บททั้งหมดของ A Different Kind of Alpha: Blood Oath: บทที่ 151 - บทที่ 160

AlexeiThe fire has burned down to embers, casting a dull, pulsing red glow across the room. It matches the throb in my chest.Kieran is asleep.He’s heavy against me, his body collapsed in the absolute, bone-deep exhaustion that comes after release. His left arm is thrown over my waist, locking me to the mattress, and his face is buried in the crook of my neck. I can feel the slow, steady puff of his breath against my skin.It’s the sound that confirms he’s alive. And for the last few months, it’s been the only music I cared about.I lie perfectly still, staring at the canopy above us. My heart is beating a frantic, jagged rhythm against my ribs, but I force my body to remain limp.I turn my head, moving imperceptibly slowly, until I can see his face.He looks young in the shadows. The tension lines that usually bracket his mouth are smoothed out. He looks like the man I met that first day in the hall. Before the poison, before the riots, before the weight of loving me started crushi

KieranThe ink in the well is black. The coffee in the cup is black. The uniform I’m wearing is black.It’s a color palette that suits the morning and my inner landscape.I’m sitting at my desk in the study. The drapes are pulled back, letting the merciless sunlight scour every corner of the room, exposing dust motes that dance in the air like mocking little spirits. I hate them. They’re chaotic and untidy. I dip the quill to sign a requisition order for winter grain. My signature has changed. Yesterday, it was a fluid scrawl, the hand of a man who rushed through paperwork because he wanted to get back to bed. Today, it’s sharp and angular. It looks like a jagged fence erected to keep people out.The door opens.I don’t bother looking up. I know the tread. “Alpha,” Marcus says.“You’re late,” I say, continuing to write. “I asked for the logs to be brought to me almost half an hour ago.”“I... I was waiting for Alexei,” Marcus says. “I assumed you would want to review them together.

KieranThe dream is a trap.It’s the same every night. We’re at our cottage by the river. The one we invented in the safety of the sheets. The water is cool and clear, rushing over white stones. The sun is warm on the back of my neck, smelling of green grass and summer dust.Alexei is here. He’s laughing, his head thrown back, exposing the long column of his throat. Making me want to kiss the sensitive skin. Nibble at his jawline.He’s holding a trout, slippery and silver, and his green eyes are glowing with profound joy.“Catch,” he says.He tosses the fish and I reach for it.But as my hands close around the silver scales, they turn to ash. The river dries up. The sun winks out. And Alexei dissolves into smoke, slipping through my fingers no matter how desperately I claw at the air to hold him.I wake up gasping, my heart hammering a frantic, broken rhythm against my ribs. The room is pitch black. The silence is absolute.I sit up, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, disco

KieranPain is a clarifying agent.It strips away the noise. It burns off the fog of sentiment. When your lungs are screaming for air and your muscles are trembling with lactic acid, there is no room for memory. There is no room for ghosts. There is only the immediate, absolute imperative to survive the next breath.That is why I am in the training yard at three in the morning.The moon is hidden behind a bank of heavy, slate-gray clouds, leaving the yard in near-total darkness. The only light comes from a single torch sputtering in a sconce by the armory door, casting long, dancing shadows that stretch across the cobblestones like grasping fingers.I’m shirtless. The night air is freezing, biting at my skin with invisible teeth, but I’m slick with sweat. Steam rises from my shoulders, disapparing into the darkness.My fist connects with the wood of the training post. Again. Harder.I’m not wearing wraps and the skin on my knuckles split an hour ago. I can feel the warm trickle of bl

KieranNumbers don’t lie. That’s why I’ve decided I prefer them to people.People lie. They lie with their words, they lie with their eyes, they lie with the promises they make in the dark when the rest of the world is asleep.But numbers are absolute. A column of figures adds up, or it does not. A deficit exists, or it does not. There is no nuance in arithmetic, no grey area where a heart can get lost.It’s the Merchant Guild’s quarterly tax assessment. The very document that, three weeks ago, was a source of endless debate, negotiation, and headache.Three weeks ago, Guildmaster Thorne had sat in that chair, the one I have now pushed back against the wall so no one can sit in it, and argued that the timber tariffs were strangling his profits. He had blustered. He had wheedled. He had looked at Alexei with veiled contempt and at me with patronizing patience.I look at the entry for this week.Timber Tariff: Paid in Full. Early. Grain Tax: Paid in Full. Plus five percent surcharge fo