Semua Bab Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Beast: Bab 31 - Bab 40

Dawn did not bring peace.It revealed damage.Ash drifted through the air like gray snow, settling over charred beams and trampled earth. The fires had been contained before sunrise, but smoke still curled from the outer dwellings, thin and stubborn, refusing to disappear.Lira stood at the center of the clearing, watching the pack rebuild what had nearly been taken from them.No one blamed her.That almost made it worse.Some glanced at her with curiosity. Others with something close to reverence. A few avoided her eyes entirely, as though unsure what she was now.She wasn’t sure either.The memory replayed in fragments her fear, the heat of the flames, the attacker’s blade, and then the invisible force that had thrown him back without her ever touching him.She had not shifted.She had not fought.She had simply willed it.And the world had listened.“You haven’t slept.”Kael’s voice came from behind her, low and steady.She didn’t turn immediately. “Neither have you.”He moved besi

The silence that followed her demonstration did not feel like victory. It felt like calculation. The gathered Alphas did not look at her with awe anymore. They looked at her with strategy in their eyes, each of them measuring what her existence would mean for their territories, their authority, their survival. Lira could almost see the invisible lines being drawn in the clearing, alliances forming and dissolving in the space between breaths. Kael stepped fully to her side, not shielding her, not claiming dominance over her power, but standing as her equal in the center of the storm. The distinction mattered. It told the other packs that she was not a weapon he wielded but a force he stood beside. That subtle message rippled outward. Rhys of Silver Hollow was the first to speak. His tone remained steady, though the tension in his shoulders betrayed how carefully he was choosing his words. “Control implies discipline,” he said. “Discipline requires understanding. Do you understand what

The forest did not sleep that night, and neither did I. The wind moved through the ancient pines like a whispering council, carrying the scent of ash from the burned border and the iron tang of blood that still stained the clearing where the council had turned against us. Every step I took toward the ridge felt heavier than the last, not because of exhaustion but because I knew that by the time the moon reached its peak, nothing in our world would remain the same. Kael walked beside me in silence, his presence a living storm barely leashed beneath skin and bone, his wolf restless after what the Elders had declared, after the accusation that I was the catalyst of a curse reborn. He had not denied them with words. He had denied them by choosing to stand at my side. That choice had drawn a line in blood. Below us, the pack gathered in uneasy clusters, their voices low and fractured, loyalty split between fear of prophecy and faith in their Alpha. I could feel their gazes lifting toward t

The silver wolf did not vanish when I blinked. It remained suspended beyond the trembling wall, its form woven from light and shadow, immense and regal, its eyes fixed on me with an intelligence that felt older than the forest and deeper than instinct. The air inside the Alpha house grew colder with each passing second, frost feathering along the edges of the windows despite the fire still burning in the hearth. Outside, the pack’s alarmed voices rose and fell in waves, but none dared breach the threshold without command. They felt it too. The shift. The wrongness. Kael’s fingers tightened around mine, his body angled protectively in front of me even though the threat did not feel immediate. It felt inevitable. “What do they want?” he asked, his voice steady but threaded with a tension I rarely heard. I swallowed, keeping my gaze locked with the silver creature beyond the veil. “They say the pact must be renewed. That the blood must answer.” Kael’s brow furrowed. “What pact.” The Hig

Rowan did not wait for the next full moon. He came at dusk three days after the binding, when the sky was caught between gold and gathering gray and the forest carried that suspended stillness that often precedes a storm. I felt him before the sentries howled the warning, before the ground began to vibrate faintly beneath the synchronized footfall of wolves approaching our western border. The binding within me reacted instantly, not with panic but with awareness, like a shield tightening across an unseen fracture. I was standing beside Kael near the central clearing when the first alarm cry split the air. Our gazes locked, and in that single look an entire conversation passed between us. It was time. The pack moved with disciplined urgency, warriors shifting mid stride as they raced toward the border. No chaos. No confusion. Kael had prepared them well. Yet beneath the surface of order I sensed it. Old wounds reopening. Rowan had once led many of these wolves. He had once commanded l