The Alpha’s Sanctuary: His Forbidden Mate のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 61 - チャプター 70

Darion's POVThe protection became a cage in three days.Subtle at first. Kieran asked where Lena was going when she left the ruins. Suggesting it might be safer if someone accompanied her. Mentioning that certain areas of the city were seeing increased Fae activity and perhaps she should avoid them.By day three he was positioning himself between Lena and the exit every time she tried to leave."Where are you going?" he asked. Pleasant. Curious. Completely blocking the path."The market. We need supplies.""I can send someone for supplies. You should stay here where it is safe.""I have been going to the market alone for a century, Kieran.""Before you freed me, yes. Before every Fae in three territories knew what you were. The situation has changed." His silver eyes were steady. Reasonable. "I am simply being cautious.""You are being controlled.""I am preventing you from walking into a situation you are not prepared to handle." He did not move. "The Fae who have been arriving, the

Lena's POVI felt the challenge through the bond before I heard it.Darion's rage. His wolf's fury. The absolute determination to prove something to Kieran even if it killed him.I ran toward the perimeter and arrived just in time to see Darion shift and lunge.Kieran did not move.Did not dodge. Did not prepare. Just stood there while a fully shifted Alpha wolf came at him with everything.Then he raised one hand.Darion stopped mid-air. Not caught. Not held by physical force. Just stopped. Frozen in space like reality had decided he could go no further."Interesting," Kieran said calmly. "You are faster than I expected. Strong too. For a wolf."He closed his fist.Darion dropped. Hit the ground hard enough that I felt it through the bond. Pain. Shock. Humiliation.I was moving before I thought about it. Putting myself between them. Hands raised. Power glowing gold in my palms."Enough," I said.Kieran looked at me with mild surprise. "He challenged me. This is his consequence.""He

Darion's POVThe creek was shallow this time of year.I found it on the second night after leaving the ruins. Followed the sound of it through the dark because I needed something that was moving and honest and did not require anything from me. Water was good for that. It did not look at you. Did not measure you against ancient Fae lords with power that stopped wolves mid-air like they were nothing.Did not remind you that you had run.I sat on the bank with my back against a birch tree and my knees pulled up and I had been sitting there long enough that the bark had left a pattern in my skin. The bond hummed at the back of my awareness, warm and present and exactly far enough away that I could breathe around it without drowning.Lena was awake. She was always awake lately. I could feel her at the edges, the way you feel a lamp left on in another room. Steady. Constant. Just not close.I did not reach through. She did not reach through.We were both waiting for the other one to move fi

Lena's POVI felt the bond go quiet at 3 AM.Not severed. Not broken. Just suddenly, completely still in a way it had never been before. Like a river that had been running constantly behind my awareness for months and then between one breath and the next simply stopped making sound.I sat up in the dark.Darion.I reached through and he was there. Somewhere. The warmth was still present but muffled, like trying to hear someone speak through several walls of solid stone. Close enough to confirm he was alive. Too distant to confirm anything else.I was on my feet and moving before I had decided to move.---Kieran was already awake when I found him.That was the first thing that registered wrongly. He was sitting outside the eastern section of the ruins in the pre-dawn darkness like a man who had not been to sleep at all. No book. No training materials. Just sitting with his hands rested on his knees, looking at the sky with the patient expression of someone waiting for a specific momen

Darion's POVShe was holding my face like she was checking I was real.Both hands. Thumbs at my jaw. Gold light fading slowly from her skin, leaving just Lena in the dark of the hollow, looking at me with an expression that had cracked open completely from whatever sealed, glass-covered thing she had been wearing for the past weeks.This was her. The real version. Eyes too bright and breathing unsteady and not performing composure for anyone."You're bleeding," she said."I know.""How long were you here?""Since last night." I tried to sit up straighter and my ribs disagreed. "The bindings did something to the bond. Muffled it. I could feel you but I could not reach through properly.""I felt it go quiet." Something moved across her face. "I thought you had left again. Properly this time.""I was not going to leave again," I said."I know that now." She helped me shift my weight against the wall, her hands careful around the injury at my collarbone. "I should have known about it befo