Todos los capítulos de The Lycan’s Tribute: Claimed By My Foster Brothers: Capítulo 51 - Capítulo 60

Aurelia's POV.We broke camp before the sun had done anything useful with itself.The sky above the tree line was the flat gray. Kaelen was on his feet and moving before most of us had finished packing, which would have been reassuring if he wasn't visibly compensating for his left side with every step he took."You're lisnping, we should consider one more day of rest.”Torin said, watching him tighten the straps on his saddle."I'm fine." Kaelen said, without looking up."You're obviously not, why do you try to be…”"Torin." Kaelen cuts off. "I'm just saying…""I know what you're saying." Kaelen turned and looked at him with the expression he used when a conversation was being extended past its useful life. "I'm fine. Get on your horse."Torin looked at Rylan. Rylan looked at the sky, which was the neutral option. We rode.The terrain announced its intentions early and did not soften them as the morning went on. The trees were the first thing I noticed, the way their trunks had gro

Aurelia's POV.They didn't come for us.That was the thing my brain kept snagging on while the chaos erupted below the ridge. They came out of the trees in their dozens, fast and low and organized, and they went straight past every angle that led to us and threw themselves at the creature instead."What…" Torin started.The rest of it got swallowed by the noise. The creature's roar hit the rocks like a physical thing, and then the ferals were on it and the sound became something I don't have clean words for, all snarling and impact and the violence of things that have committed entirely to killing each other."Are they…" I said."Yes." Kaelen said, his hand already on my arm pulling me back from the ridge's edge, his eyes wide in a way I had never seen on him before. "They're attacking it. Not us. The creature."Rylan still had his blade raised, his body positioned for an attack that was not coming, and he looked like a man whose body had prepared for one thing and was now being asked

Aurelia's POV.I didn't sleep and neither did Rylan.We just sat at the cave entrance together, close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off him in the cold, and watched the dark do nothing for hours. The silhouette didn't come back. The forest held its wrong silence and I held mine and somewhere around the time the sky started going pale at the edges I just accepted that sleep was done for tonight.Rylan didn't ask if I was okay. I was grateful for that in a way I couldn't have explained.Dawn came thin and gray and we packed and moved. Torin fell into step beside me after maybe an hour of riding, glanced at my face, glanced at Rylan, then back at the path ahead, and said nothing. Which from Torin was almost an act of tenderness.The forest got stranger as we went. Standing stones appeared between the trees, carved with symbols worn down so long they looked more like the stone was trying to forget something than actually saying it. The trees leaned toward the path in a way th

Aurelia's POV.I woke up to Torin's elbow in my direction and Rylan's back taking up more space and for a moment I just lay there staring at the ceiling thinking. "You're on my side." I said to no one specific."There are no sides." Torin said, from somewhere to my left, already awake, "I believe that was a known thing since like ast night.""That was because we had no choice.""Same outcome at the end of the day, right?" he said, and sat up.“Right.”We moved around each other getting dressed in the careful way of people sharing a space that wasn't designed for it. Shoulders brushed. Someone muttered an apology. Someone else didn't bother. Eyes met briefly and moved on, not avoiding exactly, just acknowledging that the situation was what it was and we were all adults about it.Mostly.Downstairs the common room had thinned out considerably from the night before, the noise level dropped to something that allowed for actual thought. We found the back table again, ordered breakfast, an

Aurelia's POV.Nobody talked much on the walk back.Torin muttered something under his breath about making deals with strangers for favors that hadn't been named yet, which was fair. The common room had filled up while we were gone, noise and warmth and the smell of ale and woodsmoke pressing in from every corner. We ignored it all and went straight upstairs.The door closed and the noise below became a murmur and then almost nothing.I went to the window. Behind me I heard the familiar sounds of people settling in. Packs dropping. The soft scrape of a blade being checked. Boots on floorboards."We had no choice." Kaelen said. Not defensively. Rylan was near the far wall. He turned slightly. "We know nothing about him. He could be walking us into something. He could be working for Kade directly and we just handed him our timeline and our plans and agreed to owe him something unspecified on top of it.""Do you have a better option?" I said, turning from the window.The room was quiet.