Semua Bab The Forbidden Alpha’s Mate: Bab 11 - Bab 20

LEVI'S POVWe made it back to the compound before sunrise.Daniel took over immediately. Wolves on every wall. Gates locked. Full rotation. He moved through the compound like a man who had been waiting for something to do and was relieved to finally have it.I let him run it.I had something else to deal with.Ray was in the medical room. Mina was wrapping his ribs with the focused silence she used when she was angry about something and had decided not to say it yet.I stood in the doorway and watched.He sat on the edge of the table with his shirt off and his jaw tight and his eyes on the wall. The cut above his eye had dried. His knuckles were split three different ways. Three cracked ribs from the hit he'd taken in the clearing.He hadn't made a sound the entire time Mina worked on him."Done," Mina said. She pressed two fingers against his jaw, not gentle, the way she pressed when she wanted someone to look at her. He looked. "Sleep. Both of you." Her eyes moved to me briefly. "Yo

LEVI'S POVNobody spoke for a long time.Daniel looked at the floor. Aaron looked at the document. The compound moved around us , wolves on walls, gates locked, the steady hum of a place preparing for something, and inside this room everything was very still.I looked at Ray.He was looking at the ceiling.His jaw was tight. His hands were still at his sides. The composure was back, all the way back, every wall rebuilt, every crack sealed, and something about that made my chest hurt in a way I hadn't expected.Twenty minutes ago he had been in my bed with his forehead against mine telling me he was tired of fighting this.Now he was looking at the ceiling like he was already making the calculation."Ray," I said."I heard him," he said quietly."I know.""It's a clean solution," he said. Still looking at the ceiling. "Victor gets nothing. The hierarchy stays intact. Both packs survive.""Ray—""It's logical," he said."Stop," I said.He looked at me."Stop doing that," I said. "Stop m

LEVI’S POVRay was at the window before I moved."Don't make a sound," he said quietly.Chris's voice floated up from just outside the wall. Low. Deliberate."It's done," he said. "They don't know I'm still here."A pause.Then Victor's voice. Muffled but clear."And the document.""Carter has it," Chris said. "But they don't understand what it fully does yet.""The bond.""Full strength," Chris said. "Tonight. They're together Victor."Silence.Then Victor, quiet and satisfied."Perfect. Exactly as planned."Ray looked at me.I looked at Ray.Outside Chris shifted. "When do you move.""Before dawn," Victor said. "I want them tired and off balance. Is the east gate accessible.""Ryan sealed it," Chris said. "But the north passage under the old wall. It predates the current structure." He paused. "It's still open. I never reported it."Ray closed his eyes for one second."Twenty wolves inside before the first patrol notices," Victor said."And Levi." Chris's voice changed on my name. "

LEVI'S POVI woke before sunrise.Ray was still asleep.That stopped me for a moment.In two days inside this compound I had never once seen him fully asleep. Always half alert. Always one sound away from being on his feet. Right now he was completely still. Face turned toward me. Composure gone the way it only went when someone wasn't performing for anyone.He looked younger like this.He looked like a man who had been exhausted for five years and had finally put it down.I didn't move.Lay there and thought about the third location. About Victor already waiting at the second one. About twelve hours of travel through old forest with Chris at the front reading terrain he knew better than any of us.About the claiming ceremony at the end of it.About permanent.Ray's arm tightened across my waist without him waking. An unconscious thing. His wolf reaching even in sleep.Something moved in my chest I didn't examine too closely.I needed to get up.I didn't get up.Ray's eyes opened.Slo

LEVI'S POVAll of them.I counted fast.East tree line, eight wolves. West, six. Behind us, ten minimum. Moving slow. Closing the circle deliberately. No rush because they didn't need rush. They had the numbers and they knew it.Ray was already beside me. Blade out. Eyes moving the same way mine were."Formation," he said quietly."Back to back," I said.We moved without discussing it. Aaron and the document between us. Daniel on my left. Chris on Ray's right.The wolves kept closing."Victor wants us alive," Ray said low. "To activate the kill sequence.""Which means they won't strike immediately," I said."They'll try to separate us first," Ray said. "Break the bond's resonance.""Don't let them," I said."Obviously."The first wolf broke from the east tree line.Then three more.Not attacking. Positioning. Cutting off the north exit. The south. Methodical and practiced and completely without aggression because aggression wasn't the instruction.Containment was."There," Chris said