All Chapters of The Price Of Fate: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Kieran’s POV By the time I got home, the night felt too loud.Not with music. Not with laughter.With the things I couldn’t outrun.Every corridor of the Alpha house smelled like power and legacy and expectation, polished wood, old stone, wolf-scent layered into every wall. The kind of place that reminded you you were born with a duty pinned to your spine.But all I could taste was Nyra.Blood and rain and heartbreak.I shut my bedroom door behind me and stood there, staring at the dark like it might swallow me whole. My hands were clenched so tight my knuckles ached. My chest felt… wrong. Too tight. Too empty. Like someone had reached in and scraped my ribs clean.I’d seen her face when Beverly looped her arm through mine.I’d heard her voice, small, shaking, when she asked how long?And I had failed her.Again.I crossed the room and slammed my palm against the wall, once. Not hard enough to break it, but hard enough to feel something other than the way my heart was bleeding.“What

Kieran’s POV Sleep wouldn’t take me.It circled, just out of reach, like a mercy it didn’t think I deserved.I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling beams of the Alpha house, listening to the silence breathe, the old stone settling, distant guards changing shifts, and the faint crackle of torches somewhere down the corridor. Everything was normal.And my wolf was not.He paced inside me like a caged thing, nails scraping along my ribs, restless enough to make my skin feel too tight.I turned onto my side.Then onto my back again.Then sat up so fast the mattress creaked beneath me.“What is it?” I muttered under my breath, fingers digging into my hair. “What do you want?”My wolf didn’t answer with words. He answered with sensation, an itch in my bones, a pull in my chest, a dread I couldn’t place.I closed my eyes and tried to breathe through it.But the bond,The bond felt wrong.Not aching the way it ached when Nyra was sad.Not burning the way it burned when she was near.This w

Nyra’s POVWhen I finally stepped outside the hospital, the sunlight stabbed my eyes like punishment. The air was colder than I expected, sharp enough to make my lungs ache.For a moment I just stood there on the steps, breathing carefully, trying to pretend I wasn’t shaking.The pack grounds stretched around me, familiar paths, clean stone, people moving with purpose. Wolves laughed in small groups. Warriors strode past. A couple walked hand-in-hand like love wasn’t something you had to earn.No one looked at me.Or worse, some did, quickly, and then looked away as if I was something embarrassing to be seen noticing.I tightened my grip on my bag and started walking.The first few steps were manageable.Then the pain hit properly.My stitches pulled tight, and a sharp spear of agony shot through my side. My calf screamed with every footfall, swollen and bruised beneath the bandage. I tried to mask it, straighten my posture, keep my face blank, walk like it didn’t hurt.But my body

Nyra’s POV For a long moment, I just stared at my side.At the place where my blood had been.At the place that should still have stitches and swollen skin and pain.But there was nothing.No wound.No tear.No proof that I had been ripped open and forced to crawl my way home like an animal trying not to die.Only smooth skin… as if the night had never happened.As if I had never happened.My breath came out in a thin, shaking sound.Then my eyes lifted to my mother’s hands.Her fingers were trembling like she was holding back an earthquake.The last trace of that pale glow had faded, but I could still see it in my mind, light spilling through her skin like it belonged there. Like it had always belonged there.My body reacted before my mind did.I backed away.One step.Then another.Pure instinct.The kind of instinct you have when something familiar suddenly becomes dangerous.“Nyra…” my mother whispered, her voice tight.I shook my head hard, my throat closing.“What, what was t

Nyra’s POV When my mother returned, her arms were full, herbs, dried meat, potatoes. Her face was set in a hard line, like she’d built armour out of anger.“We’re going,” she said simply.She didn’t ask if I was ready.Readiness didn’t matter.We walked together to the assembly grounds.The closer we got to the pack centre, the thicker the air became with presence, wolves, power, judgement. The smell of smoke and sweat and dominance layered over everything.When we stepped into the open ground, the murmurs started immediately.Heads turned.Eyes landed on us like stones.“Outcasts.”“Why are they here?”“Is that the wolfless one?”I felt it in my bones, the way the pack’s attention sharpened when it had something to hate.My mother lifted her chin.Elaine walked like she owned the ground beneath her feet, like she was daring the pack to remember what she truly was.And the pack… the pack shifted back.Not much.But enough.They glared from a distance.They whispered instead of sho