Betrayed By My Mate, Now Claimed By The Lycan King のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 61 - チャプター 70

They brought him in under full guard. Six warriors. Two in front, two behind, one on each side. No weapons on him — they had searched him twice at the wall and once more at the inner threshold. His hands were bound in front of him with thick iron cuffs that locked at the wrists and connected to a short chain. Even so, no one treated him like a man who had come in peace. Bjørn Mortensen was larger than he had looked from the battlements during the night fighting. Broad through the shoulders, dark-haired, with a short beard and a pale scar that cut through his left eyebrow and continued down onto his cheek. He moved like a soldier who had spent years learning how to keep his balance when the ground was covered in blood. When his eyes found Gunnar, there was no flinch. When they found me, something colder and more assessing settled into his expression. They took him to the smaller war room off the main hall — the one with no windows and only one door. Gunnar stood on the far side

Every time the connection between Gunnar and me tried to settle into its old rhythm, the interference from the fragment and the earlier magical assault combined into a sharp, grinding discomfort that ran from the base of my skull down between my shoulders. It wasn't the clean ache of physical injury. It was deeper. More personal. Like the bond itself was bruising every time it carried information. Gunnar stepped closer to the table. "Why come here alone and unarmed? If Blackpine is still loyal to Jakob, this is suicide. If you're not, then you're a traitor to your own people. Which is it?" Bjørn was quiet for a moment. When he answered, the words came slower. "Blackpine followed the elders' promises because our territory is dying. The hunting ranges are thinning. The winters are harder. The old agreements that kept the northern packs fed and armed have been failing for years. Jakob and the elders offered a solution that didn't care about crowns or bonds or who sat on which t

The fragment in the root cellar continued its slow green pulse. Merja and two of her most trusted healers began constructing a containment circle around it using old iron filings, salt, and the last of the binding herbs she had left. It wasn't a permanent solution. It was a way to keep the residual connection from screaming quite so loudly across the keep. I helped where I could. My arms still carried the deep, grinding cost of the previous night's power use. Every time I lifted something heavy or held a position too long, the scales across my back tightened like overworked muscle. The connection between Gunnar and me remained functional but imperfect — information arrived a fraction late, sensations came slightly distorted, and strong emotions left a hot, metallic aftertaste. By the time the sky began to darken again toward a second night of siege, the keep had settled into a tense, exhausted rhythm. Watches rotated. The wounded who could still hold a blade were organized into seco

"I held that part back because I needed you to keep me alive long enough to get my people inside the walls. If I had led with the Hollow Crown and the bond-break plan, you might have decided the safer option was to kill every Blackpine in reach and seal the fragment in a deeper hole. I calculated. I don't apologize for it." Gunnar turned his head slowly toward him. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. "You calculated with my pack's blood." "I calculated with the only leverage I had left," Bjørn answered. "And I'm still here telling you the rest because the alternative is watching the elders finish what they started while the rest of us become ash." Natasja leaned forward as far as the chains allowed. "There's more. The fragment under your keep is already resonating with something farther south. If you destroy it the wrong way, the resonance will spike and give the Hollow Crown a clear path straight to your mate. If you leave it, it will keep growing. You need a third o

Matthías met us near the war table. His injured leg was still splinted, but he had stopped pretending it didn't slow him. "Blackpine survivors are secured," he reported. "No incidents. No attempts to communicate between groups. Bjørn and the woman are isolated. Sunna has the first watch on both." He paused. "The men are asking questions. About the fragment. About why we're keeping Blackpine alive after last night. About what the elders actually want." "What are you telling them?" Gunnar asked. "That the Lycan King will address the keep when there's something worth saying. Until then they hold their positions and their tongues." Gunnar gave a short nod. It was the correct answer. It would not hold forever. I looked toward the high windows. The light was beginning to shift toward late afternoon. A full day had nearly passed since the breach. The pause that had followed the night's fighting was starting to feel less like recovery and more like the held breath before the next consequ