THE ALPHA’S BROKEN MATE のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 51 - チャプター 60

RowanAthena's father met us at the gate.Not through a steward, not through official channels, he was standing at the entrance to Silverthorne palace himself when our car came through, dressed without ceremony, glasses at the tip of his nose that he'd mentioned were aesthetics and which sat on his face exactly as I remembered from the one meeting years ago when everything had been formal and impossible.Amara had her face pressed to the window.She'd been asking questions about Silverthorne for three days, since we'd confirmed the visit, the same focused preparation she brought to everything new. She'd asked about the palace layout, the pack structure, whether the wolves were different from Valerian wolves, whether her grandfather had a wolf and what it looked like.She'd started calling him grandfather two days before we left without announcing she was going to do it, just shifted terminology as if the title had been his all along and she'd only just gotten around to using it.I'd h

RowanThe case closed on a Monday.Not dramatically. These things never ended dramatically, they ended with paperwork and documentation and the quiet satisfaction of a file that was finally complete. My people had spent four months building it, thread by thread from Sara's information and the trade corridor evidence and the communication trails that had taken the longest to unravel.The name at the top of it was a man called Vance Oleary.Rogue coordinator, border territories, independent operator for hire. That was what we'd known him as for a decade. What we knew now was that independent was wrong, had always been wrong, he'd been working for a coalition of minor powers in the outer territories who had a shared interest in keeping the two largest wolf kingdoms from formalizing anything that closed off their routes.Small powers. Not one enemy but seven, none of them large enough individually to threaten Valeria or Silverthorne directly, collectively able to fund a sustained operatio

RowanI stood behind her chair and kept my hands to myself.That was the whole job. She had asked for it exactly that way, behind, not beside, and I understood why. If I stood next to her, the council would see a Luna with an Alpha holding her up. If I stood behind, they would see a Luna with a kingdom at her back. Small difference. Wolves read small differences for a living.The chamber was full. Cain at the head of the long table, Marsh with his hands folded, Bren three seats down looking like he'd already decided to dislike whatever came out of her mouth. Lake by the door pretending to be furniture.Athena had the good notebook open in front of her. She hadn't looked at it once."I'm going to tell you something first," she said. "Then I'll tell you what I want."Nobody moved."I grew up in Silverthorne being called a curse. Not by everyone. By enough." Her voice was flat, steady. "I had no wolf. I couldn't shift. I couldn't run with the pack, and I was told so, often, by people who

RowanThe first assessment day was a Tuesday, and Bren was early.I found him at the training yard gate at seven with a boy beside him, eleven, thin, all elbows and knees, wearing clothes that were clearly his best. The kid held himself like someone who'd been told to behave and was trying so hard it made his shoulders shake."Alpha," Bren said, stiff."Bren." I looked at the boy. "Who's this?""Tobi." The boy said it before Bren could. His voice cracked on it. "I'm Tobi.""Good name." I held out my hand and he shook it like a very small, very serious diplomat. "Luna's inside. She's been here since five.""Since five?" Bren said."She doesn't sleep much lately."That was true, though I left out why. We hadn't made the pregnancy public beyond the council and the palace, and I wasn't about to give Bren more to chew on than his nephew.Inside, Athena had turned the east training hall into something that didn't look like a pack hall at all. No ranks painted on the floor, no shift-line mar

RowanShe was nineteen weeks when I felt it.I'd been warned. Lake had read four books on the subject and delivered a summary nobody asked for, the medical woman had described it as a flutter, a bubble, a tiny fish turning over. None of it prepared me for lying in the dark with my hand on Athena's stomach and something knocking back.I stopped breathing."Did you," I said."Yes." Her voice was soft and kind of wondering. "That's the third one tonight. She's showing off.""She?""I don't know. Amara says she." Athena shifted onto her side so my palm stayed where it was. "Amara also said the baby told her.""The baby told her.""Through the wall of my stomach. Apparently she's very chatty."I laughed, and the knock came again, right under my fingers, as if it had heard. Something in my chest went loose and strange. Six years ago I wasn't there for any of it. I didn't feel Amara turn over for the first time, I didn't know there was a Amara. I'd lain awake in a palace three days' drive aw