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All Chapters of Traded to the Ruthless Alpha: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

73 Chapters

Chapter 61

KillianI find Reya standing in front of the shelves on the far side of my room, she’s completely absorbed in one of the books that she pulled free.For several seconds, I simply stand in the doorway and watch her. She has changed into one of the soft dresses that was brought in for her earlier, and although she moves more carefully than normal, she looks far better than she had when I left. Her hair falls loosely down her back, still messy from sleep, and one of her shadows curl lazily around her ankle while another stretches beneath the shelves as if it were searching for a book of its own.The sight makes me smile before I can stop it. There’s something almost amusing about returning to my room and discovering her inspecting my belongings as though she has already decided everything inside belongs partially to her. I like that far more than I should’ve.Reya tilts the book towards the light coming through the window, completely unaware that I had entered the room. I fold my arms ac

Chapter 62

SkylarThe pain comes without warning, it’s so sudden and violent that for a moment, I can’t understand what is happening to me.One second, I’m bent over the table, tracing the same damned maps I’ve been staring at for hours, trying to find routes that Killian’s patrols might miss, trying to imagine a way into the northern territories, and the next something tears through the center of my chest with enough force that my fingers curl around the edge of the wood to keep me upright.My wolf surges beneath my skin, a raw animal roar that blurs the room. I suck in a breath and lower my head, waiting for the pain to pass. It doesn’t fade like a bruise. It spreads hollow and cold until it feels worse than the first violent shock.Something is missing.I knew what it was before I wanted to admit it. For years I have ignored the faint thread that has tied me to Reya, so carefully I convinced myself that it didn’t matter. I had rejected the bond, rejected her, treated what the Goddess has plac

Chapter 63

ReyaI didn’t realize that happiness can make a person restless. For most of my life, I’ve pictured happiness as something quiet and steady. The kind of peace that settles on other people’s faces when they sat beside someone they love or return to a place that fits them. I thought if it would ever come for me that I would fold into it and stop thinking so much.Instead, I can’t stop smiling.That’s the embarrassing part. I have spent nearly half an hour propped up against the pillows with the book that Killian gave me spread open across my lap, pretending to read while he works at the small desk by the window. I made it through a whole two pages before my attention began to drift toward him. He has changed out of his meeting clothes and his sleeves are rolled up to his forearms. One hand holds the report while the other rests on the desk, and every few minutes his brows furrow at something that he dislikes. Each time I remember how he has the same expression whenever I tease him.T

Chapter 64

KillianCormac finds me in the library late that afternoon, a dust‑coated book tucked beneath one arm and the kind of expression that always means he has discovered something he thinks I need to see. I have been standing by the long table where Reya and I have spent hours pouring over maps, but I’m not reading. My mind keeps drifting back to her laugh that morning, the way she has curled against me without hesitation, the small, fierce way she called me mate. There were moments when the change between us still felt impossible. Cormac drops the book onto the table with a thud that pulls me back to the present. “What is that?” I ask, because the cover alone makes my pulse tighten. He rests both hands on the wood and grins like a man who found a secret. “You’re going to want to sit down.” “I’m already standing perfectly well,” I state before asking again, “What is this?” “You say that now, just wait till you hear what this is.” He pushes the book toward me. The leather is old, th

Chapter 65

ReyaThe book Killian had brought me has remained on the table beside the bed, closed now but somehow still present in my thoughts. We had spent hours bent over it, tracing symbols and maps until the edges of the pages blurred, and by the time Killian finally insisted I sleep, my head was full of forgotten settlements, vanished children, and places so deep in the mountains even the Council had struggled to reach them. Killian fell asleep with one arm loose around my waist; his breathing is even and steady. My shadows lie quiet across the floor and along the foot of the bed, calmer than I feel. I watch the dark shapes settle and wonder, not for the first time, whether they know something I don’t. Eventually exhaustion pulls me under. The dream is not like the others. There is no Blackwood, no familiar bed, no warmth at my back. I stand barefoot on cold stone, swallowed by a mist so thick I can barely see my own hands. Shadows move beneath the fog, but they are not mine, there is n

Chapter 66

KillianI know that Reya hasn’t told me everything about the dream the moment that she woke again the following morning. She is quiet beside me, far quieter than she has been in days, and although she tries to pretend like she is tired, I can feel the tension in the way she remains curled against my chest long after she is fully awake. Her shadows are restless too, drifting beneath the bed and curling around the furniture like they are searching the room for something that they can’t find. I have learned enough about them to know that they are reflecting the emotion that Reya is trying (and failing) to hide. I run my hand slowly along her back, careful not to disturb her while she stares off towards the window. The morning light has spilled through the curtains, but she makes no attempt to move. “You’re thinking about it again,” I say softly. “You don’t want me to see it, but I can read it in your eyes.”Her silence answers before she does. I lower my head enough so that I can see

Chapter 67

KillianReya’s dream lingers with me long after I leave our room.I told her that it might be nothing more than a dream because I know that’s what she needed to hear in that moment. She was shaking when she woke up, fingers white against my shirt, and the last thing I want is to feed that fear by treating every remembered detail as proof someone is reaching into her mind. Still, I can not pretend that it doesn’t matter.A girl that was made of shadows appeared to her. She warned Reya that we are looking in the wrong direction, that someone is deliberately guiding her towards a place that would become a trap. Then, most oddly of all, the girl told her two words that continue to repeat in my head: Trust only Blackwood.By the time I reach Cormac’s office, I’ve replayed Reya’s account of the dream so many times that I could recite it without a second thought. Cormac looks up from his reports and sees the worry on my face before I even speak. He asks, “What happened?”“Reya had a dream,”

Chapter 68

BerniceThe trader looks like a man who has been taught to be invisible and failed at the last moment.He hovers by the door, boots crusted with eastern mud, eyes flickering toward the witch by the fire and then his eyes land on me as if I am the only thing in the room that matters. Nervous men make better mistakes than confident ones.I keep my hands folded on the table and let him squirm for a few heartbeats. The silence does half of my work for me. When I finally speak, my voice is soft enough to make him lean forward. “Did you do it?” I ask, “Is the task done?”He swallows, “Yes.”“That is not an answer,” I say and the way his shoulders tighten tells me that he understands the difference. He told me the scouts had taken the book, that they had asked questions, that they’d bought other items at the same market. He had given them the name I’d told him to give. He keep his face blank, his story consistent. He changed roads twice, slept in different villages, and avoided all tails.

Chapter 69

Bernice“I swear I am going to make you pay for your petty games,” Skylar says before he pushes me inside the office.His threat echoes in the room long after the door had closed.For a moment, I simply stand where he had left me, my fingers are curled around the edge of the table, watching the maps as if they might rearrange themselves into something kinder. They did not.Anger is useful, but only when it is sharpened into purpose. I let the anger burn for exactly as long as it needed to and then folded it into the next move.Skylar believes that he has me cornered.He thinks his men watching the corridor, his blunt demand, and the thinly veiled threat about protection has forced me to choose. He thinks I will stop because he has the power to make staying here uncomfortable. He thinks that I will be cowed by the idea of losing the shelter his protection provided.He is wrong.He has always been wrong about me when he has assumed that I would be grateful for anything that he has offer

Chapter 70

SkylarBernice is going to ruin everything if I let her. The thought has been a steady drumbeat in my head ever since I left her room. It isn’t just that she hates Reya… it is because of the way she moves from hatred to action without a second thought. She’d placed a bounty. She’d planted a book in Blackwood’s path. She’d used a witch to slip into Reya’s dreams. Every step has been more reckless than the last, and none of it has been done with the kind of patience that wins wars. I find the witch in a small, dim room where the air smells of herbs and iron. She is preparing the projection, the bowl of dark liquid catching candlelight like a small, dangerous moon. “You’re certain about this?” she asks without looking up. “Calling for the council?” “Yes,” I say. The word feels heavier than I expected it to. She cuts her palm and lets a few drops fall into the bowl. The surface ripples. Magic gathers like fog, slow and deliberate. This spell is different from the one she’d used to

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