《Bound by Fate: The Plus-Sized Fated Mate》全部章節：第 41 章 - 第 50 章

Chapter 42: Aneira's POVCrackle. Hiss. Crackle.The fire spat and settled as I cleared away the empty bowls, the last of the porridge scraped clean from his side of the table. He'd eaten unhurried, the way he seemed to do most things, like a man who'd never once had to wonder whether there'd be enough. And the whole time, I'd caught him watching me instead of his own bowl, more interested in my face than his food.I set the bowls in the basin and turned to the kettle instead, if only to give my hands something to do that wasn't thinking about the way he'd looked at me over breakfast.The water went in first, drawn fresh from the barrel by the door, cold enough to bite at my fingers before I set the kettle over the flame. I busied myself with the tub while it warmed, hauling it out from the corner, positioning it close enough to the hearth that he wouldn't freeze the moment he sat in it, because heaven knew the man had already proven he had no sense when it came to his own comfort.By

Chapter 44: Aneira's POV‘Dear Lyra’Two words. I'd managed two words, and already my concentration had wandered somewhere it had absolutely no business going."You're gripping the quill like it burns," Kale said, watching my hand from far too close for anyone's peace of mind. He'd pulled his chair around the table until his shoulder nearly brushed mine, close enough that I could feel the warmth still clinging to him from the bath, close enough that the scent of crushed herbs and clean skin had all but replaced the air I was meant to be breathing."It's a perfectly functional grip.""It's a grip that will cramp your hand within the hour and produce handwriting even worse than what you started with." He nodded toward the parchment. "Loosen it. And start again, Dear Lyra reads as though you're addressing a stranger, not a friend.""Perhaps I write like this to everyone.""You don't."He said it with such maddening certainty that I very nearly threw the ink pot at him, gods damn his smug

Chapter 46: Aneira's POVThe knock came just after midday, three short raps against old wood, and every part of me went still before my mind had even caught up to why.I knew that scent before I'd finished setting the knife down, and I groaned before I could stop myself. I hadn't slept enough, hadn't eaten enough, and had absolutely no patience left over for visitors.Darius.Of all the people who could have come here today, it had to be him."What's wrong?" Kale was already up, chair pushed back, before I'd said a word."Someone's outside.""Who?""Darius." I kept my voice low, already moving toward the door.Kale's expression changed. "The wolf who escorted you to Ashfang."Of course that was the detail he'd latched onto. Not that a rogue was standing outside our door, not that I needed him quiet in the next thirty seconds. And definitely not that absolutely no one could discover that he was here. I could already feel the shift in him, that low simmering thing that had nothing to do

Chapter 48: Aneira's POVFive days of a healed Alpha loose in a one-room cottage had taught me more about restraint than a year of healer's training ever managed.Kale had taken to pacing. Not obviously for he was far too controlled for anything that looked like pacing outright. But I'd started noticing the pattern of it anyway, the way he'd find some reason to be near the door every hour or so, the way his jaw ticked when Hex so much as looked at him wrong. He'd read every scrap of parchment in the cottage twice. He'd rearranged my herb shelf without asking, which I was still not over. Lyra's last letter had arrived two days ago, short and warm and blessedly uneventful, and I'd read it three times over just to have something to do with my hands that wasn't watching him not sit still."You're doing it again," I said, not looking up from the salve I was grinding."Doing what?""That thing where you stand near the door like you're deciding whether or not you value the shelter I’ve prov

Chapter 50: Unknown POVThe doors of the hall hadn't fully opened before the smell of blood reached them.Varik was on his feet before the wolf staggered through, chest still heaving from the run down the mountain, every line of him rigid with the particular exhaustion of a body that had shifted twice in one night and pushed itself past sense doing it. He made it perhaps ten paces into the hall before his legs nearly gave out entirely, and he caught himself against a pillar rather than go down, breathing like a man who'd run the whole way back without once stopping to consider the wisdom of it."Where are the others?"The tracker didn't answer immediately, and that silence told Varik most of what he needed to know before a single word was spoken."Where," Varik said again, quieter now, "are the others?""Dead, my lord." The words came out ragged, torn between exhaustion and something closer to shame. "All five. I'm the only one who made it back down the mountain."The other wolf hadn'