Semua Bab The Alpha's Refusal: Bab 111 - Bab 120

Rhys's POVThe heavy bronze doors didn't just close; they sealed the room with a finality that felt like a gavel striking stone. I stood in the sudden, ringing silence of the Great Hall, the scent of woodsmoke and old coal still clinging to the air—the lingering ghost of Elara.My wrist still burned where that man, Caïn, had gripped it. A Northern stray, a nameless mercenary, had dared to place himself between me and the woman who had haunted my thoughts for years. Worse than his touch was the way she had accepted it. She hadn't flinched from him. She had used him as an anchor."Father?"The voice was tentative, yet laced with that familiar, budding arrogance I had spent years cultivating in him. Jaxon walked toward me, his chest puffed out, his eyes searching mine for approval."Why didn't you let the guards take them?" Jaxon asked, his lip curling with disdain. "That woman was looking at me like I was some kind of freak. You should have taught her a lesson about how we treat beggars

Jaxon waited until the rhythmic clack-clack of the corridor guard’s boots faded toward the west wing. His father had ordered him to stay in the study, but the room felt like it was shrinking. Every time he looked at the history books, he saw that Northern woman’s eyes. He felt a burning need to prove Seraphina right—to find proof that the North was a fraud.He didn't take the main stairs. He knew the palace's servant routes, narrow stone passages that smelled of damp laundry and cold mutton. He slipped through a heavy iron door and found himself in the "Throat"—the massive, vertical transition zone where the luxury of the Moon River fortress met the raw machinery of the mountain.The temperature dropped ten degrees in a single flight of stairs. Jaxon’s fine leather slippers were useless here; the stone steps were slick with "mine sweat," a greasy condensation that made him stumble. He grabbed a rusted handrail, and a flake of iron bit into his palm. He hissed, wiping the blood on his

Rhys's POVI was in the middle of a heated session with the Council of Elders, the air thick with the smell of old parchment and the stubborn refusal of the Lords to release more grain. The map of the Northern borders was spread across the table, but I wasn't looking at the lines. I was thinking of Elara. Every minute she spent in the lower tiers was a minute I wasn't watching her, and that thought sat like a stone in my gut.Then, the mountain spoke.A low, subterranean thump vibrated through the floor of the Council Chamber. It wasn't loud, but it was deep—the kind of sound that traveled through the bedrock."Tier 4," one of the Elders muttered, glancing at the window.My heart lurched. The Northern sector. Elara was down there. I stood up so abruptly my chair clattered to the floor, my Alpha instincts screaming. The image of her trapped under a mountain of soot and stone hit me with a physical force that made my lungs seize."Meeting is adjourned," I snapped, already halfway to the

Rhys's POVThe infirmary was too quiet, save for the rhythmic snip of medical shears and the low, urgent murmurs of the healers. I stood at the foot of the bed, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, watching them work.Jaxon had finally succumbed to exhaustion. He was curled into a small, fitful ball on the adjoining bed, but even in sleep, his hand remained anchored to the edge of Elara’s mattress. Every few minutes, his fingers would twitch, reaching out to ensure she was still there."Sire, we need to remove her tunic to dress the shoulder wound," the head medic whispered, casting a nervous glance at me."Do it," I muttered.As they cut away the blood-soaked fabric, I felt a sharp, hollow ache in my chest. I had accused her of kidnapping. I had accused her of using my son as a pawn. But the evidence of my cruelty was written in her flesh.Her shoulder was a mottled purple, crushed by the weight of the beam she had held up to keep Jaxon from being flattened. Her back was a roadmap

Elara’s POV"You aren't going anywhere."Rhys’s voice wasn't a shout; it was a low, jagged rasp that carried the weight of a death sentence. He stood framed in the doorway, a towering silhouette of soot and repressed fury. The air in the infirmary instantly turned heavy, saturated with his dominant Alpha scent—pine, rain, and the metallic tang of a predator on the hunt.I forced myself to stand taller, despite the white-hot agony radiating from my fractured leg. I looked at him through the narrow slits of my metallic mask, my own Northern aura rising like a cold mist to meet his heat."Step aside, Rhys," I said, my voice forced into a clinical, detached edge. "The North has no business in a palace that smells of rot and failed promises. My men are waiting.""Privacy?" Rhys let out a sharp, mirthless laugh as he took a predatory step forward, closing the distance until I could feel the warmth of his breath against the cold iron of my mask. "You save my son's life, you claw through a mo