Semua Bab Oh My Beta!: Bab 61 - Bab 70

Aria’s POV “We can’t go to the elders.” Riven looked up from where he sat propped against the headboard, still too weak to stand for long. “What do you mean? You said Elder Cassius is the only one with enough authority to...” “To what? Believe us over Claire?” I paced the small room, restless energy coursing through me. “I was wrong Riven, we don’t know whose side anyone is on. The elders, the council, Claire’s been working on them for weeks. She’s cunning enough to have bought loyalty or planted doubt.” “But Elder Cassius has been training you. He’s been suspicious of Kade’s behavior…” “Suspicious isn’t the same as acting. And what if we’re wrong? What if we go to him and he goes straight to Kade? Or worse, to Claire?” I stopped pacing. “We’d be signing our own death warrants.” Riven was quiet for a long moment. “So what do you suggest?” “How about we wait. We gather more evidence. We figure out who we can actually trust before we make any moves.” “Aria, the longer we wait, t

Aria’s POVRiven pulled me down and kissed me like he’d been starving for it.His mouth was hungry, and demanding, with his hands already pulling at my nightgown before I could catch my breath. I lifted my arms and he yanked it over my head and threw it somewhere behind me. His eyes dropped and stayed there, moving over my bare chest slowly, and the look on his face made heat pool between my thighs before he even touched me.His hands cupped my breasts, thumbs brushing over my nipples, and I inhaled sharply. He watched my face while he did it, learning what made my breath catch, what made my back push forward into his palms. When he pinched lightly I made a sound I didn’t recognize as my own voice.He sat up and pulled my right nipple into his mouth.“Riv…en” His name dissolved into a moan as his tongue worked slow circles around it, sucking, then releasing, then sucking harder. My fingers dug into his hair and held him there. He moved to the other one and gave it the same attention,

Aria’s POVI woke before him.The room was pale grey, that thin early light that couldn’t decide if it was dawn yet. Riven was warm at my back, his arm heavy across my waist, his breathing slow and even. The bandage on his chest had dried overnight. Still needed changing but not bleeding. I exhaled quietly.I started to slide out from under his arm.He pulled me back firmly.His arm tightened and he tucked me back against his chest like I was something that belonged there and pressed his lips to the back of my head without opening his eyes.“Where are you running off to,” he said. His voice was thick with sleep.“Marta. Your bandages need…”“Five minutes.”“Riven…”“Five minutes, Aria.”I softened against him before I’d decided to. His warmth was everywhere, his heartbeat steady against my spine, and the mate bond hummed low and content in my chest like something that had finally been fed. I told myself I would get up in five minutes. I would be responsible and practical and fetch Mar

Aria's povTwo guards appeared around the side of the palace before Riven could pull the door shut behind us. Beta trainees, broad and blank-faced, moving with the mechanical purpose of men following orders they hadn’t been asked to consider. They walked past me like I wasn’t standing there and took Olive by both arms.“Get off her—”They didn’t even look at me.Olive didn’t struggle. That was the thing that broke something in my chest, she didn’t struggle because she already knew it would make it worse, because she had lived in this world long enough to know exactly how this went. She let them take her arms and walk her out into the yard and I stood there watching them wrap her in the rough burlap sack, binding it around her shoulders, and I couldn’t move.The wooden platform was already there as if someone had set it up while Cassius was inside drinking his tea.He stood behind it with his hands folded at the small of his back, looking out at the frost-dead garden like a man waiting

Aria's POV Riven found me in the garden after dark. I'd come for air. For five minutes of frost and silence and no one needing anything from me, and then the five minutes had stretched and the cold had settled into my shoulders and I was still standing there when I heard his footsteps on the stone path behind me. "Still annoyed?" I didn't turn around. "I'm not annoyed." "You've been standing in a dead garden in the dark for an hour." "I like it quiet." He came and stood beside me anyway. I could feel the warmth of him even through the cold air, that particular heat he ran at that had nothing to do with the weather. "He's an Elder, Aria," he said. Not unkindly. Just the plain fact of it, laid down between us. "There's nothing to be done to him." "He had her flogged for sitting at a table." "I know." "Twenty strokes, Riven. Let’s excuse the fact that she didn’t, but even if she did, isn’t that too much? Twentystrokes for sitting at a table because I asked her to."