บททั้งหมดของ FATED TO THE ALPHA I WAS BORN TO KILL: บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

Nyra's POVI waited until the castle went quiet.Not the false quiet of midnight, when servants still shuffled through corridors and guards changed shifts with a clatter of boots. I waited for the real quiet, the hour when even the torches seemed to burn slower, when the only sound left in the world was my own pulse and the faint, restless hum of the mark beneath my ribs.Only then did I lock my door, drag the chair against it for good measure, and kneel at the center of the room.My hands had finally stopped shaking. That was something, at least.I pulled the small pouch of grave-ash and bloodroot from beneath the floorboard where I'd hidden it my first week here, and unwrapped it with the same care I'd give a wound. Mogra had taught me this ritual when I was nine, guiding my small hands through the motions until they no longer trembled. Blood remembers what the mouth forgets, she used to say. Use it sparingly. Use it truthfully. It knows when you lie.I was about to find out if that

Kade's POVI found her in the library, which surprised me more than it should have.Nyra sat curled into the window seat at the far end of the room, one leg tucked beneath her, a book open across her knees that she wasn't reading. The candlelight caught the sharp line of her jaw, the faint shadow beneath her eyes that hadn't been there before the Dreadmoor. She looked up before I'd taken three steps into the room, which also didn't surprise me. Nothing about her ever seemed to catch her off guard except, occasionally, me."Alpha," she said, closing the book with more care than the gesture required. "Come to threaten me again? It's been a while. I was starting to miss it.""I need your help."That got her attention properly. Her brows lifted, just slightly, before she smoothed the surprise back into something cooler. "That's new.""Don't make this harder than it already is.""I'm not making anything hard. You're the one who apparently woke up this morning and decided groveling suited y

Nyra's POVThe road to Ashveil didn't want us there. I could feel it the moment we crossed the Frostspine tree line, the air thickening, the birds falling silent one by one like the forest itself was holding its breath, waiting to see what we'd do once we realized we weren't welcome.Kade rode a half length ahead of me, his wolf form abandoned for the journey in favor of human legs and a horse borrowed quietly from the eastern stables, the two of us dressed plainly enough to pass for nothing more than travelers if anyone cared to look. Nobody did. The road narrowed the farther we went, the trees leaning closer overhead until their bare branches knitted into something like a ceiling, and the silence between us stretched long enough that I stopped trying to fill it.That was new. I usually filled silence the way other people filled water skins, out of habit, out of instinct, because silence left room for questions I didn't want asked. But something about the hush of Ashveil's border mad

Nyra's POVI waited three days after we returned from Ashveil before I opened the channel. Long enough that the delay wouldn't seem strange. Short enough that Mogra wouldn't start wondering why it had taken longer than that.I'd learned, over the years, that the safest lies were the ones built mostly out of truth, with only the smallest, most necessary piece missing, like a bridge with a single plank pulled up in the middle, invisible until someone tried to cross it. I told myself that was all this was. A missing plank. Not a collapse.The ritual came easier this time, my hands steadier over the ash and bloodroot, the cut across my palm barely stinging before the doorway of light unfolded itself in the dark of my chamber."You went to the seer," Mogra said, without preamble, the way she always opened, as if she'd been watching the whole time and simply waited for me to admit it."We did.""And?"I kept my voice even, bored, the exact tone I used to give a report I considered unimporta

Nyra's POVI woke up gasping, drenched in silver light that had nowhere to go.It poured off my skin in slow, uneven pulses, pooling in the air above my collarbone like something trying to escape a container too small to hold it. For a moment I could only lie there, chest heaving, staring at my own trembling hands as they glowed faintly against the dark of my chamber, waiting for the light to fade the way it always eventually did.It took longer than usual tonight.The dream clung to me even after I sat up, refusing to loosen its grip the way most nightmares did once daylight or waking or sheer force of will pried them free. I'd dreamed of Silvermist before, more times than I could count, more times than I'd ever admit to anyone, including Mogra. Usually the dream unfolded the same way memory always did: fire first, then smoke, then the screaming, then Mogra's hand closing hard around mine, pulling me away from the flames before I was old enough to understand what I was being pulled a