All Chapters of The Alpha's Doomed Mate: Chapter 21 - Chapter 26

POV: AshaDante spread the pages across the table like a man laying out cards he already suspected were bad.“There's a pattern here,” he said, “once you know to look for it.”I sat between him and Hera, while Zade sat on the opposite end of the table.The correspondence from the night before was still folded in my pocket, where I'd kept it since Zade handed it to me. “Walk me through it,” I said.Dante tapped the first page. “Your father's debt was real, with four years of arrears slowly building up. That part holds up, and nobody's going to argue that away.”“But?”“But the terms attached to it changed twice in the final year. Both times, right around when Marrok's correspondence started naming you specifically.” He slid a second page toward me. “The original agreement didn't include a service clause at all. It was strictly financial. Someone added the clause later.”Hera leaned forward, frowning at the ink. “Added it how? Doesn't a contract need both parties to agree to changes?”“

POV: Asha“You still have the sanctuary and Hera. And you have me.”The words had followed me around for two days now, uninvited, surfacing at the worst possible moments, while I was grinding herbs, while I was half-asleep, while I was doing absolutely nothing that should have reminded me of anything he'd said.He didn't mean it like that, I told myself, for what felt like the hundredth time.He meant it exactly like that, Rylie said, entirely too pleased with herself.Be quiet.She wasn't. She hadn't stopped humming with satisfaction since the moment his fingers had closed around my wrist that morning, and no amount of ignoring her seemed to be working.Hestia had sent me across the village that afternoon for a delivery of dried yarrow the clinic had run short of.Hera was off dealing with something involving the eastern patrol, and so I found myself walking beside Sloane instead, since she happened to be heading the same direction and didn't seem inclined to let me walk it alone.“Yo

POV: Asha“So.”I didn't look up from the herbs. “So what?”“So you and my brother were outside the feast hall for a very long time.” Hera dropped onto the stool across from me, chin in her hands, entirely too delighted with herself. “Alone.”“We talked.”“Mm.” She wiggled her brows.“We did.”“I'm sure the talking was riveting.”I threw a dried leaf at her. She caught it, inspected it, and ate it, which told me exactly how seriously she was taking my protest."Nothing happened," I said."That's not what your face is saying.""My face isn't saying anything.""Your face has been saying it for three days." She leaned forward. "Did he kiss you?""No.""Did he almost kiss you?"I didn't answer fast enough, which was, apparently, an answer in itself, because Hera's grin split wide enough to be genuinely alarming."He did.""He stopped.""He stopped," She said it like the word was the funniest thing she'd heard all week. "My brother, Zade, Alpha of Blackhollow, terror of three neighboring t