Semua Bab The twin Alpha and the Wolfless one : Bab 61 - Bab 70

Ariana's POVMorgana didn't take me back to the ballroom.She found a smaller room two doors down, lamp-lit and warm, with a settee and a low table and the general atmosphere of a space that had never witnessed anything terrible. She sat across from me with the composed attention of someone who had all the time in the world and intended to use it correctly.I kept the linen around my shoulders and said nothing and waited."First." Morgana leaned forward, elbows on her knees, dark eyes level with mine. "What happened in that room was not your fault. Not your dress, not your location, not your wolfless status." Her voice was precise and left no room for argument. "None of it. Do you understand me?""Yes.""Say it like you mean it."I met her eyes. "It wasn't my fault."She held my gaze for three seconds, measuring. Then nodded once."Good." She sat back. "Now. The second thing."She was quiet for a moment, assembling something."You bowed your head when Darius spoke to you tonight. I

Ariana's POVI knew Kade's body just like the back of my hand. Not only romantically but the way you learned to read a sky after enough time spent underneath it. The set of his shoulders when he was managing something difficult. The particular stillness that settled over him when he'd already decided something but was waiting for the room to catch up. The way his jaw shifted by a fraction when he was holding back the version of himself that didn't have to be careful.He was holding back right now.Standing by the window with his hand dropped from the frame, watching me with the controlled patience of a man who had made his case and refused to press it further because pressing it would mean admitting how much the answer mattered.That restraint cost him something. I could see exactly how much.I looked at Morgana.She sat with the unhurried composure. Her dark eyes were steady on mine, carrying no urgency, and pressure held out like a door that would stay unlocked regardless of when I

Ariana's POVIt started small enough that I almost convinced myself I was imagining it.Kade missing dinner on a Tuesday. Kane leaving before breakfast on a Wednesday. Both of them present in the pack house but somehow unreachable, the way a person could be in the same room as you and still feel like they were somewhere else entirely.By the end of the first week I'd stopped convincing myself.---The pattern was consistent enough to have structure.Kade left early. Returned late, sometimes not at all, on three separate nights his bedroom door stayed open and dark and I knew without checking that the bed hadn't been slept in. When he was home he was on his phone, or in his office with the door mostly closed, or deep in conversation with Marcus or someone I didn't recognize, voices dropping whenever I passed in the corridor.He wasn't avoiding me exactly. He spoke when I spoke to him. He asked if I'd eaten, if I'd slept, if my energy levels were holding. All the right questions delive

Ariana's POV My feet moved before my brain caught up. I set the glass down on a side table. The cool wood felt solid under my fingers. I needed to know. I walked back down the corridor. Each step was quiet on the thick rug. My heart pounded hard in my chest. The study door stood closed. A thin line of light showed under it. The sounds grew louder and clearer. A woman's moan cut through the air. It was raw and needy. "Yes, Kade. Harder." I reached for the knob. My hand shook a little. I turned it slowly and pushed the door open. The scene hit me like a slap. Kade was on top of a woman on his big desk. Papers and books lay scattered on the floor. He thrust into her deep and steady. His hips moved with power. Sweat gleamed on his bare back. The woman lay under him. Her legs wrapped tight around his waist. She arched up to meet every push. Her nails dug into his shoulders. Moans spilled from her lips without shame. "Fuck, you feel so good," Kade growled low. His voice was rough wi

Ariana's POVThe pack house rearranged itself around absence.That was the only way I could describe what the following days became, a slow reorganization of the space I'd been living in, the routines I'd built, the small geography of a life that had started to feel like mine. Except now it was being quietly restructured around two people I hadn't chosen and couldn't escape.I rarely saw Kade.When I did, it was brief, a corridor crossing, a kitchen overlap that lasted four minutes before he found a reason to leave, a dinner where he sat at the head of the table and directed most of his attention to Marcus and pack business and the middle distance. Present in the technical sense. Somewhere else entirely in every sense that mattered.Kane had simply vanished from my daily life like smoke.I told myself I was adjusting. I told myself this was the natural order of things, fated mates, sacred bonds, the moon deciding what the people inside the bond didn't get to. I told myself Kade had ex