All Chapters of Fated to the Alpha Widow: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

CHAPTER 11 The hall didn’t erupt.Nightfell didn’t panic.They did something worse.They went still.Every elder stood in rigid silence, eyes locked on the figure beside Sable like they were watching a blade hover above someone’s throat—one wrong move away from disaster.Lyra’s face had turned to stone. Her pale eyes didn’t blink.Sable’s lungs refused to fill. She stared at the silhouette, at the mouth that had spoken Mother with a voice too smooth to belong to grief.Caelan’s eyes—violent blue—held on Lyra, and for a heartbeat Sable felt something pull inside her, like the bond wanted to reach for the woman who’d just been named.Then the second heartbeat throbbed.Thump.And the air around Sable tasted like iron.Lyra’s second stepped between Sable and the elders, half-shifted now—bones subtly thicker, eyes brighter, teeth a fraction sharper.“Luna,” he said quiet

CHAPTER 13 The moment Sable said Caelan Varr, the hall tightened around the name like it was law made sound.The silhouette stayed on its knees—forced there by the command—and Sable could feel the strain in the air the way you could feel a storm pressing against windows. The torch flames trembled, and the glowing truth circle beneath her boots pulsed like a heartbeat.Not hers.Not his.Something older.“Again,” Caelan had rasped, real voice breaking through the smooth mask. “Tell me again… so it can’t.”And then the other voice—silk-smooth, satisfied—had leaned into Sable’s ear with a cruel intimacy.Say your full name. Open the door.Sable’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She stared down at the kneeling figure, at storm-blue eyes that were too alive to be a hallucination and too wrong to be safe.Her mark burned.The second heartbeat inside her chest pulsed once—slow, please

CHAPTER 15 The passage was narrow and steep, carved through rock like someone had clawed an escape route out of desperation.Maeven moved fast for a barefoot woman with no visible weapon. Sable struggled to keep up, ribs aching, breath tearing in her throat. The glow from the hall faded behind them, but Sable could still feel it—pressure like invisible hands gripping her shoulders.The widow-right hadn’t released.Not fully.It dragged behind her like a long cape made of law.“Maeven,” Sable gasped, “I can still feel them.”Maeven didn’t slow. “Because you didn’t end the command,” she snapped. “If you release it now, they’ll swarm you.”“And if I don’t?” Sable panted.Maeven glanced back, eyes sharp. “Then you’ll burn yourself out,” she said. “Command isn’t free. It costs.”Sable swallowed hard, throat raw. Her mark pulsed like a wound with its own heartbeat. And beneath her ribs, the second h

CHAPTER 17 Maeven’s tunnels didn’t lead back to daylight.They led to Nightfell.Sable realized it the moment the air changed—less damp stone, more cold pine, more smoke, more the sharp clean scent of wolves who lived under rules older than the town above them.They climbed a long stair carved into rock until Sable’s legs shook, ribs burning with every breath. Maeve kept one hand on Sable’s wrist the entire way, as if she was afraid the bond would slip out of Sable’s skin if she let go.When they reached the hatch, Maeven stopped and listened.Above them: silence.Not empty.Controlled.Sable swallowed. “Lyra will be waiting.”Maeven’s mouth tightened. “Of course she will,” she said. “And we will walk into it like we have a choice.”Sable’s mark pulsed, dimmer than before but still awake. The second heartbeat remained—slower now, irritated, as if it resented being denied.Thu

CHAPTER 19 No one moved.Not the elders.Not the guards.Not Lyra.Sable couldn’t even breathe without pain.Caelan stood between her and the basin like a man who’d crawled out of his own grave and refused to apologize for the mess. His eyes were storm-blue and burning. His shoulders were squared like he’d decided death didn’t get to take his authority.But the air around him wasn’t stable.It trembled at the edges, as if the room had to keep remembering he was there.Maeven’s voice came from the doorway, strained by whatever barrier held her out. “He’s not anchored,” she warned. “He’s standing on will alone.”Lyra’s expression hardened back into command. “That is not my son,” she said, voice like ice.Caelan’s gaze snapped to her, fury bright. “Lie again,” he said, and the runes pulsed in response. “See what it costs you.”Sable’s mark burned under the circlet, and the second heartbea