《Mending A Broken Alpha》全部章節：第 31 章 - 第 40 章

Victory didn’t come in a single moment.It came in pieces, small, decisive shifts that stacked on each other until the outcome became unavoidable, because while the Alpha King had marched forward with confidence, backed by Packs that believed his name alone would be enough to crush any resistance, what he failed to account for was how fragile forced loyalty becomes when survival is placed on the other side of the scale.By the time the first real clash happened at the eastern boundary, it was already clear that his numbers were not as solid as they had seemed on paper, because several of the Packs that had pledged support to him showed up late, underprepared, or not at all, choosing instead to linger just outside the battlefield, watching, waiting, calculating which side would stand when the dust settled.Cowardly.But useful.I stood at the front line when it began, the ground beneath my feet steady, my gaze fixed on the approaching forces as they spread across the horizon in a forma

I heard the horses before I saw them.That heavy, frantic rhythm of hooves tearing across the ground in a way that didn’t belong to a normal return, not after a victory, not after a war that was supposed to end in celebration, but something else entirely—something rushed, something panicked, something wrong.And when the gates finally opened, I already knew.I just didn’t want to believe it yet.Dante was brought in on horseback, his body held upright by two warriors on either side, his head slightly lowered as if even lifting it had become too much effort, his skin paler than I had ever seen it, almost drained of color completely, and for a second my mind refused to connect what my eyes were seeing to the man I knew.Because this wasn’t him.This couldn’t be him.My feet moved before I even realized it, pushing through the crowd that had gathered, voices rising around me, but everything sounded far away, like I was underwater, like the world had suddenly slowed just enough for me to

He opened his eyes when I least expected it.Not with strength, not with the sharp awareness I was used to seeing in him, but slowly, like it took more effort than it should have, like even something as simple as waking up had become a task his body had to fight through, and for a brief second I felt a flicker of relief before reality settled right back in.Because awareness didn’t mean recovery.It just meant he was still here.“Dante…” I stepped closer immediately, my voice lower now, steadier, though my chest was anything but. “You shouldn’t be awake yet.”A faint curve touched his lips, not quite a smile, more like a shadow of one, as if he didn’t have the strength for anything more but still refused to let go of that edge of control he carried even in moments like this.“Seems I didn’t get that choice,” he replied, his voice rough, quieter than usual, but still unmistakably his.I swallowed, forcing myself not to react to how weak it sounded.“You need to rest,” I said, already r

I knew the exact moment his body gave out.It wasn’t when his words started to slow as he addressed the elders, or when his steps lost that sharp, commanding edge as he walked through the Packhouse halls with warriors trailing behind him like shadows trying to keep up with a storm.It was the moment his eyes found mine across the courtyard.There was something in them—something quieter than pain, heavier than exhaustion—like a man who had already accepted the cost of what he had done, even before his body began to demand payment.And then he collapsed.One second, he was standing tall, shoulders squared, voice steady as he dismissed the last of the officials. The next, his knees buckled without warning, his body hitting the ground with a dull, final sound that seemed to echo far louder than it should have.Everything around me blurred.I don’t remember moving, but suddenly I was there, pushing through the crowd, dropping to my knees beside him as the warriors panicked, voices rising,

I didn’t realize how far the assumption had spread until the Elders started smiling at me like I belonged to him.It wasn’t obvious at first, not in a way that could be pointed out and corrected without making it worse, but it was there in the way they lingered when I walked into a room, in the way their conversations softened and shifted as though I had stepped into something private, something already decided without my consent.At first, I thought it was the usual curiosity, the natural consequence of me spending days and nights in his room while he recovered, but curiosity doesn’t settle into certainty that quickly, and it certainly doesn’t change the way people begin to treat you like you’ve crossed an invisible line that cannot be uncrossed.It became clear the morning I was summoned.Not requested.Not invited.Summoned.The word itself carried weight, and I felt it the moment the guard delivered the message, his tone respectful but firm, leaving no room for delay or avoidance,