All Chapters of My Brother’s Fiancée is My Mate: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The ride back was a blur of cold wind and a colder silence. It was not the silence of stealth, but the silence of a tomb. The Guard moved around me like I was a piece of unstable cargo, their eyes flicking away from mine. They had seen the Alpha shatter at the door to claim his prize, only to have the prize look at him like he was a stranger and choose to stay in the ruins.But she hadn’t stayed, that was the hell of it. She had walked out, right behind us, under her own power. She had simply… walked away. Into the predawn forest, in the opposite direction of the stronghold. Darius had made a move to stop her, but my hand on his arm was iron. She wanted her freedom? Let her have it, and let her feel the full, unprotected weight of it, since the protection of my bond was so repulsive to her.Every step my horse took away from that ridge was a physical amputation. The bond was a thing now; a bleeding stump on my end, screaming into a void. On her end? There was nothing, just a clean, cl

The silence was the worst part, it wasn’t true silence. The bond was still there, a frayed, burned-out wire fused to his sternum. But the silence from her end was absolute. It wasn’t the muffled silence of before, the one filled with her pain and anger. This was a void. A hollow, finished thing.Silas stood at the highest parapet of the stronghold, fingers digging into the cold stone as if he could anchor himself. He didn’t need a compass. The ruin of the bond was his map. He felt every slow, deliberate mile she put between them. A steady, pulling ache due west, a tide going out and taking all the light with it. Each step she took was a small, precise laceration. He could almost see her in his mind’s eye, not her face, but her back, always turned, growing smaller against a landscape he couldn’t see.He had neither slept, nor had he eaten. The meticulously structured life of an Alpha; the meetings, the judgments, the patrol reviews, the endless noise of sovereignty, had dissolved into

The northern woods held memories for Kaelen, not of childhood play, but of strategy. This was where he’d learned to track, to ambush, to move as a shadow long before he’d ever thought to challenge his brother for a throne. Now, he used those skills for a different kind of hunt.He’d slipped from the stronghold not with a dramatic escape, but through a crack in its morale. A whispered rumor here, a planted doubt there about Silas’s stability, and the guards’ vigilance had turned to nervous gossip. They were watching for external threats, not for the prisoner who walked out with the dawn shift change, wearing a borrowed guard’s cloak and a look of bland purpose.He went first to the lodge…his old lodge. It was empty now, a tomb of his failed ambitions. He stood in the doorway of her cell, inhaling deeply. Her fear-sweat was old and stale, but underneath it was the fading, silvered thread of her unique scent. He committed it to memory, a hunter imprinting his prey.He found the place whe

The whispers in the stronghold had taken on a new, chilling clarity. She’s gone. Vanished, and the Alpha is broken, while the brother hunts. Elena listened from her gilded perch, each murmur polishing her understanding.Elara was missing, but for sure she wasn’t dead, and at the same time she was not secured. A free variable in an equation that was supposed to be solved, and Kaelen was searching for his own evil deeds. That fact alone made the air feel thin. Kaelen with a purpose was the most dangerous creature in the territory. If he found Elara first… Elena’s mind played out the scenarios. None ended well for her. A broken, vengeful Kaelen with the ultimate trophy would have no use for a paper-Luna bound by a disgraced covenant. She’d be an inconvenience to be removed.The uncomfortable knot in her chest wasn't a worry for her sister. It was a strategic panic. To secure her own future, she needed to control the pieces, and the most volatile piece was Elara’s location.She needed to

The city was a cold, unforgiving place, but it was better than the memories that haunted me in the pack. I'd left to escape the pain, to numb the ache in my chest that still lingered from Kaelen's betrayal. The scent of another woman's arousal, the sound of his grunts, the feel of his pleasure through the bond... it was all still there, seared into my brain like a brand.I focused on the diner, on the grease and the noise, anything to keep my mind occupied. Alex, the quiet busboy, was watching me again. I'd noticed him before, the way he moved with a quiet intensity, like he was hiding secrets of his own, just like me.As I handed him a tray of dirty dishes, he caught my eye, and I felt a spark, but it was not the wildfire of the mate bond I'd felt with Kaelen, but a spark nonetheless. He smiled, a small, tentative thing, and my heart skipped a beat."Hey, Elara," he said later, as we were closing up, "got a minute?"I nodded, and we stepped into the alleyway. The night air was cool,