CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE — SEVENTEEN TIMES

ORIONHe had said her name seventeen times.He counted afterward. Not at the time — at the time he had not been counting anything except the distance between one breath and the next, between the room going bright and her eyes opening. But afterward, in the quiet of the morning with her asleep and Caela asleep and the east wing settled, he sat in the chair beside the bed and he counted and the number was seventeen.He had not planned to say it at all. He had been holding her hand and reading Seraphel's face and then the room had shifted and he had looked at Nyra and seen the tide coming in and he had started saying her name and he had not been able to stop.Not a prayer. Not a strategy. Just her name, because it was the only thing he had.It had turned out to be enough.He thought about the Moon Goddess.He had been a man of practical things. Of intelligence and garrison reports and political calculations and the specific mechanics of running a kingdom. He had not been a man who though

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO — DIFFERENT AND STILL ME

NYRAI woke up on the second morning and I ran a diagnostic.Not literally. I did not stand in the east wing and formally assess myself the way I assessed new intelligence. I sat in the chair beside the cradle with a cup of tea that Lena had left on the table and I went through things methodically and checked what was different and what was the same.My thoughts were the same. The way I organized them, the way I moved from observation to conclusion, the filing system, the small book on the writing desk that I was going to want as soon as I was ready to use it — all the same.The senses were different.I had known they would be different. Seraphel had told me and the precedent cases had documented it and I had been building my expectations for months. But knowing a thing is coming and having it arrive are different experiences. The east wing was acoustically complex now in a way it had not been before. I could hear the garrison rotation in the outer yard. I could hear Lena in the adjoi

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE — ONE HOUR

ORIONThe third morning he went back to the war room.Not because there was urgent work. The dispatches had been managed by Caius and the garrison was running its standard protocols and the allied pack communications were in their normal processing channel. He went because the war room was where he worked and he was a man who worked and doing anything other than working felt wrong.He sat at the table.He looked at the pile of dispatches Caius had organized.He looked at her side of the table.He thought about how long it had been since someone else had a side of his table.He thought: she is going to be back at this table before I think she should be back at this table and she is going to have opinions about every dispatch in that pile.He was correct.She appeared in the war room doorway on the fifth day.She was in her working clothes. She had her small book. She had the pen in her coat pocket. She had the specific quality of someone who had been patient for the required amount of

All Chapters of The Alpha's Cursed Bride : Chapter 81 - Chapter 83

CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE — SEVENTEEN TIMES

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO — DIFFERENT AND STILL ME

CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE — ONE HOUR