All Chapters of Now, The Alpha Wants Me Back: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Cassian's POVI stood at Stoneclaw’s gate with the mate bond thrumming in my chest like a living thing. It came more vividly than I had experienced with Lyra. More immediate. More insistent. As if every nerve in my body was trained on the guard who stood fifteen feet from me.Her name was Elara. Not my mother's name. Not anything from my past. Just Elara Voss. She was practical looking. Sturdy with the type of muscle that only came from working and not training. Hardened eyes that regarded me with palpable suspicion. Hair in a tight braid pulled back. No unnecessary decoration. Just efficiency.And clearly she was as spooked by the bond as I was, only concealing it better. I watched her jaw tighten. Saw her make herself breathe even. Saw her insist on not seeing what was developing between us except via sheer will.“The timing of this is inconvenient,” she said matter-of-factly. No trying to soften it or act emotion she did not have. Just stating a fact.I laughed. Not that it would'v

Lyra's POVI existed in a thousand places at once. I was every point in the Moon Tree’s network. Every connection. Every thread. Every tainted filament that required burning. I felt every infected Luna, fighting against the wrongness in their heads. dose for the corrupted thread every time trying to go deeper.. All of the pieces adjacent to it on that sprawling and complex machine required my focus.But I was editing out the center of me. The core that kept me Lyra rather than an immortal intelligence spread over a magical network. It was like having a thousand tender hands pulling you in all directions. Each claiming I was required somewhere else. All requiring my undivided focus. Each one tugging me just a little bit further off the path until I had no idea which way paradise lay.This was what the Guardian power was made for. Designed especially to perform work of this magnitude. But I had not yet discovered how to keep myself from being distributed. Another comment explained that

Cassian's POVI headed back to Silverfang territory with Elara and the mate bond clicking into place between us like a new language we were both learning to speak. It was different from what I shared with Lyra. More equal somehow. Less burdened with expectation and history, the baggage of who we were supposed to be vs. who we were.Elara was direct. Practical. And had absolutely no interest in classic Luna form or the social games that were often tied to pack hierarchy. In blunt, no-nonsense terms that were downright refreshing following years of trying to navigate complicated pack politics.“I’m not going to smile pretty at pack outings,” she said bluntly on our third day home. We were in my quarters working back into Silverfang life. “I am not going to host teas or plan any kind of social events or do any of the decorative Luna things your pack probably expects.”“I do not expect those things,” I said honestly."Good," she said. "Because I am a warrior. I serve my pack through prote

Draven's POVI saw Lyra struggle with the choice of whether to keep giving her blood. Saw the Guardian weight she bore crushing down her shoulders under its weight I could not help carry All of the choices she had to make were impossible. Save wolves now and potentially change them forever. Or let nature take its course and thousands will die when she could have stopped it.She decided to continue. Though with conditions under which she was learning. To grow into the role, instead of being devoured by it.“We say to them,” she said to the healers. “I communicate potential long term changes to every wolf or pack that receives my blood. We give them the choice. Let them choose: to survive with unknown changes or just die with dignity intact.”The healers took up the new protocol right away. They explained that before administering antidote derived from Lyra’s blood. Warned. Provided details about what they knew and did not know.Most wolves accepted without hesitation. Survival was now

Cassian's POVI watched, as if a bomb with a time-delay fuse had gone off in that assembly, chaos unfolding as Grandmother Thea’s proposal detonated through the group. The stone circle turned into a boiling pot of passionate, fearful rivalries. Wolves howling over one another, growing in desperation. Disputes, breaking out like f besetting each other — fires that could flicker and spread out to incite everything.For some wolves this was liberation from cosmic manipulation they had never consented to. “We ought to pick our own partners!” a young Luna yelled from somewhere in the crowd. Her voice caught with feeling. “Not let the Goddess choose for us, according to bloodlines and purposes we never signed on for! "My mate bond has brought me nothing but pain, forced together by divine spirit instead of out of true desire!"Others were equally passionate and desperate in their defense of divine guidance. Without the blessing we are just animals! an older Alpha argued. His voice reflected