บททั้งหมดของ Alpha Daddy Take my Cherry : บทที่ 71 - บทที่ 80

The chamber waited.Everyone in it waited.Liora looked at Elias looking at her and thought about all the ways she had imagined this conversation happening — in his study, quietly, just the two of them, with time to explain and space to breathe.Not here. Not like this. Not with seven council members watching her face and Leoric sitting across the room with his hands folded like a man who had already won."Yes," she said.The murmuring started immediately.She raised her voice slightly. Not loud. Just enough to carry over it."It's true that Freya has been fading. It started long before I met Elias. Long before I came to his house." She looked at Vera at the head of the table. "My wolf began declining after my mate bond with Leoric deteriorated. The bond was never strong because he was never fully committed to it. When I rejected him she got worse." She paused. "I discovered by accident that proximity to a strong Alpha energy could sustain her. It happened the first time without my un

"A name," Sophia said. "I found a name."She pulled a folded piece of paper from her jacket pocket. Old records, photocopied — Liora could see the faded quality of it even from where she stood."Your biological mother was registered as Mira Fenrirson when you were born," Sophia said. "But that name doesn't appear anywhere in Moonclaw Pack records before your birth. Not in census records. Not in bloodline registries. Not in any formal documentation." She unfolded the paper. "I went back further. Cross-referenced with the rogue wolf records that packs file when they exile members.""And?" Liora said."There's an entry. Forty-one years ago. A female wolf, mid-twenties at the time, exiled from the Northern Ancient Pack." Sophia looked at her. "The Northern Ancient Pack, Liora. One of the original founding packs. The ones that existed before territory borders and council law.""What was the reason for the exile?""That's just it." Sophia turned the paper over. "There is no reason recorded.

They drove back to the estate in two cars. Elias in the first with Liora. Owen's vehicle behind them, which Elias had agreed to only after standing at the chamber door for a full minute saying nothing while everyone waited for his decision. "He rides behind us," he had said finally. "He doesn't enter the house before I do." Owen had accepted that without argument, which was its own kind of unsettling. --- The living room again. Owen sat in the same chair he had taken the last time, with the same unhurried posture, except tonight there was nothing pleasant about his expression. He looked like a man who had been carrying something heavy for a long time and had finally reached the place he needed to put it down. Elias stood. He hadn't sat since they arrived. Liora sat on the couch, Sophia beside her, both of them watching Owen. Morris was at the door. "Talk," Elias said. "I owe you an explanation," Owen said. "Several," Elias said. "Yes." Owen looked at his hands briefly. Th

Nobody moved.The guards held their positions. Owen's men held theirs. Everyone was watching the man in the moonlight the way you watch something that hasn't decided yet what it's going to do.Elias stepped forward to the edge of the top step."Identify yourself," he said.The man looked up at him without any particular urgency. "My name is Kael." He said it simply. Like it was an answer that should mean something to someone present. "I'm the last surviving guardian of the Fenrir bloodline." He paused. "I've been waiting a long time for tonight.""Waiting where?" Elias said."Wherever the bloodline wasn't," Kael said. "Moving. Watching borders. Monitoring old records for the mark." He looked past Elias to Liora. Not aggressively. Not with appetite the way Owen had looked at her that first night. With something closer to relief. "When the ritual confirmation moved through the old channels tonight, I came.""With armed men," Elias said."With guardians," Kael said. "There's a difference

Elias waited until Liora was settled with Owen going over pack boundary questions before he touched Kael's shoulder in the corridor.Not roughly. Just enough.Kael turned."Walk with me," Elias said.It wasn't a request.---The corridor off the east wing was empty. Elias stopped when they were far enough from the study that voices wouldn't carry and turned to face Kael directly.He held out his phone.Kael read the message.One line. Unknown number.*Ask Kael what really happened to your first mate.*Elias watched his face.And there it was. Not much. Not the dramatic crack of someone caught in something. Just a flicker — a half second where the easy confidence that Kael carried like a second skin moved aside and showed something underneath it that was not confusion.It was recognition."I don't know what this is," Kael said."Your eyes do," Elias said."Anyone could have sent this." Kael handed the phone back. "You have enemies. You've had them for years. Someone is trying to create