Chapter 51: The Alliance in the Snow

- RAVENAThe iron shovels kept scraping away at the packed snow overhead, sounding like a dozen giant rats scratching through a ceiling.I pulled Roderic’s heavy wolf-skin cloak tighter around my shoulders, my back pressed hard against the frozen granite wall. My knees were jammed up against my chest, making a solid boundary between us. The air in the cave still smelled of crushed ice, old wool, and that steady, golden heat humming off him like a quiet furnace."They're gonna take at least twenty minutes," I grunted, dragging my hood down until my eyes were mostly in shadow. "Franz’s boys dig like blind moles."Roderic let out a short, rough laugh that turned into a dry cough. He leaned his head back against the stone wall, his bare, scarred face looking washed out under the pale blue light filtering through the cracks."They're digging through six feet of frozen avalanche debris, Zavier," he said, his voice quiet and gravelly. "Give them a break.""I'm just saying, if I had a spade,

Chapter 52: Return to the Citadel

- RAVENAThe heavy iron winch basket rattled like a sack of loose nails as six guards hauled us up the side of the glacier.Wind was screaming across the ridge, whipping white powder straight into my eyes, but I kept my chin jammed tight into the collar of Roderic’s wolf-skin cloak. The thing was massive on me, heavy enough to weigh down a horse, but it kept the freezing gale off my skin."Steady the line!" Franz bellowed from the top of the ledge, his face red as a boiled beet. He was knee-deep in a snowdrift, grabbing the iron frame of the basket the second it cleared the lip. "Get the Chief onto the litter! Carefully, damn it!"Four guard captains jumped forward, hauling Roderic out of the basket. He didn't say a word, his jaw clenched tightly, and his unmasked face was pale as death in the harsh gray light.I scrambled out right behind him, dropping into my usual slouch the second my boots hit the ice. My knees felt like frozen rubber, but I forced myself to walk upright, shoving

Chapter 53: The Golden Line

- RAVENAThe subterranean vault smelled of damp limestone, rust, and iron dust. It was three floors below the lower barracks, buried so far beneath the mountain that not even the howling wind could reach us down here."Drop your right shoulder, Zavier," Roderic grunted, sitting in his heavy iron chair near the center of the ring. "You're leaning into the strike before you even swing. A child could read that kick coming from three yards away.""I'm not leaning, Chief," I rasped, taking a sharp breath as I wiped a streak of sweat off my forehead with the back of my glove. "My boot's slippery on these damp flagstones.""Your boot is fine. Your footwork is sloppy." Roderic rolled his wheels forward an inch, his gloved hand resting on the wooden quarterstaff across his lap. "Again."We’d been down here for three nights in a row, hiding out in the dark while the rest of the academy slept. Ever since Thessaly started lurking around the corridors like a bad smell, Roderic had dragged me down

Chapter 54: Konner’s Revenge

- RAVENA"Whose blood?" I barked out a rough, scratchy laugh, backing away two paces until the heels of my boots hit the edge of the stone ring. "Hell if I know, Chief! My mother was a tavern cook in the lower docks, and my father was probably a bottle of cheap rye. You think some fancy high-house noble dropped me off in the mud with a silver spoon in my mouth?"Roderic’s dark eyes didn't leave my face. He sat perfectly still in his iron chair, the golden light from the newly opened archway leaving long, sharp shadows across his leather mask."The seal requires two matching cores, Zavier," he said, his voice low and strained. "Tavern cooks don't trigger three-hundred-year-old high-house locks.""Maybe your magic is just leaky," I snapped, jamming my hands into my trousers pockets and dropping my shoulders back into that sloppy, unbothered slouch. "You were sweating gold all over my jaw. The door probably thought you were opening it yourself. I'm just a stray who got dragged along for

All Chapters of To Kill Alpha Roderic: Chapter 51 - Chapter 54

Chapter 51: The Alliance in the Snow

Chapter 52: Return to the Citadel

Chapter 53: The Golden Line

Chapter 54: Konner’s Revenge