Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 171 - Chapitre 178

THEODOSA.My heart started pounding the second his voice reached me.The drawl sat in the air between us like it had never left. I stared at Narra and felt the last two months collapse in on themselves. The docks, the banners, Pippa’s arms still warm around me—all of it faded under the sudden, ugly clarity of the last time I’d stood in front of him. He had been so ruthless. So final. One day I was the girl he met in secret and told she was pretty. The next I was standing in front of the pack while he rejected the bond in front of everyone who had ever looked at me sideways. He hadn’t just ended things. He had thrown me to the wolves and walked away like the mess he’d made wasn’t his problem. I had thought we had something. I had built whole futures on soft words and late-night meetings and the way he’d looked at me when no one else was watching. Then he’d done a complete three-sixty and I hadn’t understood until right now, with those same blue eyes holding me in place, how little of i

XAHEN.The throne room smelled like polished wood and old power.I sat where they’d placed me and let Derek Triosi talk. He was doing the careful circuit kings ran when they wanted information without looking like they were digging for it. A tumbler of whiskey had already been set in front of me. He watched the glass more than he watched me.“I’ve heard you don’t drink alcohol from the northern realm,” he said, mild as anything. “With a brother like yours, of course you have options.”Kane’s name always travelled farther than it should. I picked up the glass, turned it once in my hand, and set it back down without drinking. Derek took the silence for what it was and didn’t push.My gaze drifted left. Narra stood with the guards, spine straight, eyes moving between his father and me the way an heir’s were supposed to. Learning the room. I looked at him and felt something sharp and immediate settle under my ribs. I had never taken such a clean dislike to a male that young. Most men didn

THEODOSA.Binny and I were moved into the corridor with men in front of us and men behind us. The chains on his wrists clinked with every step. I kept my eyes forward and tried to ignore the tension rolling off him in waves. I didn’t know how to start the conversation he clearly wanted, so I didn’t.He spoke anyway. Low enough that the guards wouldn’t catch it.“You’re not screwing him because of me, are you?”I looked at him. His face was tight and sad in a way that made my stomach drop.“That’s why he let me go the first time,” Binny said. “Isn’t it? Because of what you offered him.”I opened my mouth. Nothing useful came out.“You offered yourself up in exchange for my freedom,” he pushed. “Didn’t you?”“It’s more complicated than that.”He stepped closer despite the chains and the guards. His voice dropped even lower.“You’re not going to give him heirs, are you, Theo? Because that would be insane. You owe him nothing.”The word hit me like a slap.Heirs.I stared at him.“Binny,

THEODOSA “Dad, you can’t let this happen,” Binny roared, his voice blisteringly loud. “You can’t. He tortured her. He’s a monster. Have you looked at him? Have you heard the stories about what his wolf does to people? You’re going to send your own daughter back into that?” My dad rose from the chair slowly. “Binny—” “No. Listen to me. She was gone for two months and she came back looking like she’d been surviving a war. You didn’t see the way he watched her on that dock. You didn’t hear what he—” “Enough.” “It isn’t enough. You’re trading her like she’s something you can hand over to settle a debt I made—” My dad’s hand shot out and closed around Binny’s throat. The movement was so sudden and so completely outside anything I had ever seen from him that my mind went blank for a second. He drove Binny backward and threw him into the seating area near the wall. Chairs scraped hard across the floor. A small table tipped and hit the ground. Binny landed against the furniture with a