrow, some of suspicion, some of rage barely caged.Lucian’s head lifted, slow, dangerous. “Mind your words, Mirek.”But Mirek stepped forward, his grief etched raw across his fac

The first strike came with the wind.Not claws. Not steel.Shadows.They spilled across the borderlands like spilled ink, blotting out the moon, crawling over the ridge where Mirek’s rebels had made camp. Wolves screamed in the distance some ours, some his cut short with a wet, final sound.Lucian stood at the parapet of the fortress wall, his jaw carved in stone, his golden eyes burning as the night itself seemed to move against us.“They’re here,” he said.Not Bloodfangs. Not rival packs.The Shadow Alpha.The mark beneath my sleeve seared, hotter than fire. It pulsed in rhythm with the storm sweeping in, like it recognized its master’s hand. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood just to keep from crying out.“Serena?” Lucian’s gaze snapped to me, too sharp, too knowing.“I feel him,” I whispered, the words like poison on my tongue. “He’s close.”The horns sounded, rolling across the valley. This time not to warn of wolves at our gates, but something older, fouler. Somet