Semua Bab Alpha’s Deceptive Mate: Bab 51 - Bab 60

POV: KaelThe ring felt unnaturally cold in my palm.Even with adrenaline still surging through me after the assassin vanished into the lower corridor, even with my blood burning hot beneath my skin, the metal felt dead and icy against my hand, as though betrayal itself had taken shape.I stood in the corridor outside the council chamber staring at the black iron seal beneath the torchlight, every instinct in me sharpening around what it meant.Nightbane’s crest glimmered unmistakably across its surface.It wasn't forged nor stolen but authentic.A council seal.Inner-circle authority.Something only those sworn to stand beside an Alpha could wear.Someone inside my own house had lost an arrow meant for Liora’s heart.The thought moved through me slowly, like poison.Not a shock.Something colder.Something far worse.Beside me, Liora had gone silent.I could feel her watching me, studying the change in me, sensing the dangerous stillness settling beneath my skin.When she finally spo

POV: KaelThe moment we stepped out of the crypt chamber, the air changed.War has a sound, steel against steel, the guttural force of wolves clashing, the sharp crack of commands, but what echoed down the tunnels now was something heavier. It carried through stone like a pulse, uneven and violent, as though the fortress itself had begun to strain under the weight of what pressed against it.Nightbane was holding.But only just.I moved fast through the passage, every instinct sharpened to a single edge. Thomas kept pace at my right, Vera just ahead relaying orders through the link to the upper guards. Behind me, I could feel Liora, not just her presence, but the steady, unyielding focus that had become as familiar to me as my own breath.And beneath all of it, something else.The vault.Whatever lay buried under Nightbane had been disturbed.And the consequences were already rising.“West corridor’s compromised,” Vera said abruptly. “Outer defenses holding, but Matthias’s wolves are

Pov: Loira The ground was still trembling when we emerged from the crypts, but the battle above had shifted from chaos into something far more calculated.War had found its rhythm.It no longer raged blindly. It moved with intent.That alone told me everything I needed to know.This wasn’t just Matthias throwing wolves at Nightbane to overwhelm us.This was coordinated.Planned.Layered.And whatever Seris had set in motion beneath the fortress was now unfolding above it.The air hit my lungs like fire the moment we stepped into the open courtyard. Smoke curled into the sky in thick, choking waves, carrying with it the scent of iron and burning wood. Warriors moved in tight formations now instead of scattered clashes, responding to Kael’s earlier command structure. Lines had formed. Defensive rings tightened around key entrances.Nightbane wasn’t falling.It was adapting.But adaptation didn’t mean safety.Because I could feel it, something pressing in from all sides.It wasn't just

POV: LioraThe moment it moved, the world broke.There was no gradual return to battle, no transition back into the rhythm of swords and claws. The creature did not attack like an enemy that could be anticipated or countered. It struck like a force of nature, sudden and absolute, its mass colliding with the courtyard in a way that shattered stone and sent wolves flying as though they weighed nothing at all.I barely had time to react.Kael shoved me sideways just as something like a limb, though it did not hold a fixed shape long enough to be named, slammed into the ground where I had been standing. The impact split the earth further, cracks racing outward in jagged lines.The force of it threw us apart.I hit the ground hard, breath knocked from my lungs, my vision flashing white for a split second before snapping back into focus. The air tasted like dust and iron. Around me, warriors scrambled to regain footing, some shifting mid-motion, others dragging the injured out of the creatu

POV: KaelThe moment we stepped fully into the circle, the world stopped pretending this was still a battlefield.The sound collapsed inward.Not vanished, but pulled tight, as if everything beyond the edge of the forming seal had been forced into silence. I could still see movement at the edges of my vision, wolves fighting, blades flashing, bodies colliding, but it no longer reached me.What remained…..It was her.Liora’s hand in mine.And the thing watching us.The stone beneath our feet burned with recognition and not fire.Lines carved into the courtyard long before I was born flared to life, ancient symbols threading outward from where our joined hands hovered between us. The pattern spread in precise geometry, no longer broken or faded like the remnants I had seen in the crypt, but whole.Awake and waiting.I felt it move through me, not the creature, not yet, but something older. Something that lived in blood, not bone. It rose from deep within my chest, steady and heavy, lik