جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 20

AlexeiThe tailor delivered my new garments with trembling hands and fled my quarters like his ass was on fire. I can’t say I blame him. Marcus stood in the doorway the entire time, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade, radiating enough “don’t-fucking-breathe-wrong” energy to suffocate a lesser wolf.Now, alone, I run my hands over the new clothes. Kieran Arnulf has excellent taste. His attraction to me being a case in point.The leather trousers are black, supple, and fit like a second skin, clinging to my thighs and ass in a way that feels both practical and deliberately provocative. The tunic is a deep, forest green. Almost the exact color of my eyes. A fact I’m sure is a coincidence and not some poetic choice from the pretty prince himself. It’s made of a cashmere knit. Light and stretchy enough to move in easily, while still clinging to every part of my torso. I feel less like a prisoner and more like a high-stakes acquisition being polished for display. The thought sends

KieranThe main hall is too quiet at midday. It shouldn't be. It should be full of the sounds of a pack at ease. Laughter, casual arguments, the clatter of plates. Instead, ever since Alexei’s demonstration in the yard, the room hums with a low, anxious energy. Every wolf seems to be waiting for the next boot to drop.I’m here on purpose. My father used to dine in his private chambers, a king sequestered from his subjects. I will not. I sit at one of the long trestle tables, not at the head, forcing myself into the heart of the pack. I’m nursing a cup of lukewarm tea and making polite, charming conversation with a few of the younger trackers, asking about their routes, their families, the state of the eastern woods.It’s a performance, of course. My ‘silver tongue,’ as Eli once called it, is working overtime. I’m the picture of the unbothered Alpha. Interested, calm, in complete control. I can feel their tension easing with every joke I make, with every non-committal smile I offer. I

KieranI don’t just stalk out of the armory. I flee.My boots slam against the stone floor, the sound echoing in the corridor, but it’s not loud enough to drown out the ringing in my ears. ‘Did that little Blackthorn Omega break your heart that badly?’His voice. That low, amused, knowing rumble, laced with a pity that feels like acid. He saw it. He saw the crack in the polished armor, the raw, humiliating wound I’ve kept hidden from everyone else. He didn’t just guess, he put his finger right on the bruise and pressed.My father’s court, for all its cruelty, was a place of masks. You learned to fight with words, with smiles that carried poison, with a perfectly placed insinuation. No one ever just... asked. No one ever just saw.Eli... Eli was a game of wits, a light flirtation I’d been foolish enough to mistake for something deeper.A silly, one-sided crush that left my ego battered when he inevitably chose to stay with the raw, undeniable power of an Alpha like Ronan Vale. It was a

KieranI don't stalk back to my study. I retreat with my tail between my legs.My movements are stiff, precise, a desperate imitation of the control I no longer feel. I can sense the eyes of the entire pack on my back. I don’t look at Tarek. I don’t look at Vorlag. I especially don’t look at Marcus, whose concerned, questioning gaze I can feel boring into the side of my head. I just walk. Each step is an agony of feigned composure, a performance of an Alpha who is not, in fact, trembling.The heavy study door slams shut behind me, the thud echoing the final, definitive sound of my authority shattering. The lock clicks, and I finally let my body betray me.I lean back against the solid oak, my chest heaving, legs trembling so violently I’m surprised they carried me this far. My ribs scream where his shoulder connected. My wrists ache from his grip. My throat feels raw from the pressure of his forearm.My reflection stares back at me from the polished, dark wood of a tall cabinet. My

KieranI’m staring at the map of the territories as if it holds a personal grudge against me. Every line, every border, every notation of a Redmaw patrol just feels like another bar in the cage I’ve built for myself. Two days have passed, but the spar in the yard is a fresh bruise on my ego, and the subsequent conversation with Alexei in the library... that’s a different kind of wound entirely.He didn’t just knock me down, he saw why I was so afraid of falling.And then he offered an olive branch instead of pushing his advantage. A brutal, Redmaw-style olive branch that involves burying Brannagh's army alive, but an olive branch nonetheless.I’m still trying to process that whiplash when the library door swings open without a knock.Of course. There’s only one person with such pitiful manners.Alexei saunters in, radiating enough heat to melt the frost on the windows. He’s bare-chested, wearing only the form-fitting training pants that hang dangerously low on his hips. Displaying t