Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Price Of Fate: Kabanata 121 - Kabanata 130

Ronan’s POVBy the time I got back to the grounds, the air had changed. The challenge arena that had been loud with jeers and pride minutes ago now felt like a graveyard that hadn’t decided whether to mourn or riot. People stood in clusters, whispering like the wind might carry their words straight to the barrier. Wolves who usually barked orders with their chests out were suddenly careful with their voices.Fear does that. It makes the brave men quiet. It makes the cruel ones calculative. And it makes the cowards look for someone to blame. I stepped through the crowd with Malcolm’s scent still clinging to my skin, my shirt still missing, my hands still smelling like blood and earth. The moment a few pack members saw my face, they pulled back instinctively, like they remembered I wasn’t here to play. I wasn’t. Not today.Keiran spotted me before I even reached the seating area. He moved fast, too fast for someone who’d just been knocked out and humiliated in front of the entire pack. H

Ronan’s POVElder Soren looked disturbed, and I could tell why. Fear is a seed. Once planted, it grows fast. Especially in rooms full of old men who had lived long enough to fear anything new.Ingrid pressed harder.“And when the Outlands comes,” she said, “who pays? The children. The omegas. The weak. Our territory will be eaten. Our people will be slaughtered. And you want to place that thing beside the Alpha seat and call it destiny?”My teeth ground. I took one step forward. But before I spoke, Ethan’s hand came down hard on the table.“Enough,” he said, and his voice carried warning, exhaustion, and something else, fear, buried deep. “Enough, Ingrid.”Ingrid turned to him, shocked.“You would silence me?” she demanded. “When I am speaking for the safety of our people?”Ethan’s eyes flashed.“And you would speak as if you are the only one who wants this pack safe?” he snapped.The elders murmured. My mother’s gaze stayed steady on Ethan, measuring. Keiran looked like he was holding

Keiran’s POVThe walk back felt longer than the walk there. The evening air grew colder, the sky turning that deep blue that made the barrier line feel closer even when you couldn’t see it. My mind kept replaying the moment Nyra’s wolf shifted into Beverly’s exact form, kept replaying the gasp of the crowd, the fear in the elders’ eyes, the way Ingrid’s face had lit up like she’d just found permission to become monstrous.When I got home, the lights in the main house were on. Too bright. Too sharp. And the tension hit me before I even crossed the threshold. My father and mother were waiting. Not sitting calmly like parents waiting for a son. Waiting like judges waiting for a criminal to return.The air smelled like argument. Like raised voices that had been forced down but hadn’t cooled. Like the whole room had been pacing. My father stood near the middle of the living space, arms crossed, jaw tight. My mother sat rigidly on the couch, eyes cold, fingers clenched around a cup she hadn’

Nyra’s POVI couldn’t stop shaking. Not because of Beverly. Not even because of the pain in my ribs where her last blow had landed before everything went… strange. I was shaking because I didn’t understand what I was anymore. I didn’t understand what had happened. One moment I had been on the ground, tasting blood, hearing the crowd as if they were miles away, feeling my own heartbeat slow like it was giving up, and the next, there had been light. Golden. Ancient. Alive. I remembered screams. I remembered gasps. I remembered the way the air had seemed to split. Then the memory blurred, like my mind had grabbed the most terrifying part and shoved it behind a locked door.Now I was sitting upright, wrapped in Ronan’s scent, but not in his arms. Not here. Not at the arena. Somewhere else. My mother’s hands were on my face, firm, grounding, her palms smelling faintly of herbs and smoke and something older than the pack itself. Her eyes were glossy, but she was holding herself together with

Nyra’s POVIngrid stood stiffly near the front, her mouth set, her eyes glittering with something like triumph even as her son exposed her. Because she knew what Ethan knew: Even if the source was revealed, you couldn’t force a crowd to un-feel fear.Ethan lifted his hands, trying to regain control.“Enough!” he roared again. “You will not shame yourselves further.”But the crowd still resisted, still shouted, still insisted,“We don’t want them!”“Not her!”“We won’t accept it!”Ethan’s face tightened. Everyone could see it: an Alpha could command silence, but he couldn’t command loyalty once fear had taken root. And then Ronan stepped forward. His voice cut through the chaos, calm but lethal.“Fine,” he said.The single word made heads turn. He looked at the pack, looked at them like they were beneath him. Then he spoke, and his voice was steady, cold, final.“If you are this ungrateful,” Ronan said, “this narrow-minded… then serving you would be a disservice to my father’s memory.”