All Chapters of The Alpha’s Sanctuary: His Forbidden Mate: Chapter 101 - Chapter 110

Lena's POVNobody celebrated and I want to be honest about why.It was not grief, though grief was present. It was not exhaustion, though exhaustion was absolute. It was something more specific than either of those things. It was the particular flatness that came from having spent so long in survival mode that the removal of the immediate threat did not produce relief so much as it produced the absence of threat, which turned out to feel very different from relief.People sat down. That was mostly what happened. The people who had been standing sat down and the people who were already down stayed there and everyone breathed in the specific way of people whose bodies had been running on emergency reserves for longer than emergency reserves were designed to sustain.Marcus organized the Fae soldiers within two hours. Of course he did. Ninety stranded soldiers without a commander or a gateway to return through, contained in the east section with water distributed and a watch rotation in

Darion's POVLena showed me the site on a Tuesday evening by putting her phone in front of my face while I was trying to read something.I looked at the photograph. Three buildings around a central courtyard, former industrial property, large windows, considerably more space than the old ruins had ever offered."It is not pretty," I said."Not yet," she said.I looked at the photograph for another moment. "You have already decided," I said."I decided when I saw it this morning," she said. "I am showing you because I want you to see it, not because I need you to approve it.""There is a difference," I said."Yes," she said. "There is."I handed her phone back. "When do we start," I said.She smiled. "I was hoping you would ask it that way rather than the other way.""What is the other way," I said."Are you sure," she said. "That is the other way.""I am sure," I said. "I was sure when I saw your face when you showed me the picture."She looked at me for a moment with the expression s

Lena's POVI went to check on him the second evening.Not because I had planned to. I was walking back from the supply room and the east block corridor was on the way and I told myself it was practical to check that he had everything he needed, that it was the same thing I would do for any new resident, which was mostly true.He was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed frame when I knocked and pushed the door open. Not the bed. The floor. I noticed that and filed it without commenting on it."You do not have to check on me," he said."I check on all new residents," I said.He looked at me with an expression that said he did not entirely believe that but was not going to argue it. "Okay," he said.I leaned against the doorframe. "How did you end up in hiding," I said. "The full version."He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at his hands."They took me in the second week," he said. "The Fae. I was trying to move a group of people from the western district to the wareh

Lena's POV"You think this ends with me?"The hunter laughed, blood coating his teeth, wrists bound to the chair like he had chosen it himself. "We are everywhere. Government offices. Military bases. Church pulpits. You cannot arrest a movement."I watched him from across the room, arms crossed, keeping my face completely still. Not because I was not afraid. Because fear in this room would only feed him."The Purge," I said. "Tell me everything."He leaned forward against his restraints, smile widening. "Why? So you can run?"Darion moved from the wall before I could blink. One hand wrapped around the hunter's collar, voice dropping to something quiet and final. "She said tell her."The smile stayed. The eyes shifted. Calculating."Fine." The hunter settled back as Darion released him. "We are a global organization. Forty-three countries. Government funded, privately operated, and we have been building for twelve years while you people were hiding and playing house." He looked at me

Lena's POV"Stop looking at the phone.""I am not looking at the phone.""Lena." Darion's voice was flat. "You have looked at it six times in the last four minutes."I put the phone face down on the seat between us. Outside the car window the city moved past in pieces, streetlights and shuttered storefronts and twice now a police vehicle going the opposite direction fast enough that my stomach had done something unpleasant both times."I am fine," I said."You are not fine," he said. "That is acceptable. You do not have to be fine right now."I looked at him. He was watching the road ahead, jaw set, one hand on the wheel and the other resting on the gear shift close enough to mine that our fingers almost touched. Almost."The footage is everywhere," I said. "Every platform. Every network that pulled it initially has put it back up because the ones that kept running it broke every viewership record they have ever had." I picked the phone back up. "Comments are running about sixty perce