Semua Bab Alpha’s Deceptive Mate: Bab 71 - Bab 80

POV: KaelThe descent back into the fortress felt like walking toward the mouth of something ancient and hungry.Nightbane was collapsing around us.Smoke rolled across the lower courtyards in thick waves while warriors dragged the wounded toward the inner walls. The eastern towers burned openly now, flames climbing high enough to stain the storm-dark sky above the mountain. Everywhere I looked, battle and chaos had replaced the home I had spent my entire life protecting.Yet the deeper we moved beneath the fortress, the quieter the world became.As though the mountain itself was holding its breath.Liora walked beside me without speaking, her expression unreadable beneath the flickering torchlight. Blood still stained the side of her tunic from the arrow wound she had barely survived days earlier, though she carried herself with the same dangerous steadiness that had unsettled me from the moment she entered my territory.Only now I understood why.She had never merely survived Silver

POV: LioraThe mountain did not sleep.Even in darkness, the ancient city breathed around us.I could hear it in the distant crack of steel against steel far below the lower terraces, in the echo of hurried footsteps through stone corridors older than most kingdoms, in the low chanting of priests somewhere deep inside the temple halls where the old rites were still being prepared.War had swallowed everything.I wasn't just talking about nightbane and the Silver Creek, but everything.The ancient world hidden beneath centuries of silence had finally awakened, and now every pack that carried even a drop of royal blood was being dragged toward the same inevitable collision.Toward the throne, the crown and the power that should have remained buried.I stood alone on the eastern balcony overlooking the cliffs, my hands braced against cold stone while icy wind tore through my hair. Far below, torchlight moved like rivers through the lower mountain paths where warriors gathered for battle

POV: KaelThe chamber did not recover after Elias revealed the crown.It fractured.Not visibly at first. No shouting. No immediate chaos. But I felt the shift move through the room like a blade sliding beneath skin. Fear changed people quickly. Ancient power changed them even faster.The moment the Blood Crown touched the council table, every wolf in that hall understood the same thing.The war was no longer about territory.It was about legitimacy.Rule and survival.And suddenly every pair of eyes in the chamber carried calculation behind it.Who would sit on the throne?Who would kneel?Who would die before that happened?I watched them carefully while Elias continued explaining the northern breaches and Matthias’s advancing forces, but my attention kept returning to Liora.She stood rigid beside me, though most wouldn’t notice the tension in her posture. They saw the warrior. The heir. The woman who survived exile and returned stronger than anyone expected.I saw the exhaustion s

POV: LioraThe silence that followed Selene’s words settled over the chamber like smoke after a fire.No one moved immediately. Even the elders who had spent the last hour arguing over military formations and ancient rites suddenly looked uncertain, their confidence stripped away by a single sentence spoken in the seer’s trembling voice.One of you is missing.The words stayed lodged beneath my ribs long after the room began breathing again.I could feel Kael beside me, still and unreadable, though tension radiated from him strongly enough to sharpen the air around us. His control remained intact outwardly, but I knew him well enough now to recognize the signs. The slight tightening in his jaw. The dangerous quiet in his gaze. The way his hand rested too close to the blade at his side without realizing it.He hated uncertainty.And fate had just handed him more than either of us could fight with brute strength alone.Selene lowered her eyes as though she regretted speaking at all. “I

POV: LioraThe fortress walls had witnessed centuries of war.Bloodshed lived within the stone beneath our feet. Every corridor, tower and battlement carried the memory of old battles fought long before Kael was born, long before Nightbane became feared across the northern territories. Wolves had defended this mountain against rogues, rival packs and human hunters alike.Yet as I stood beside Kael beneath the cold night wind, staring down at the army gathered below the ridges, I understood something with terrifying clarity.Nightbane had never faced anything like this before.The rider remained motionless at the front of the army, silver hair shifting lightly in the mountain wind while torchlight reflected against the ancient armor covering his body. He sat atop the massive black wolf as though both creature and rider belonged to another age entirely.Everything about him felt wrong.Too composed and powerful.Even from this distance, instinct screamed caution.The King’s Guard behind