All Chapters of The Alpha's Doomed Mate: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

POV: AshaZade was the first to move, a single step back. It was as though the words had physically pushed him."That's not possible."“I don’t know how this works, Alpha,” Hestia said, shaking her head.“Then don’t guess.”“I have a working theory, though.” Hestia’s gaze didn’t shake. “The Wolfsbane pushed her wolf deep enough that she’s struggling to hold herself near the surface. Your bond seems to be giving her something strong enough to follow back.”I frowned. “Follow?” “Think of it as an anchor. For now,” she replied, and turned to Zade. “I would like to test that theory, Alpha. Give her your hand.”"Give her—" His gaze fell on me, his expression hardening. "No."“Alpha—”“Find another way.”“I’m not asking you to strengthen the bond,” Hestia said patiently in a way that made it clear she had expected that exact answer. “Just like you having to step away, I only want to see whether contact changes her wolf’s response. That’s all.”Zade didn’t move.I felt strangely insulted as

POV: AshaTwenty-nine days.That was how much time I had left before Marrok could try to drag me back into his life.Somehow, thirty had sounded longer inside the council chamber. In the morning light, it felt terrifyingly short.“You're allowed further than the wing now,” Hera said, tugging open the heavy pack house doors. “Zade finally agreed you don’t need to be kept inside after what happened. You just can’t wander around alone until they figure out how that attacker got in.”I hesitated at the threshold. The council had been held in the adjacent building next to the pack house, so I hadn’t gotten out of the place much. Now, here I was, half-expecting the outside world to match the cold, gothic dread of the Forbidden Wing.It didn't.Sunlight spilled across rows of timber-and-stone houses nestled among the trees, nothing like the dark, twisted imagery Moonmere elders had painted of Blackhollow my whole life. Closer to the pack house, the roads narrowed into old stone paths, works

POV: AshaZade’s dark eyes shifted from me to Hera, who immediately pressed her lips together as though that could hide the laughter already shaking her shoulders.Heat crawled up my neck at the thought of him hearing our back and forth.Wonderful.Across the table, Sloane glanced between us before taking another bite of her food, one brow faintly raised.I peeled my eyes away from Zade and concentrated very hard on what remained on my plate, wishing dinner ended right then. However, it lasted another twenty minutes.Zade rose first, and Sloane followed not long after. As she passed my chair, she slowed.“Asha.”I looked up. Her amber eyes flicked briefly toward the doorway Zade had disappeared through. “Dante briefed me.”My stomach tightened. “About what?”Her mouth curved, barely. Then she kept walking, leaving me to my curiosity.I left the dining hall with Hera, heading toward the forbidden wing while everyone else moved to the other side of the pack house.“I think she knows abo

POV: AshaHestia had won the argument earlier, sort of. Zade had refused the longer contact she wanted, agreeing only to brief periods of hand contact while she monitored me.It had worked for a few hours.Until now.The episode came harder that night, well past midnight, dragging me out of sleep with a violent, disorienting jolt.Rylie's presence felt very shaky in my mind, caught halfway between surfacing and retreating, neither fully here nor fully gone.Pain pierced through my skull with every failed attempt, sharp enough that I curled into myself as I held back sounds I didn't want carrying through the walls.A cry escaped me before I could bite it back.Ry, hold on. I gasped, gripping the sheets as the room blurred around me and my heartbeat pounded loudly in my ears.Footsteps pounded in the corridor, and less than a minute or so later, Hera burst through my door. Her expression was tight with alarm at whatever she found on my face. Hestia arrived moments after, moving with th

Pov: ZadeI hadn't gone near the Forbidden Wing since I left her room, and Xavier hated me for it. He'd been hating me for it since the moment my arms left her waist.His low and furious pacing that hadn't stopped since then pressed against the inside of my skull like a fist against a door he intended to break down eventually, whether I let him or not.Go back, he said, for what felt like the hundredth time that morning.No.She is ours; we have to claim her.That right there is the problem, and what I cannot allow.Instead of answering with words, he continued to pace furiously inside my head. He pushed hard enough that my hands had stopped being steady somewhere around the second morning.I stopped responding to him altogether.She wasn’t only my mate anymore. That fact was something I had been able to carry on with, badly, but I survived it.What I am barely surviving now is the memory of my own fangs lengthening against her throat, of how close I'd come, of how little it would hav