All Chapters of The Alpha's Cursed Bride : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

ORIONVessa found him in the war room before the morning was half done.She came in the way she always had without knocking, without waiting, as though doors were suggestions that applied to other people. She had been doing it since they were children running between the Fenwick Keep and the Harath Pack territory, and he had never once told her to stop because there had never been a reason to.He was starting to think there was a reason now.She was the daughter of the Harath Pack's alpha lord and she had grown up expecting, reasonably, that the alliance between their packs would eventually be sealed by marriage. She had never said it directly. She had not needed to. It had simply existed between them as an understanding of one of many things Orion had allowed to sit unaddressed because the future had always seemed distant enough to manage later.The curse was made later into now. And now had a different answer than she had expected."You should have told me," she said, closing the do

ORIONThe even day arrived the way every other day arrived with dispatches and cold tea and the eastern border refusing to resolve itself overnight.He dealt with the dispatches first. Three responses from allied packs, two of which were useful and one of which was political noise dressed as intelligence. A report from the northern garrison stated that the reinforcements had arrived and were positioned. A brief message from the Covenant archive indicated that his request for historical Moon Goddess intervention records had been received and would be compiled within two weeks.Two weeks. He filed that information and moved on.He had also received, tucked between the garrison report and the Covenant message, a brief note from one of his intelligence runners about the enemy faction's latest movement. They had reached the outer edge of the eastern territory. Not an incursion yet still technically outside Fenwick land but close enough that the distinction was becoming theoretical. He had

ORIONHe sat in the library for a long time after she left.Not because he had not finished what he came to read. He had not been reading; he had closed the book before she found the passage she needed and he had not reopened it. He had been sitting at the table near the window watching the pale morning light on the stones and not thinking about anything with any particular discipline, which was a thing he almost never did and could not entirely account for now.For what it is worth, not knowing why does not make the weight of it your fault.She had said it at the door without turning around and walked out before he could answer, which meant she had said it the way she did most things precisely, deliberately, with no interest in the response. Not as a comfort offered to make herself feel better about saying it. Not as an opening. Simply as a thing that was true that she had decided he should have, and then she had gone.He did not know what to do with that. He was not accustomed to pe

NYRAOrion came to the east wing at dawn and knocked twice and said through the door: "Get dressed. We are leaving in an hour."I opened the door. He was already in his riding coat, already armed in the way wolves were armed when they expected to be outside the Keep's walls not ceremonially, practically. He looked at me once and said: "Warm layers. The altitude is significant.""Where are we going?" I said."Seraphel," he said.He walked away before I could ask anything else.Lena was already awake she always was when something was happening, as though she sensed shifts in the household before they became visible. She helped me dress without comment and handed me my heaviest cloak and braided my hair back practically rather than formally and said: "Come back in one piece.""That is the plan," I said.The escort was small. Orion, Caius, two garrison wolves I recognized but had not spoken to. We rode out of the Blackstone Keep before the household was fully awake, which told me Orion ha

ORIONThe gate guard brought the letter to him at dawn.Standard protocol all outgoing posts from the Keep were reviewed during wartime preparation. He had issued the order three days ago when the challenge letter arrived, quietly, without announcement, as a precaution rather than a statement. The guard had simply been following procedure.Orion looked at the seal on the letter.Her personal seal. Not Thorne, not Fenwick. Something smaller, a mark he had not seen before, which meant she had been carrying it since before she arrived.He read the letter.It was addressed to her father and it was written in the careful, administrative tone of someone who did not want to show what they were actually asking. Which meant she knew it might be read. She had been careful. Not careful enough he could see the shape of what she was building from the questions she had asked, even through the cautious phrasing. Names. Dates. A meeting six years ago. A corridor in the Thorne palace.Cael.He sat wit