All Chapters of A Different Kind of Alpha: Blood Oath: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

AlexeiBy the time the bells mark the last change of the watch, the keep feels like it’s holding its breath. And I’m standing outside Kieran’s door, trying not to overthink knocking.“Come in,” he calls.His voice does that thing to my spine it always does now. Possessive, even through wood.I push the door open and find him not in bed, but at his desk.For a change though, the desk is clear. No ledgers. No maps. Just a single candle, a neatly coiled length of soft rope, and a folded piece of dark cloth.He’s ditched his usual fancy clothes for something looser. A simple dark shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, black trousers, bare feet. His hair is damp from the shower.He looks like sin and sleeplessness and something perilously close to happily ever after.He leans back in his chair, studying me.“You’re late,” he says.“I’m right on time,” I counter. “The bells just rang.”“Late,” he repeats with a shake of his head.I shut the door without taking my eyes off him.“Then punish me

Alexei “Tell me something you want,” Kieran says. “Not in bed. Out in the real world.”“You take away all my best goals,” I complain, then think.The word that comes up surprises even me.“Roots,” I say.He goes very still.“Having somewhere that’s mine. A room that doesn’t feel temporary. A pack that welcomes me instead of seeing me as expendable. People who don’t introduce me as ‘the Redmaw mercenary’ but as…” I wave a hand. “As someone else.”“Who?” “Alexei,” I say. “Partner. Protector. Menace. The one who makes the Alpha look less murdery in public.”He snorts. “You’re the murdery one.”Then his fingers curl in my hair. “You want to stay.” He sounds almost amazed, which just blows my mind completely. I’m so in love with him I can barely see straight. Where else could I possibly want to be?“Yes,” I say, and the simple truth of it makes me smile. “I want to stay. With you.”“Then you do,” he says. “This is your room as much as mine now.”“Dangerous promise,” I say. “I leave dirty

AlexeiBy the third time Tarek fumbles the grip change, I know I should stop the drill. By the tenth, I know I should stop me.“Again,” I bark instead.His knuckles are white around the staff. Sweat slicks his temple, darkening the short hair there. He sucks in a breath and moves through the pattern. Step, pivot, thrust, backhand, his feet almost right, his shoulders almost loose.Almost isn’t enough.I knock the practice staff out of his hands with a sharp twist of my wrist. The wood clatters across the packed dirt, skidding to a stop at Marcus’s boots.Tarek flinches.“Dead,” I say. “Again.”He bends to retrieve the staff, shoulders tight, jaw clenched.“Alexei,” Marcus says mildly behind me. “You planning to leave anything that isn’t bruised for patrol tonight?”“Better bruises now than burial later,” I say without looking at him. “Tarek, what did I tell you about your back foot?”He swallows. “Anchor, sir. Don’t...”“Don’t what?” I push.“Don’t let it trail,” he says, louder. “Don

VorlagThe hall looks wrong.It has since the day that damn boy took the chair, but lately it offends me in new and creative ways.Too much light. Too many banners from minor families hanging between the old ones, cluttering the walls with color they did not earn. Too many petitioners at the door who weren’t invited, all of them holding scraps of paper and hope. Alpha Alaric crushed that out of them years ago, but the damn boy has blown on the flame until the pack started to believe in equality and fairness.As if the peasants deserve the same consideration as their betters. We employ them. We allow them to live on our lands. They should be groveling in gratitude, not demanding fair wages and better living conditions.His father understood order.You didn’t walk into this hall without a reason, and that reason was rarely need. It was land, or trade, or blood. Not broken roofs and sick children and “Alpha, my neighbor’s son took my daughter’s hand without permission.”Kieran listens t

KieranI have worn grooves into the rug by the time the door opens.Back and forth between the fire and the edge of the bed, collar crooked, cuffs undone. My boots are off, and my rings are biting into my fingers because I keep clenching them.The room still smells faintly of smoke from the hall, of wool and parchment and the soap we used this morning. Underneath it all, like a bass note, is Alexei.My wolf keeps straining toward that.My spine feels like it’s humming.I can still see their faces. The elders’ tight mouths, the younger warriors’ barely hidden grins. Tarek, looking at me like I’d announced the gods themselves were moving in. Regina, pale and confused. Vorlag, smiling in that thin way that means he’d like to flay me publicly and call it tradition.He is not a passing indulgence. He is my chosen shield. My partner.Who gave my mouth permission to say that?“Keep pacing like that and you’ll wear through to the next floor,” Alexei says from the doorway.I freeze mid-stride.