Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 21 - Chapitre 30

Sienna's POV "Try me." My words came out lower than my usual voice, with a rough edge to them that caught in the dry arena air. Blood still coated the back of my throat, thick enough I had to swallow twice before I could speak again. Across the sand the warrior stopped laughing. He was a Gamma, his frame built thick from decades of border work. He shifted his weight and ground his boots into the sand, and his eyes moved from my face down to the sword Duke had pressed into my hand before I walked out here, the hilt still cold against my palm. "Let me be direct with you, human." He tightened his grip on his own blade until the leather wrap creaked. "I will be soft on you. I don't want to damage the skin before the Alpha gets his use out of you." I didn't blink. I could feel the crowd stomping through the soles of my feet, a low steady thudding that climbed up through my ankles. I adjusted my grip on the hilt, feeling metal warm slightly against my fingers. "I'll be soft with you to

Sienna's POV Cold pressed in from every side. Something under me burned anyway. Sweat turned to ice the second wind touched it. Every time I closed my eyes, arena came back. Not a memory. The whole thing again, sound and ache of what I'd done out there. "Sienna." My eyes opened before word finished. I knew that voice. This wasn't stone or sand. I was on my back in a forest, branches thick overhead. Damp pine needles under shoulders and palms. Soft dirt beneath. Smoke drifted through trees. I tried to push myself up. Pain tore through my ribs and put me back down. I lay there and breathed through it. "Feeling better?" Duke stood several yards off, arms at sides. He didn't come closer. He just watched. Pieces of fight kept surfacing. No order to them. Juvien's voice still sat faint in my skull. I shook my head and tried again. Upright this time, world tilting before it leveled. "You saved me," I said, words coming out shallow. My hands moved over damage. My dress was barely r

Sienna's POV Cold bit through thin fabric of my dress. I rubbed my palms up and down my arms. It did nothing. Warmth wasn't coming back. My breath came out in a thin cloud even this close to the hearth, and fire hadn't caught properly in over an hour. Pieces of the fight surfaced without invitation, the arena, the roar of crowd, the smell of blood and sand all at once. Every time my eyes dropped, Damien's face was there, the same look he'd had right before everything went dark. I blinked hard and pushed images back, but they didn't stay gone for long. Duke was gone, off to warehouse meetings he'd mentioned in same flat tone he used for everything. People were dying at center of whatever he was walking into, and none of it seemed to register on his face. Silence should have been a relief. Instead I felt shoulders climb toward my ears, muscles along spine pulling tight. I wasn't foolish enough to let my guard down here. Someone could be listening from any corner of this room and I wou

Damien's POV Heat slammed into my chest first. Fast and hard enough to steal my breath. Strength flooded in, more than I'd carried in years, with nowhere in my body to put it. My mother's medicine had kept it locked down this whole time. Without it, my lungs couldn't keep pace with the pressure building behind my ribs. My shirt was already soaked through. Pain hit before I understood what was happening. My knees hit the floor, then my hands. Cold stone running up through both wrists. I pressed my hands against my ribs. It didn't help. My bones strained against my skin, pushing out instead of holding their shape. My spine bent back on its own. I bit down on my tongue to keep from making a sound. Blood filled my mouth. I spat it onto the stone in a thick splash. Gold. Not red. I stared at it. My blood used to be red. Gold belonged to the old line, the Eucharist blood. I hadn't bled that color since the ceremony that tied me to Sienna. Suppressants were gone now. Whatever came back

Sienna's POV Boots sank into packed dirt. I didn't move toward the table again. My eyes went to the script instead, angles all pointing at one dense knot in the center. No keyhole anywhere. No way in that I could force. I backed up and checked the walls instead. Old habit. Know your exits before you know anything else. The stone wasn't flat. Deep cuts covered it, wolves locked together mid-fight. The lines hummed faintly, and shadows moved with them. I counted gaps between them without meaning to, the way you count doors in a room you don't trust. I followed the carved shapes along the wall until they stopped. One image sat apart from the rest. I stepped in close, my face inches from the stone. Sharp cheekbones. Cut close to bone. "Duke," I whispered. In the carving, his arms wrapped around a child, small, tucked against his chest. Fine lines gave the child a shock of silver hair. I traced the smaller figure down to its wrist. A white wolf mark, cut deep into the forearm. I st