Bullied by my Alpha Mate 의 모든 챕터: 챕터 11 - 챕터 19

The bond pulled like a wound. Lisa had no better way to describe it. One moment she was standing in the healer’s den with Raymond on the threshold and Mia looking ready to set the whole camp on fire, and the next she could feel it — a hard, living drag under her ribs, sharp enough to steal the air from her lungs. Adrian was moving fast. Not through the camp anymore. Away from it. Into the mountains. Mia saw Isla’s face and swore softly. “How far?” “I don’t know.” Lisa pressed a hand to her chest, as if that might steady the pull. “But he’s not close.” Raymond went pale. “Damn it.” Mia turned on him. “You let him walk off?” Raymond ’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t let him do anything. He said he needed air. I thought he meant ten minutes alone, not—” He broke off, dragging a hand through his hair. “He looked wrong.” “That’s helpful now,” Mia snapped. The bond tugged again. Stronger this time. Lisa flinched. Mia noticed immediately. “He shifted.” The room seemed to drop out f

They reached the edge of camp just as the snow began to fall in earnest. What had started as a light drift in the mountains had thickened into a steady curtain of white, softening rooftops and fence lines, muting the usual noise of Black Moon beneath a hush that felt almost unnatural. Smoke curled from the chimneys in pale ribbons. Wolves moved quickly between buildings with heads bowed against the weather, cloaks pulled tight, baskets tucked under their arms. And every one of them, Lisa thought, would look up the moment they saw who was coming down the western trail. Adrian saw it too. She felt the shift in him before she saw it — the tightening through his shoulders, the instinctive attempt to pull some dignity back around himself despite the limp, the cloak, the blood, the simple undeniable fact of needing help. Raymond bore most of his weight, but Lisa still had one hand wrapped firmly around his forearm beneath the edge of the cloak, steadying him whenever the bad leg faltere

After Mia’s interruption, the room never quite settled again. The healer’s den remained warm, the fire low and steady, the snow tapping softly now and then against the shutters, but something had changed in the air. Lisa could feel it in her own skin. In the way her wrist still burned where Adrian’s fingers had held it. In the way her breathing never seemed to return fully to normal. In the silence that now stretched between them — not empty, not awkward exactly, but thick with everything that had almost happened and had not. You almost kissed me. Yes. The simplicity of his answer had done more damage than denial ever could have. Mia returned, moved around the room, refreshed a poultice, muttered something about stubborn men and untreated egos, then finally announced that if no one planned to start dying in the next hour, she intended to sleep. Raymond , still on watch outside, was replaced sometime later by one of Richard’s guards. No one came in. No one asked more questions. A

The kiss should not have happened in daylight.Not there.Not after the elders had just left.Not with the whole pack circling the truth like wolves around blood in snow.And yet it did.Adrian’s hand at her neck was warm and steady, his mouth slow on hers in a way that felt far more dangerous than the fevered hunger of the night before. This kiss was not desperation. It was not accident. It was not something either of them could pretend had only happened because of pain, exhaustion, or the mountain.It was a choice.That was what made it terrifying.Lisa felt it in the way the bond deepened under the contact, not flaring wildly this time but settling with a fierce, almost aching certainty. She kissed him back before caution could reclaim her, one hand catching lightly in the front of his shirt, and felt the answering shift in him — the controlled inhale, the restraint tightening and then softening under her mouth.He broke the kiss first.Only barely.His forehead rested against hers

Morning came cold, bright, and merciless. Snow covered Black Moon in a clean white layer that made everything look calmer than it was. Roofs glittered under pale winter light. Smoke lifted in thin gray lines. Wolves moved along the packed paths with lowered heads and reddened hands, but there was a strange tension under the ordinary rhythm of the morning, something watchful and expectant. Lisa felt it before she even left the healer’s den. She stood near the hearth, her fingers wrapped around a cup gone lukewarm, while Mia sorted dried herbs at the worktable with the clipped efficiency she always used when irritated. Raymond hovered by the door like a man expecting disaster. Adrian had already dressed, though Mia had muttered three different threats about stubborn patients and torn stitches while he did it. No one said much. No one needed to. The camp had seen enough yesterday. Adrian standing beside her in the yard. Adrian taking her hand. Adrian making it impossible for an