All Chapters of Chains Of The Heart: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Inside the room, after the door shut behind him silence lingered for all of three seconds.Then Ivy moved.She slid the bolt into place, sealing the room. With steady hands, she carried the small box to the fireplace. Removed the string. Opened it one last time—not to look, but to confirm its reality.Her jaw clenched.No tears.She tipped the ear into the flames.A faint hiss, a curl of smoke, the soft pop of burning flesh — and the proof of Rowan’s suffering vanished into ash.Ivy stood over the fire until every trace was gone.Then she turned, voice cold steel wrapped in silk.“You. Guard.”The soldier outside entered immediately. A man in his late thirties, scarred from war, loyal to Maria’s bloodline rather than Seraphine’s poisonous branch. He bowed to her — not as a child, but as someone stepping into authority he chose to respect.“Lady Ivy.”“You will find every man, soldier, servant or officer who served directly under Seraphine,” Ivy said, her voice shockingly calm for a gi

A broken sound slipped out of Damian—half denial, half surrender. His hands rose as if guided, trembling at first, then settling with a terrible gentleness at Rowan’s waist. His thumbs brushed beneath his shirt, gliding slow along heated skin—soft maps drawn with reverent, aching familiarity.Rowan gasped, body arching into the touch like it was oxygen.The kiss deepened—not because Rowan dragged him under, but because Damian kissed back.Slow.Ruined.Starving in a way he hadn’t been allowed to be in years.And as his hands traced those slow, tender paths up Rowan’s sides, his mind whispered a name against lips that weren’t hers.Not loud.Not intentional.Just a breath, cracked and reverent.“Bella…”Damian’s whispered “Bella…” barely left his mouth before Rowan took it as permission.The alpha in him—drugged on need, high on Nathan's scent, drowning in the chemical ache—surged. Rowan pressed forward, deepening the kiss with a sudden, claiming hunger, pushing Damian back against the

They’d dragged Seraphine’s loyalists out of their beds, out of the shadows, out of whatever rat-holes they scurried into after the coup failed. Now they knelt—bound, gagged, eyes burning with the kind of pride that made Cross blood both legendary… and stupid.The safe house had become a courtroom by force of Ivy simply standing in it.Maria lay nearby, pale, trembling in her medicated sleep. Nathan, too—breathing uneven, sweat beading along his hairline, fingers twitching like whatever nightmare held him refused to let go. The air reeked of anxiety, betrayal, and the iron tang of a burned secret: Rowan’s ear reduced to ash.Ivy stood in the center of the room, a girl who’d been overlooked all her life—small, polite, expected to curtsy, not command. But right now she looked carved from something older and more dangerous than any Cross ancestor. Candlelight reflected in her eyes like twin blades.The bound men watched her with a mixture of disdain and confusion. She was just a girl, wasn

Outside the cavern the site had transformed in minutes.Earth-mages stood in formation, palms pressed to the trembling ground, assessing the fractures beneath. Structural engineers barked instructions, marking dangerous points with chalk. Miners hauled in bracing beams, metal tools clinking like a heartbeat echoing off stone. Rope teams coiled their lines, ready for descents into the unstable dark.Alessio looked at them all—his soldiers, his extended family, his responsibility—and finally lifted his hand to signal the advance.“Move—”Boots thundered in from the southern ridge, fast, purposeful. Torches cut through the dust like approaching comets.Alessio’s head snapped toward the noise.This wasn’t panic. This wasn’t disarray.This was discipline—hard, cold, unmistakable.A squad moved into view, armor marked with the Cross crest. At their front strode the guard Ivy had appointed earlier—Rian Thorne—one of Maria’s bloodline loyalists, the one who had sworn he would die for Ivy befo

The moment the group cleared the last unstable ridge of rock, a cluster of medics sprinted toward them—white armbands flashing, packs already open, hands already glowing with diagnostic magic.“Your Majesty—hold still—”“I’m fine,” Damian snapped, not slowing.He looked fine. Not a scratch. Not a bruise. Not even dust on him except what Rowan had smeared there.Rowan, however—Rowan was half-conscious and clinging like a drowning man, arms locked around Damian’s neck, face tucked deep into his throat, breathing uneven, body trembling with the strain of a rut he should not have been anywhere near.One medic moved toward Damian’s side, expecting Rowan to be handed off.That was a mistake.The moment unfamiliar hands reached into his periphery, Rowan’s muscles went rigid. He let out a low, warning snarl—one that wasn’t wolfish but had that same animal edge. Pure instinct. Pure alpha territoriality. His fingers tightened painfully around Damian’s shirt.“Easy—Lord Mercer, it’s alright,” o