Semua Bab The Alpha’s Debt of Blood: The Unwanted Mate: Bab 1 - Bab 10

The iron collar was colder than the winter air of the northern territories. It bit into the skin of my neck, a constant, heavy reminder that I was no longer a person—I was property.I stood in the shadows behind a heavy velvet curtain, my hands trembling. Outside, the muffled roar of a crowd sounded more like a pack of hungry scavengers than a gathering of high-society wolves. This was the Black Market of the Silver Moon—a place where the law didn't reach and where "broken things" were sold to the highest bidder."Move it, Wolfless," a guard spat, shoving me toward the stage.I stumbled, my bare feet catching on the splintered floorboards. I wanted to snap back, to show a spark of the pride my brother, Leo, had tried so hard to instill in me. But Leo was gone.I closed my eyes, and for a second, I wasn't in a dark auction house. I was back at our pack house, smelling the smoke and hearing the screams. I saw Leo standing between me and the enemy Alpha’s blade. “Run, Elara! Don’t look b

I pressed my face against the cold iron bars, trying to peer into the darkness of the adjacent cell. The silver shackles on my wrists hummed with a low, agonizing vibration, draining the strength from my limbs."Who are you?" I whispered, my voice trembling. "What do you know about Selene?"A low, raspy chuckle emerged from the shadows. A woman stepped forward into the sliver of light cast by the hallway torch. She was thin, her hair a matted silver tangle, but her eyes—bright, piercing gold—held a lucidity that didn't match her haggard appearance."They call me Hala," she said, her voice like dry leaves skittering on stone. "I’ve been in this hole since Kaelen’s father wore the Alpha’s crest. I’ve seen many things, little bird. I saw the way your sister looked at Kaelen when she thought no one was watching. It wasn’t love. It was hunger."My heart skipped a beat. "Selene loved him. Everyone said so. She was the 'Golden Luna' of the North.""Gold is just lead with a prettier coat," Ha

The air in the Great Hall, once thick with the scent of roasted meat and the cloy of spilled wine, was suddenly sharpened by the acrid tang of impending violence. It was a smell I knew all too well—the scent of the night my home burned. But this time, the predator wasn't an anonymous enemy; it was the man I had mourned every single night since the massacre.Leo. My brother. My protector.He stood in the doorway, a ghost returned from the underworld to haunt the living. His presence was a jagged blade, cutting through the silence of the Obsidian Pack. Behind him, the night sky was stained orange by the fires of the border outposts, and the screams of the dying drifted in on the wind.“Leo,” I whispered again, the name catching on the jagged edges of my shattered soul.I tried to move toward him, but Kaelen’s grip on the silver chain jerked me back. The collar bit into my throat, the silver reacting to my surge of adrenaline by pulsing with a white-hot, agonizing heat. I gasped, my hand

The transition from the blinding white light of the Hallowed power to the oppressive, damp darkness of the Forbidden Forest felt like being plunged into a freezing lake after standing too close to a forge. My body, which had for a few glorious, terrifying moments felt like it was made of starlight and thunder, now felt like a leaden casing, bruised and hollowed out.I lay on the bed of moss, the rough bark of the ancient oak pressing into my spine. Every breath was a battle against the phantom sensation of the silver collar that no longer existed. I kept reaching for my neck, my fingers trembling as they searched for the cold metal, only to find the raw, sensitive skin of my throat. The silver was gone, but the ghost of it—the memory of nineteen years of suppression—remained."Drink this."Leo’s voice was low, a jagged whisper that carried the weight of the horrors he had seen. He knelt beside me, his face a mosaic of shadows and scars in the moonlight. He held a wooden cup to my lips

The trek from the Forbidden Forest to the foot of the Obsidian Mountain was not a journey; it was a slow, agonizing crawl through the graveyard of my past. We moved under the cover of a perpetual twilight, the sky bruised by the lingering effects of the Siren’s Mist and the smoke rising from the silver refineries Silas had already established near the ruins.I led the way, not because I knew the path, but because the tether in my chest acted as a compass. Every time I veered too far to the west, a sharp, cold spike of pain would lance through my heart. When I turned back toward the jagged silhouette of the mountain, the pain subsided into a dull, rhythmic throb. Kaelen was there, buried in the dark, and his soul was screaming for air.Around me, the outcasts moved like ghosts. Leo walked at my right hand, his daggers drawn, his eyes constantly scanning the canopy for Shadow-Walkers. Mara and her warriors brought up the rear, their movements fluid and sile