جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 70

Chapter 38LeahThe warm water had washed away the remnants of our night together, but nothing could wash away the contentment that had settled deep in my bones. Darien wrapped a towel around me, his movements gentle and reverent as he dried me off.I closed my eyes, reaching inward for Andromeda. She was still dormant, still silent. But there was something different now. A sense of peace, of satisfaction, emanating from where she slept. Like she was content to rest while I experienced this happiness. I think she knew our plan was for him not to mark me and she was afraid unmarked I might run again. The fastest way to end the heat is to be marked. It wasn’t the plan we had in mind but I think both Darien and I were happy about it. We were both content … happy. Too hell with the Raven Witch. Darien was mine now and I wasn’t about to lose him to anyone. No one would steal this happiness from me.“What are you thinking about?” Darien asked softly, the towel moving across my shoulders.“T

LeahDarien's hand gripped mine as we waited, healers rushing past us in organized chaos. He hadn't spoken since we'd arrived, but I could feel him through the bond. A storm of rage and fear churning beneath a carefully controlled surface.The doors burst open.Tracey came through first, her blonde hair matted with dirt and something dark. Behind her, two dire wolves in human form carried Cain on a stretcher between them. His massive frame looked wrong like this. Mangled. His shirt had been torn away, and a jagged wound ran diagonally across his chest, the skin around it blackened as if scorched from the inside."Get him on the table," the head healer barked. "Now."Tracey stumbled as she moved alongside the stretcher, her hand locked around Cain's wrist. One of the healers tried to guide her away and she shoved him off with surprising force."Don't touch me. I'm not leaving him.""Ma'am, we need space to work.""Then work around me."The healer looked to Darien for help, but Darien o

LeahThe bond told me Darien was moving fast.Not his emotions exactly, more like the sensation of distance stretching between us, growing the way the silence grows in a room after someone leaves it. I watched out the window for a long time before I finally decided to go and join Keanu. He told me he would wait for me at breakfast before Darien left. That was quite a while ago.Keanu was sitting at the dining table when I arrived, nursing a cup of something dark and steaming with the focused reverence of a man encountering coffee for what might be only the second or third time in his adult life. He was wearing one of the loose linen shirts he seemed to favor, his hair pulled back in a knot, his amber eyes tracking every person who passed through the hall with alert, unapologetic curiosity. A large plate of food sat in front of him, half demolished.He looked up when I sat down across from him and pushed a full plate toward me without being asked. It was still warm."I wasn't sure wha

LeahThe bond stirred before I heard the gates.Keanu had left to play with the kids again, and I was sitting in the kitchen with Marta, learning how to properly dice an onion without mangling it, when the warmth flooded through my chest. Not the faint hum of distance I’d been feeling all day. Something closer. Something urgent.Darien was here.I set the knife down and wiped my hands on the towel Marta had draped over my shoulder hours ago. She looked at me, then at the door, and nodded once.“Go,” she said. “The onion will wait.”I was already moving.The corridors of the compound blurred past me as I ran, my shoes echoing off the stone. The bond pulled me forward like a thread attached to my sternum, tightening with each step. I turned the corner into the main hall and pushed through the heavy doors into the courtyard.The cold hit me first. Then I saw him.Darien stood just inside the gates, his dark tactical clothing dusted with snow, his hair windswept and damp against his foreh

Rayanna stood from the desk, and the air around her shifted. The playful cruelty receded, replaced by something older. Something that had been carrying a weight for a very long time. She was like a cat playing with its prey … me.“You think you know what I want,” she said. “Everyone does. The Raven Witch, hunting the royal bloodline, trying to steal the Lycan King’s power for herself. That’s the story, isn’t it? The version that’s been passed down for generations. The convenient lie that nobody bothered to question.”“You’re telling me it’s not true?”“I’m telling you it’s not mine.” Her violet eyes burned. “Do you know why they call me the Raven Witch?”