บททั้งหมดของ THE ALPHA’S GHOST: บทที่ 61 - บทที่ 70

ETHAN'S POVWhen Kaye told me what she heard, something inside me split clean down the middle.I did not shout. I did not pace. I did not break anything. I stood very still and listened as she spoke, her voice steady even while the bond carried the echo of her fear and certainty straight into my chest. Every word landed with sharp clarity. In position. They trust me. Activation codes. Memorial ceremony.Vanessa had not come back to us by chance.She had been sent.The truth settled heavy and cold, pressing against memories I did not want to revisit. Her face when she said my name. The way my chest had tightened. The guilt that had surged when I thought I had failed her all those years ago. It had all been a lever, carefully placed, ready to be pulled.I closed my eyes for a moment and breathed through the ache.“She was never running,” I said quietly. “She was walking straight back in.”Kaye nodded. Through the bond, I felt her agreement and the edge of anger she was keeping carefully

ETHAN'S POVThey came out of the trees like a machine waking up.The transformed wolves did not rush. They did not snarl or howl. They stepped forward in rows, spreading into the clearing with cold precision, each movement measured and deliberate. Their silver eyes reflected the candlelight like polished metal, unblinking and focused. I counted automatically, a habit drilled into me by years of leadership and war.One hundred.Then more.Then far more than I wanted to see.At least two hundred.Vanessa had said a little over a hundred. She had undersold it by half. The realization settled into my chest like a stone. We were surrounded completely, the forest now a wall of bodies that cut off every path. Forty fighters against an army built to overwhelm.Through the mate bond, I felt Kaye feel it too.Her fear did not spike. It transformed.Resolve hardened inside her, sharp and unyielding, like steel being quenched in fire. The silver veins beneath her skin pulsed steadily, not flaring

ETHAN'S POVThe world broke apart all at once.Firelight, steel, and bodies collided in a roar that swallowed the clearing. The Veilkeeper operatives moved first, precise and fast, cutting straight into the transformed wolves with weapons that hummed and pulsed instead of flashing. When those weapons struck, the silver eyed wolves staggered, movements stuttering like a signal had been interrupted. Some dropped to their knees, clutching their heads as if something inside them had gone suddenly silent.The allied packs hit from the sides like crashing waves.Howls rose from every direction. Wolves I had not seen in years fought shoulder to shoulder with Blackwater, teeth and claws flashing, tactics sharp and disciplined. The pressure around us loosened enough for my pack to breathe again. Fighters pulled back toward the center, reforming lines, protecting elders and children who were being rushed toward hidden exits.I moved without thinking, my body answering instinct and training toge

ETHAN'S POVThe wound would not close.I could feel it clearly now, past the noise of battle and the roar of my wolf. The silver blade had left more than torn flesh behind. Whatever Lucas drove into my side burned as it spread, a cold poison threading through my veins with purpose. It was not random. It was designed. Built to hunt Alphas, to tear down the strength that usually kept us standing when others fell.My knees buckled.I caught myself before I went down, teeth clenched hard enough to ache. Blood soaked my side, warm and slick beneath my hand, the scent sharp and metallic. My wolf snarled, furious and weakening at the same time.Through the mate bond, Kaye felt it.Her presence wrapped around me instantly, fierce and focused. Healing energy surged into my body, bright and steady, the same force I had poured into her when she died in my arms. It flowed through the bond like light through a cracked wall, pushing back against the poison inch by inch.It was working.But it was s

ETHAN'S POVThe battlefield had turned into something unrecognizable.Vanessa moved through it like a storm, a fury wrapped in skin and blood, her knife flashing with deadly precision. Every slash, every cut, was calculated, designed to turn the chaos into something worse. The infection spread like wildfire, each wolf she struck becoming a vector, each wound a new disaster waiting to happen.I could feel the poison still spreading inside me, slow and brutal, but it paled in comparison to what Vanessa was doing. Her blood was a weapon, not just a carrier for the pathogen, but the very thing that turned the fight into a race against time. She wasn’t simply fighting. She was making sure the battlefield itself became a breeding ground for destruction.Every wolf she touched had a second transformation to go through a transformation that was worse than the first. And as the infection spread, the wolves would be forced into the same mindless frenzy she had brought with her.I felt my enforc