Semua Bab Now, The Alpha Wants Me Back: Bab 21 - Bab 30

Lyra povI sighed, the sound leaving me like the last breath of a dying thing.“I don’t know what’s going on anymore,” I said quietly, staring at the flickering lantern between us, “but as you can see… I’m not dead.”Draven leaned back in his chair, one arm draped over the backrest, golden eyes fixed on me like he was trying to read every fracture in my soul.“You’re telling me?” he said, one brow lifting. “From all indications, you were very convincingly dead. Funeral, tears, speeches, a casket, the whole dramatic production.”Then his mouth twitched. “And yet here you are. Breathing. Bery much alive.”A hollow laugh slipped out of me. “Trust Cassien to bury me before I even stopped bleeding.”His jaw tightened at that name.“So it really is true,” he said more softly. “You were running away from your pack.”“Yeah.” I rubbed my palms together, trying to stop them from shaking. “I got tired of him choosing her over me. Over and over again. Every single time I hoped he’d finally see me

Lyra's POVThe world tilted sideways.My mouth fell open as I looked at Draven, my words caught in my throat. My brain churned as if it were wading through thick mud trying to digest what he’d said.Buried.They buried me.Cassian buried me.There was a funny sound in my throat, between a laugh and a sob. My hands shot to my mouth, and pressed hard against my lips as though I could push the hysteria back down."They what?" I finally managed.Draven studied me intently, his gray gaze never leaving my face. “Your funeral was yesterday,” he said softly. "Full ceremony. Half the surrounding packs came to pay their respects.”I collapsed on the bed, my legs folding underneath me. "That is impossible.""It happened," he said. “They dug up your ripped finery from the woods. Bloodstained. After two weeks of searching, the council declared you were dead.”My mind spun. Two weeks. I’d been out for two weeks and by that point they’d thrown in the towel. Decided I was gone. Put me in the ground.

Cassian's POVSomething was wrong.I was standing on the brink of the woods, looking where Lyra's stuff was found and I knew that wasn't it.The funeral was over. She was buried. The pack had mourned. I should have been moving onward, to Sable and the child, starting over where everything was lost.But I could not.My wolf prowled the insides of me like a caged animal, antsy and discontented. It did not think she was gone. It refused to accept it.And the longer I stood there, the more I found myself agreeing.I kneeled down, my hand on the ground where her blood was discovered. The soil was cold, the scent of prey long past. But I closed my eyes and attempted to remember what had actually occurred that night.She had been here. That much was certain. Her clothes were ripped, bloodstained. The council reported that a feral had attacked her.But on reflection, when I examined the scene, really looked at it, things didn’t fit.Yes, the blood pattern indicated she had been attacked. But

Lyra's POVThe pain came over me like sun on the horizon.I was sleeping at last, finally sound asleep, said under by the doctor’s medicine into blessed blackness. But then something inside me seemed to move, shift irrevocably, and I woke with a scream simmering in my throat.The mate bond was breaking.Not trying to break anymore. Actually breaking.I could feel it, that thread of gold between me and Cassian beginning to break, snap by snap. Every time that happened it sent shockwaves of agony shivering through my whole body, as if someone was digging into my chest and ripping chunks off my soul.I attempted to breathe despite myself, to keep quiet, but my wolf was howling.She howled.I made a sound that was torn out of me and I had not asked for, or known how to make before,— the wail animal raw, and desparate with pain. It reverberated off the walls, through the compound, likely half the territory.But beneath the anguish, under the sense of being shredded from within, there was s

Lyra's POVI’d watched Sable twist things around before. Had seen her twist conversations, play victim and position herself just where she needed to be to get what she wanted. She was an expert reader of a room, knowing exactly when and how to act for optimal impact.“This had her fingerprints all over it.”The room cleared out almost immediately — suddenly everyone was following the emergency to see exactly what might happen. Draven lingered behind, his eyes on me as he studied my face.“You don’t look all that worried,” he said softly."No, I am not." I conceded, my tone dull.He cocked his head, peering at me through those gray eyes that appeared to know far too much. "Why?"Before I could respond, the door opened again and Mira ducked inside, closing it behind herself. Her face was bright red, her breath coming quickly as if she had been running."Did you see that?" she inquired, hastening to my pillow."The perfectly timed collapse?" I said dryly. "Yes. I saw it."Mira took my ha