Library

Search

Home / Werewolf / Moaning For The Enemy: Her Sister's Betrothed Alpha / Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

All Chapters of Moaning For The Enemy: Her Sister's Betrothed Alpha : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

163 Chapters

71

IRIS’S POVThe Wolfe Manor had always looked like a fortress, but now, silhouetted against a sky choked with violet smoke, it looked like a tomb. The grand stone gates were twisted off their hinges, and the manicured lawns were scorched black.Darius steered the armored van through the wreckage with a grim, tight-lipped focus. Being human had changed him—the predatory grace was still there, but it was weighted by a raw, gritty determination. He didn't look like a king reclaiming a throne; he looked like a man coming home to burn the thieves out of his house."The biometric scanners are tuned to the shifter genome," I said, my fingers flying over the keyboard of the terminal in the back of the van. I was sitting in the very neuro-chair my father had intended for my undoing, using Silas’s own tech against him. "If you were still an Alpha, the perimeter turrets would have turned us into a colander five minutes ago.""So, what you’re saying is, my lack of a soul is finally paying off?" Da

72

DARIUS’S POVBeing human meant I could feel the cold. It also meant I could feel the sheer, unadulterated terror radiating off Iris as her father’s former partner—a man who looked more like a walking surgical accident than a scientist stepped into the light.The implosion plan. A classic scorched-earth policy."Dr. Aris," Iris whispered, her face going a shade of white that made my heart ache. "You were supposed to be in the reactor wing when it blew.""Supposed to be," the man hissed, his eyes hidden behind thick, cracked goggles. "But the ledger has two sides, Iris. Your father wanted a kingdom. I just wanted the math to be perfect. And a perfect equation ends in zero."I shifted my weight, my human senses screaming at me. I didn't have the wolf’s instinct to tell me which way he would move, but I had a lifetime of reading men who thought they were God."Zero is a very lonely number, Doctor," I said, my voice smooth, hiding the fact that I was calculating the distance between my boo

73

IRIS’S POVDarius didn’t take me back to the manor. He didn’t take me to a hotel or a bunker. He drove the armored van through winding mountain passes until the fires of the valley were nothing but a dull orange glow in the rearview mirror. He stopped at a small, secluded hunting lodge—deep in the woods where the trees leaned in like silent conspirators.The lodge was old, heavy cedar and stone, no biometric scanners, no cameras. A place for men to be men, and wolves to be wolves.He killed the engine. The cooling metal ticked in the sudden quiet for a long, dragging minute. Darius didn’t move. His hands gripped the steering wheel, knuckles white. The violet marks on his skin had faded to faint ghost-shadows. His eyes—still that deep, mortal brown—stared into the dark forest ahead.“Darius?” I whispered, reaching across the console.He turned. The raw, human vulnerability in his face hit like a physical blow. A man who’d carried a planet, finally allowed to set it down.“I can’t hear t

74

DARIUS’S POVI woke up with the sun hitting my face and for a split second, the weight of the world felt strangely light, and I actually forgot about the nightmare we had just escaped. I forgot about the White Vault, the Red Mist, and the fact that I couldn't feel the territorial borders humming in my blood anymore, and instead, I just felt the warmth of Iris beside me. Her breathing was soft and rhythmic, and it was such a human sound that it felt more grounding than any pack link I had ever known, but that peace didn't last long.I saw her sitting up, her back a pale and elegant curve against the dark furs of the bed, and the second I saw the look on her face, I knew the dream was over. She wasn't looking at the beautiful sunrise or the way the light hit the trees, she was staring at the window with a look of pure terror that made my stomach do a slow, sickening flip."Iris?" I sat up, and the cold air of the lodge started biting at my bare chest, but I barely felt it because I was

75

IRIS’S POVThe ascent to the northern peak was a grueling test of iron and nerves. The armored van groaned as it climbed the narrow, crumbling switchbacks, the engine straining against the altitude. Beside me, Darius drove with a clinical, focused intensity. He didn’t have his wolf’s heightened senses to warn him of a landslide or an ambush, but he had something else—a raw, human grit that seemed to sharpen with every mile."You’re white-knuckling the wheel, Darius," I said softly, trying to break the suffocating tension. "If you snap that plastic, we’re definitely not making the three-hour window.""Just making sure the steering column knows who’s in charge," he countered, though his jaw remained a hard line of granite. He glanced at the countdown on the dash: 00:42:12. "Besides, I’m an accountant’s husband now. I have to be careful with the overhead.""Sarcasm is a great coping mechanism, but your pulse is visible in your neck," I noted, my own heart doing a frantic dance against my

76

DARIUS’S POVThe taste of her blood was the loudest thing I had ever experienced.It wasn’t just iron and salt. It was a violent, rush of data—the formula, her memories, the scent of the lilies from her childhood, and the sharp, biting chill of the mountain air. It slammed into my human heart like a high-speed collision, jump-starting a secondary engine I hadn't known was dormant in my chest.I felt the obsidian blade slip from my fingers as my body buckled."Darius!"Her scream sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep well. I tried to hold her, but my hands were no longer mine. The skin was stretching, the bones in my forearms snapping and reforming with the wet, sickening sound of breaking branches.This wasn't a shift. It was a reconstruction.The violet shadows of the infection I thought I’d killed flared back to life, but they weren't blackening my veins anymore. They were being consumed by a new light—a blinding, mercury-silver that bled out of my pores.I looked up

77

IrisIf my life had a balance sheet, I was currently bankrupt in everything except sheer audacity, and the van was nothing more than a cramped metallic sanctuary hurtling toward a horizon that looked like spilled ink and neon. Outside the world was waking up to the digital ghost of my father’s ledger but inside the air was so thick with the scent of silver, sweat, and raw arousal that I could barely draw a full breath without feeling like I was inhaling Darius himself.Darius wasn’t behind the wheel anymore because Ethan was driving with this frantic, wide-eyed focus that made me think he was one pothole away from a nervous breakdown, leaving us in the back among the tangled wires and the cold gleam of the neuro-chairs.I sat on the floor with my back pressed against the vibrating metal wall and watched the man I had married, though calling him a man felt like a lie now because he was something so much more. Darius paced the narrow space like a caged storm and the silver shimmer on hi

78

DARIUS’S POVThe City of Lilies wasn't a camp; it was a ghost of a civilization. The white tents were made of a silk so fine it seemed to breathe with the wind, and the lanterns floating in the air weren't fire—they were glowing orbs of the same silver resonance that now hummed in my own blood.I stepped out of the van, my boots crunching on the desert sand. My skin was still buzzing from the heat of the woman behind me, the silver link between us acting like a live wire. Being "human" was a memory; I felt like a god made of mercury and spite."Darius, stay close," Iris whispered, her hand finding mine. Her green eyes were wide, scanning the camp with the precision of a hawk."I couldn't leave you if I tried, Little Calder," I said, my voice vibrating with that new, metallic depth. "The laws of the universe have officially made us a package deal. Though, I have to say, your mother has a very expensive taste in real estate. Most people just buy a condo; she builds a mirage.""It’s not

79

IRIS’S POVThe City of Lilies was already beginning to fade behind us, the silver lanterns flickering out like dying stars as the Sanctuary folded itself back into the dimensions of the mirage.Darius didn't speak. He sat in the passenger seat, his eyes fixed on the black horizon. The silver glow on his skin had dimmed, but the air around him felt heavy, pressurized, as if he were a storm cloud waiting for a reason to break. I could feel the "Union" humming in the base of my skull—a low, rhythmic throb that pulsed in time with his breathing."The Winter Palace," I said, my fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel. "My mother has a flair for the dramatic. She couldn't just say 'the old ruins in the north.' It had to be the 'Heart of the Shadow Lands.'""It’s a brand, Iris," Darius muttered, his voice a low vibration that made the dashboard rattle. "The Calders don't do anything without a theatrical title. I’m surprised she didn't give us a map written in blood and riddles

80

DARIUS’S POVThe Winter Palace didn’t look like a ruin. It looked like a nightmare frozen in mid-scream. Translucent white stone walls pulsed with faint, sickly light; the air was so cold every breath turned to a silver shroud.I didn’t feel the cold. I felt the heat.Iris walked beside me like a sun. My skin was a live wire, silver energy crackling beneath it, demanding a conduit. Every time her arm brushed mine, even through layers of clothing, my cock jerked hard against my zipper, already leaking, already desperate.“Darius,” she whispered. Her voice echoed off the vaulted ceilings. She was shivering, breath hitching in short, needy bursts that made my vision blur at the edges. “The air… it’s different here. It feels like it’s trying to crawl under my skin.”“It’s not the air,” I rasped, stopping dead in the center of the grand foyer. I turned to her, hand sliding to the back of her neck. The instant my skin met hers, electricity snapped between us—sharp, delicious friction that m

PREV

...

...

NEXT

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP

DMCA.com Protection Status