Semua Bab Killed and Reborn: My Alpha’s Obsession : Bab 171 - Bab 180

They stayed at the watch hut only long enough to make everyone marginally functional.By the following afternoon, they were on the move again, climbing away from the pits, the collapsed altar a memory anchored more in bruises and the deep, clean absence of its hum than in any landmark The path wound through scrub and rock toward a higher ridge where the messenger wards would carry best.Rowan had taught Rin how to set a sending circle when she was twelve. Back then, it had been mostly an excuse to make sparks and feel important. Today, kneeling on coarse grass with her wrists still bandaged and her ankle throbbing dully, it felt very different.They chose a hollow out of the wind, ringed by low stones flecked with pale lichen. The others gave them space: Rhea a little ways off, arms folded as she kept watch; Jax leaning against a boulder, pretending not to listen; Talia propped on a pack, leg stretched, eyes half‑closed but sharp.“Ready?” Kael asked quietly.He knelt opposite Rin, ac

They reached the waystation two days later, just before dusk.It was an old trade inn tucked into a fold of the ridge where three paths met: solid stone walls, a slate roof, thick shutters. Ward‑lines glowed faintly where someone—Rowan, by the look of the sigils—had reinforced its bones in years past. Rin could feel them hum under her palm when she brushed the doorframe: clean, even, nothing like the twisted itch of the cult’s work.Safe.The common room was warm with stew and voices. The keeper, an older woman with quick eyes, took one look at Rin’s limp and Kael’s exhaustion and insisted on extra blankets and the quietest room.“We’ll take first watch on the hall,” Rhea said, intercepting the keys long enough to give them a pointed look. “Door stays warded. Anyone so much as breathes wrong outside it, you’ll know.”“Subtle,” Rin muttered as Rhea walked away.“She’s fond of you,” Kael said. “That was her version of a blessing.”Rin snorted, too tired to argue.The room was small but

The road did what roads always did once the sharpest danger passed: it stretched.Days blurred into each other in a way they hadn’t on the way out. No frantic sprints toward half‑felt rituals, no constant edge of _too late_ pressing between Rin’s shoulders. Just miles. Weather. Wolves.In the mornings, breath steamed in the chill air as they broke camp. In the afternoons, the sun baked the backs of their necks, and everyone stripped down to shirts, cloaks slung over saddles. Evenings brought the familiar dance of finding a stretch of mostly‑flat ground, coaxing fire from Tinder, checking bandages.Life, in other words. With bruises.Rin found herself noticing the small things more.The way Deren hummed under his breath when he cooked, some tuneless, soothing noise that seemed to spill out of his chest without his permission. The way one of the younger escorts—Tamsin, a narrow‑shouldered wolf barely old enough to shave—kept reflexively stepping to put herself between Talia and any imag

The Nightfang raven found them two mornings later.They’d camped high, just below the treeline, where the wind came knife‑sharp off the peaks, and the sun took its time slanting down into the hollows. Frost crackled underfoot when Rin stepped away from the fire to stretch, breath pluming white.A dark shape rode the updrafts above them, wings wide, catching light on glossy feathers. It circled once twice, then folded and dropped in a clean, controlled fall that ended with a flutter of wings and a hop onto a low boulder near Kael’s saddle.The raven cocked its head, black eye bright. A slim leather tube was strapped to its leg, sealed with Nightfang’s crest.“Someone missed you,” Jax said, tossing Kael a strip of dried meat. “Or they’ve decided to recall the blade before he can run entirely feral with Blackmoon’s miracle.”Kael ignored the bait.He moved slowly—protocol drilled into him since childhood: don’t spook the messenger, don’t rush the words—offering the raven a bit of meat fi

Three days later, they reached Three Crosses, the last neutral town before the border split.It was a messy, loud place, built where three roads met, no one pack’s law holding full sway. Traders yelled over carts of wool and iron, and dried fruit. Dogs slept in the dust. Children chased each other between barrels. No one bowed. No one moved out of the way unless you almost ran them over. It was the closest thing to normal any of them had seen in months.Rin and Kael walked side by side through the market. Rhea and Jax drifted ten paces back, not hovering, just present. Talia was propped up on a crate near the well, eating a pastry and people‑watching.People glanced. Whispered. Rin could feel the weight of their eyes. The story of the altar had run ahead of them, faster than any raven. Everyone knew who they were now.They were halfway past the baker’s stall when they heard the shouting.Two men stood on opposite sides of the well, faces red, voices carrying over the noise of the mark