Semua Bab The Alpha's Abandoned Mate : Bab 151 - Bab 158

“Tell me the truth, Maren… how many more nights must I stand here waiting for a ghost?” Sienna’s voice carried through the throne hall with a softness sharpened by years of unspoken ache. She stood at the balcony carved into the stone wall, overlooking the moonlit courtyard where silver lanterns swayed with the breeze. Maren hesitated behind her, the rustle of her cloak the only sign she was still there, because she knew better than to answer quickly. Sienna never asked questions idly. Not anymore. Not since the night the portal swallowed Ryder and left her with nothing but the echo of his name drifting across the ruins.Maren finally said, “Your Majesty… a decade is not so long for a queen touched by the divine.” Her tone was steady, respectful, but heavy with the kind of fear that came from loving a ruler too much to wound her with honesty. Sienna did not turn. She kept her hands braced on the railing, fingers curled tight enough to pale her knuckles, her posture regal and tall yet

“Open the gate,” Sienna ordered the moonlit corridor itself, her voice steady as steel though her pulse trembled beneath her skin. “I know you hear me. You’ve always heard me.”The torches along the walls dimmed as if exhaling, their flames bending toward her, and the air thickened with the unmistakable presence of something old, ancient enough to remember the first kings. The stone beneath her feet vibrated, humming like a heartbeat awakening after centuries of silence. It wasn’t the first time the Citadel had shifted around her, but tonight it felt deliberate. Sentient. Expectant.She stepped forward.The corridor stretched ahead, then twisted, doors vanishing, arches melting into silver vapors, walls folding into themselves. The castle obeyed her, guiding her toward the hidden exit reserved for chosen vessels of the goddess. Sienna didn’t look back. There was nothing behind her she couldn’t leave, except memories, and she carried those like wounds.“You shouldn’t go alone,” a voice

“Ryder, get up,” Sienna whispered urgently, her hands sliding beneath his arms as she tried to pull him onto his feet. “We can’t stay here.”“I’m trying,” he muttered, his voice weak but determined, forcing his legs beneath him even as they trembled like they no longer belonged to him. “Just… give me a second.”“We don’t have a second.” She glanced over her shoulder, heart pounding so hard she felt the beat in her teeth. The place where Lunaris had vanished still crackled with residual light, like the very air feared to settle. “She’ll come back. Or worse, something she sent will.”Ryder exhaled a shaky breath, gripping her shoulder not because he needed balance but because he needed her closeness. “Where are we going?”“The old Moon Temple,” she said without hesitation. “It’s the only place she won’t destroy outright. She still needs what’s buried beneath it.”Ryder huffed a laugh as they stumbled into the tree line, his arm slung over her shoulders. “You mean that ruin you dragged m

“Is that him?” a young voice whispered from somewhere along the valley’s edge, but Ryder didn’t turn. He didn’t hear the packs gathering. He didn’t see the shadows forming a wide crescent around the field. He heard only the fading echo of her voice inside him, soft enough to break him, strong enough to guide him.He walked forward, slow steps over dew-coated grass that shimmered in the early light. The world seemed painted in silver and gold, every color too bright, too gentle, as if reality was trying to offer comfort he had no idea how to accept. He felt the warmth of the sun on his skin , a warmth he hadn’t known in years , but it didn’t reach the parts of him that mattered.“Ryder,” an elder murmured from the crowd, voice filled with awe and confusion. “He’s alive.”He didn’t answer. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, as if her voice might be waiting just beyond it. Wind curved around him in soft spirals, brushing his arms, his shoulders, the back of his neck. He knew that touch.