Início / Werewolf / Moaning For The Enemy: Her Sister's Betrothed Alpha / Capítulo 111 - Capítulo 120

Todos os capítulos de Moaning For The Enemy: Her Sister's Betrothed Alpha : Capítulo 111 - Capítulo 120

212 Capítulos

111

DARIUS’S POVThe silence in the Calder estate was not quiet. It felt heavy, like dust pressing down on everything. It made every breath thick and slow. I sat on the edge of the big unmade bed and watched Iris in the middle of it. She looked smaller here than she did in the city. The dark wood headboard towered over her like a shadow.My shoulders felt tight. The muscles were still knotted from last night, when I tried to hold everything together. Being human was tiring. My body hurt in dull places, and heat lingered in spots. Every time Iris moved behind me, the sheets rustled and sent a sharp jolt down my spine. It had nothing to do with the wolf I used to be."You are brooding again," she said. Her voice was low and rough from sleep. It brushed the back of my neck like a soft touch."I am thinking," I said."Same thing," she muttered. The mattress dipped as she crawled over. She pressed her bare chest to my back. Her skin felt cool and soft against my heat. Her arms wrapped around my

112

IRIS’S POVThe Calder estate was not built for comfort. It was built for secrets. Right now the biggest secret was how I was supposed to keep standing when my legs felt like water. I leaned against the heavy mahogany vanity and watched Darius through the mirror. He stood by the window. Morning light caught the sharp line of his jaw and the fading marks on his shoulders from the Bond.He looked like a man who lost a kingdom and was deciding if he liked the silence more."You are doing it again," I said. My voice was dry and scratchy. I reached for the glass of water on the vanity. My fingers shook just enough to make the crystal clink. "The brooding. It is a heavy look for a Saturday morning."Darius did not turn around, but his shoulders dropped a little. "I am not brooding, Iris. I am calculating.""Well, stop. I am the one who does the math in this relationship, remember?" I walked toward him. The silk of my robe whispered against the floorboards. "And right now the math says we are

113

DARIUS’S POVThe silence in the Calder library felt rough. Now that the silver hum was gone from my blood, the house seemed more like a tomb than a safe place. I stood by the broken display case. My knuckles were raw. My head throbbed with a dull human ache that did not heal fast anymore.Iris stood by the heavy oak desk. Her fingers shook as she went through a stack of yellowed papers. She looked tired. The charcoal silk of her gown was torn at the hem and covered in gray ash from the rooftop. But her eyes were sharp and dangerous."Stop hovering, Darius," she snapped without looking up. "The wolf is gone, but the brooding is still using too much air in the room.""I am not hovering. I am making sure you do not fall over," I said. My voice sounded rough. I walked over. The floorboards creaked under my boots. I reached out. My hand hovered over the small of her back before I let it rest there. Even through the silk, her skin felt hot. "You are running on adrenaline and spite, Iris. So

114

IRIS’S POVThe electronic wail from the foyer hit my skull like a drill. I hurried to pull my gown back up. The silk caught on the rough edge of the desk. My fingers felt clumsy. My heart pounded hard and heavy in my chest now that the silver safety net was gone.Darius was already moving. He no longer had the wolf’s quick blur, but the way he stepped into his trousers and grabbed a heavy iron poker from the hearth still looked scary. He looked raw and stripped down."Get behind the desk," he ordered. His voice was low and rough. No room for argument."The hell I am," I muttered. My knees shook. I grabbed the vellum deed and shoved it into the hidden pocket of my gown. "If that is a collection team, they are not here to fight. They are here for the paper."The library doors did not burst open. They were pushed aside slow and polite. Two men stepped in. Then a woman followed. Her face looked like my mother’s, but without the warmth or regret. She wore an expensive coat. Her eyes were f

115

DARIUS’S POVThe silver mist did not just hang in the air. It crawled. It moved with sick purpose, swirling around my boots and clinging to the hem of Iris’s torn gown. The smell was sharp. Metal and old blood. The same scent that haunted my family for years. But here in the rotting library, it felt like an attack.I tightened my hold on Iris. My arm pressed hard across her waist. I felt her heart beat fast and shallow against my side. Without the wolf, I could not hear her thoughts. But I did not need to. Her skin turned cold where the mist touched her."Darius," she choked out. Her fingers dug into my forearm. "It is not just smoke.""I know," I rasped. My lungs burned. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass.Eleanor stood in the doorway. A cold shadow of greed. She watched us like we were a failed test. The two men behind her stayed still. Their eyes stayed on Iris like she was a bill they wanted to close."The Bond is a biological need, Darius," Eleanor said. Her voice cut

116

IRIS’S POVThe backseat of the black sedan smelled like expensive leather and heavy floral perfume. The kind that always made me want to sneeze. Old money and older lies. My head spun with a dull throb behind my eyes. It matched the silver pulse in my neck. Every time I blinked, I saw Darius’s face. The raw human desperation in his eyes as they pulled us apart."Drink this," Eleanor said. She handed me a crystal glass with clear thick liquid. "It will stop the tremors."I looked at the glass, then at her. Even with my head feeling stuffed with cotton, sarcasm rose up. "Last time a Calder offered me a drink, I ended up in a collapsing skyscraper. I think I will pass."Eleanor did not flinch. She set the glass in the cup holder and smoothed her skirt. "Still as difficult as your mother. It did not serve her well in the end, Iris. Do not make the same mistake.""My mother did not have a Wolfe holding the door open for her," I snapped."She had a cage. Just like you do," she said. She loo

117

DARIUS’S POVThe stairs to the third floor didn't just creak; they screamed under my weight, the wood splintering like dry bone. The sound echoed through the ribcage of the empty house, making it feel hollow, as if the building itself had been gutted and left to rot. Every step was a fresh agony. My lungs felt coated in thick, grey ash, and the empty space in my chest—the jagged hole where the wolf used to live—ached with a cold that went deeper than my marrow. I was just a man now. A hollowed-out shell. Left with a shattered jaw, a body that felt like lead, and a burning, singular need to claw Iris back from the dark.I reached the nursery door, and the sight of it felt like a slap in the face. It was the only part of the house that wasn't rotting. Dark oak, polished to a mirror shine, with a brass handle that glowed like it had been buffed by a ghost only seconds ago. It felt like an insult, a beautiful lie told in a house full of ugly truths.I had no key. I had no strength left to

118

IRIS’S POVThe room was too white. It was a sterile, expensive kind of white that felt like it was trying to bleach my retinas. The silver throb in the side of my neck wasn’t just a pulse anymore; it felt like a ticking bomb, counting down the seconds until there was nothing left of me but a name on a page. They had strapped me into a chair that looked like a throne—a mockery of my status—with soft leather restraints that bit into my wrists just enough to remind me that I wasn't a guest. I was a prisoner.Felix stood by the window, his silhouette sharp against the moonlight hitting the jagged mountain peaks. He looked bored. That was what terrified me most. He wasn't a monster who thrived on the sight of pain; he was a monster who didn't see me as a living thing at all. To him, I was just a line on a ledger he’d inherited, a piece of property that needed to be balanced."The preparation is almost done, Iris," he said, turning toward me with a cold, clinical smile. He tapped the thick

119

DARIUS’S POVThe wind howled around us as I cleared the perimeter fence in one massive leap that nearly burst my lungs. Every muscle in my body felt like it was being sewn back together with live wires, sharp and electric, barely holding me in one piece. The raw serum Silas had given me wasn't any kind of gift; it was a wildfire tearing through my veins, eating away at whatever was left of the human side of me. It blurred the edges of my thoughts until nothing existed except the scent of Iris in my arms and the desperate, crushing need to keep her safe and keep moving forward.Iris clung to me tightly, her face buried in the thick fur at my neck. I could feel her heart pounding, that quick frantic Calder rhythm falling perfectly in step with the heavy thundering beat of my own. The Bond was back, but it returned jagged and wild, a raw surge of heat that made my skin crawl and my vision bleed crimson at the edges.I landed hard on the forest floor about a mile from the facility, claws

120

IRIS’S POVThe cave was small and close, smelling of damp earth and the sharp ozone that always clung to the wolf even after the change. But as the silver glow slowly faded from Darius’s skin, that metallic bite in the air gave way to something far more intoxicating: the warm, human scent of a man who had just torn the world apart to bring me back to him.Darius lay heavy against me, his chest rising and falling in deep, uneven pulls. The raw serum had left his skin scorching, a deep radiating heat that sank straight into my bones and made me feel alive in a way nothing else could. He was no longer the polished, untouchable Alpha from the penthouse days. He was stripped down to raw nerves and muscle, still twitching with the aftershocks of the shift, every breath ragged like he had run straight through hell and come out the other side carrying me.“Darius,” I breathed, sliding my hands over the hard planes of his back. The fur had receded completely now, leaving his skin bare and hyper

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