Semua Bab The Lullaby of Wolfbane: Bab 31 - Bab 40

The heat doesn’t creep in anymore. It hunts.It rises in a hard, fast rush that turns my skin too tight and my thoughts too slippery, until the only thing that feels real is Adrian’s bare chest under my palms and the steady thud of his heart like an anchor hammered into my ribs. I’m straddling his lap, trembling with the effort of staying upright and staying sane, and he’s holding me by the hips like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he loosens his grip.He looks less like a prince now and more like a man barely keeping a wolf behind his eyes.His gaze drags over my throat, my pulse, my mouth, then snaps back to my eyes like it physically costs him to look anywhere else.His voice comes out rough. “Abby.”I swallow, throat dry. “What?”He doesn’t answer right away. His nostrils flare as he breathes me in, and the sound he makes is low and involuntary, like his control just slipped a tooth.Then he says, very clearly, “Tell m

The heat doesn’t vanish like a snapped thread. It unknots slowly.When I wake this time, the frantic pull is quieter, still there, still humming under my skin, but no longer screaming. What is loud is everything else. My body aches in the deep, satisfied way that makes it clear the last day and a half wasn’t a dream. My thighs protest when I shift. My hips feel bruised. My throat is tender where Adrian marked me, and my mark on him throbs faintly when I swallow, like my wolf is still smug about it. I lie there for a moment and breathe. Then I turn my head. Adrian is asleep on his side, facing me, one arm curved in a loose, unconscious guard around my space like even his rest protects. He looks… peaceful. Not guarded. Not carved out of duty. Just a man sleeping. It hits me so hard my chest tightens. I shouldn’t have to wake him. I hate that my body still needs him so badly that the thought of distance makes my skin itch. I shift c

Becoming “Princess Abby” doesn’t happen with a ceremony. It happens in a hallway. It happens when servants bow before you’ve even had water. When guards stop asking and start informing. When people look at your throat first and your face second. It happens when Adrian has to leave because he’s Adrian, because the realm doesn’t pause for anyone’s heat and the bond stretches like a living thing between my ribs and his.I can function. I can breathe. The frantic edge of the heat has dulled. But the first time he steps away from the bed, my wolf lifts her head like, Excuse you? and I have to swallow down the ridiculous urge to grab his sleeve and snarl at him like he belongs to me at all times.He dresses with quiet efficiency, shirt, belt, boots, like it’s a skill he learned before he learned to smile.“You’re sore,” he says, tone flat.“I’m alive,” I shoot back.His eyes flick to mine. A pause, almost approval.“Eat something,” he

The palace doesn’t grieve in public. It files. It escorts. It “debriefs.” By dusk, the garden has been scrubbed so hard it smells like lemon and denial. The broken hedges are roped off. The blood is gone from the stone paths like it never belonged there. But I can still smell it on people. Fear has a scent. So does shock. They send the remaining girls back to their quarters in small groups with double escorts, as if separating us is safer than letting us huddle together like pack. Guards line every corridor. Every door has a witness. Tessa’s door has two. When we reach her room, a guard steps forward and positions himself beside the frame like a statue with a heartbeat. “Protocol,” he says, stiff. Tessa stares at him as if he’s another kind of cage. I squeeze her hand once before she goes inside. “You’re not alone,” I tell her. Her eyes shine. “My mate is a rogue, what did I do to the moon gode

Adrian’s chambers are quiet in the way only guarded places can be quiet, but never relaxed. The fire is low. The curtains are half drawn. The air still smells faintly of smoke and steel and him, but now there’s something else layered into it too: aftermath.Garden blood washed from stone. A rogue dragged in chains. My mother smiling like she won a prize. I pace anyway, because my body still thinks movement can outrun fear. When the door finally opens, I don’t wait for him to speak. “Adrian.”He turns fully toward me, and I see it immediately, tension in his shoulders, clipped control in the set of his jaw. He’s been doing guardian work. Threat work.His eyes sweep over me in one fast scan. “Are you hurt?”“No,” I say too quickly, because if I start with what hurts I might never stop. “I went to Melody.” That makes him still. Not alarmed, focused. “What did she say?” he asks. I stop pacing