บททั้งหมดของ The Alpha's Human Dancer (An Erotica): บทที่ 31 - บทที่ 40

EdricThe days following the council confrontation passed in a tense haze. Leon was more protective than ever, rarely letting me out of his sight. The pack’s whispers had grown louder, but no one dared approach me directly after what happened. Aria was doing better with the new treatment, and for that alone I was grateful. Yet something gnawed at me constantly, the word that kept surfacing like a shadow I couldn’t escape.Then I remembered the curse.I had heard it from the attackers on the grounds, from the elders in the chamber, even in hushed conversations among the staff. It clung to Leon like smoke, and somehow I was part of it. But every time I tried to understand, the answers slipped away.Tonight, the mansion felt especially quiet. Leon had dismissed most of the staff early, and we were alone in our private sitting room. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting warm light across the plush rugs and heavy furniture. I sat curled on the couch with a book I wasn’t really reading, wh

EdricI woke to the slow, steady rhythm of Leon’s heartbeat under my ear.The room was still dim, the heavy curtains only letting in thin strips of pale morning light. For a few seconds I stayed completely still, listening to the quiet rise and fall of his chest, feeling the solid warmth of his body wrapped around mine. One of his arms was draped heavily over my waist, his large hand resting against the small of my back. Our legs were tangled together under the sheets. It should have felt peaceful.It didn’t.The conversation from the night before came back in pieces, sharp and heavy. The curse. The generations of Alphas who had all died the same way. The age of forty. Four years. Heirs.I opened my eyes carefully. Leon was still asleep, his face softer than I usually saw it. Without the usual intensity in his expression he looked younger, almost vulnerable. I stared at him for a long time, trying to memorize the exact shape of his mouth, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, th

LeonI had spent most of my life learning how to control the violence inside me and how to run a pack that thought that I was doomed to die by the time I was forty. I had made peace with that because history had taught that me.that there was no escaping it.The curse had taught me early that softness was a liability, that need was something to bury, that the only way to survive was to stay sharp and distant. Then Edric had walked into my life with his quiet strength and his devastatingly honest eyes, and every rule I had built for myself began to crack.This morning, holding him in the quiet of our bed, I felt those cracks widen into something irreversible.He was still tucked against my chest, his smaller body fitting against mine like he had always belonged there. The conversation from earlier lingered between us, the four years, the heirs and the fear in his voice when he asked where that left him. I had answered as honestly as I could. Now I needed him to feel the truth of it, not

EdricThe soft peace of the morning did not last.Leon had left the bed only long enough to deal with a few messages and return with coffee. We were still half-dressed, still close, when a sharp knock sounded at the door of our private quarters. One of his betas stood there, expression carefully blank, and handed Leon a sealed letter bearing the council’s mark.I watched Leon’s face as he read it. The warmth that had been in his eyes only moments before cooled into something hard and controlled. He folded the letter once, then again, and slipped it into his pocket.“I have to go,” he said. His voice was even, but I had learned to hear the tension underneath. “The elders have requested an immediate meeting.”Something in the way he said it made the back of my neck prickle. “Is it about me?”He hesitated for half a second too long. “It’s pack business. Stay here. Rest. I’ll handle it and I will be back as soon as I can.”He kissed my forehead, quick and almost distracted, then left. The

Edric When I was bare, he guided me to lie down and then undressed himself, never taking his eyes off me. The sight of him still made my breath catch, broad shoulders, powerful chest, the clear evidence of how much he wanted me. But there was something different in the way he looked at me now. Less hunger. More devotion.He stretched out over me, bracing his weight on his forearms so he wouldn’t crush me. For a long moment he just looked at me, one hand stroking my hair back from my face with aching gentleness.“I need you to feel this,” he murmured. “Not the politics. Not the elders. Just us. I need you to know that nothing they say changes what you are to me.”I reached up and touched his face, tracing the line of his jaw, the corner of his mouth. “Then show me. Please.”And he did.Leon made love to me with a thoroughness that left no room for doubt. He kissed every part of me he could reach, my mouth, my throat, the sensitive spots beneath my ears, the peaks of my chest, the soft