Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 11 - Chapitre 20

HunterThe moment I stepped into the room, it fell completely silent.Elias was the first to straighten up, his face a mask of neutrality, but I could see the remnants of something else. Tension in his shoulders, Rosalind’s hand frozen against the cloth she was using on Annalise’s neck, and Annalise herself looking pale and quiet on that narrow cot, her lips still parted as if she were about to finish a thought I had interrupted.“What,” I said slowly, “is happening in here?”“Alpha.” Elias’s voice was steady, rehearsed like the tone of a Beta who had honed the skill of sounding calm no matter what was going on inside. “Annalise collapsed in the kitchen due to exhaustion, malnutrition. I brought her to Rosalind.”That much I already knew. I’d heard Melissa’s shrill complaints echoing through the pack house, her voice rising as she criticized Elias for overstepping his bounds, for the omega who couldn’t manage a single crate of vegetables. I had come here expecting just that. Exhaustio

Camille“How did you know it was still here?” Hunter’s voice was low, carrying a dangerous edge I hadn’t heard directed at me in years. “I never showed you this necklace. I never told anyone what happened to it.”Camille’s mouth opened and closed, caught off guard. For once, she didn’t have a quick lie ready to roll off her tongue.“I—” she began.“Answer me.” He stepped closer, and even I could feel the weight of his alpha presence filling the room, heavy and commanding. “How did you know, Camille?”“I heard rumors,” she blurted out, her words tumbling out too fast. “Years ago. Servants talk, Hunter, you know that. Someone must have seen you with it once and assumed—”“No one has seen this necklace since the week of the funeral,” Hunter interrupted, his tone firm. “I made sure of that.”Camille’s composure began to crack, her eyes flicking toward the door as if she was calculating her chances of escape.“You’re overreacting,” she said, forcing a laugh that sounded brittle and wrong.

Annalise“My mother’s diary,” I echoed, my voice trembling just a bit. “What do you know about it?”Corwin’s face was infuriatingly calm, the same composed demeanor he’d had since stepping into the moonlight, like a man who had been waiting for this moment forever and was finally savoring it.“More than you might think,” he replied. “News travels fast in a pack house, Annalise, even in one that belongs to your enemies. Servants chat. Guards keep tabs. And a girl sneaking off to the ruins of Cresthaven to dig up a hidden diary? That’s bound to raise some eyebrows, whether she means to or not.”My heart sank. I hadn’t breathed a word about the diary to anyone except Hunter. Not Rosalind, not Elias, and definitely not this cold, calculating Elder who seemed to know way too much about a night I had barely managed to survive.“How do you know what’s in it,” I pressed, “if you’ve never laid eyes on it?”“I never said I haven’t read it,” Corwin replied, his tone matter-of-fact.Next to me, H

AnnaliseRosalind hurried us through the pack house, her face tight with worry that twisted my stomach into knots. In just a few minutes, we reached the small healing room, and I nearly stumbled at the sight of Ava propped up against a pile of pillows. Her face was pale, a bandage wrapped around her temple, and her eyes fluttered weakly as we walked in.“She keeps drifting in and out,” Rosalind said softly, moving to check the bandage with steady hands. “But just before you got here, she managed to say something clearly enough that I thought you both should hear it directly from her, if she can do it again.”I knelt beside the cot, gently taking Ava’s hand in mine. “Ava. Can you hear me?”Her eyes opened slowly, unfocused at first, but then they sharpened as they found my face.“Annalise,” she murmured. “I remembered something. After they hit me, everything became clearer, somehow. Like the fear finally shook something loose.”“What did you remember?” Hunter asked, crouching down on h

AnnaliseAiden fought like a man who had nothing left to lose, blood trickling down his temple, his movements ragged from exhaustion, but he was still on his feet when I reached him, still battling, and a wave of relief washed over me so intensely that I nearly collapsed.“Aiden!”He turned at the sound of my voice, his eyes wide with disbelief for a fleeting, dangerous moment before an attacker lunged at his exposed side. Without thinking, I threw myself in front of him, taking the blow meant for my brother across my forearm instead of my ribs.The pain shot through me, bright and sharp, but I refused to let it slow me down. I had learned enough at Silvercrest over the past few weeks to hold my own, and I drove my elbow back into the attacker’s throat with enough force to send him reeling.“You shouldn’t be here,” Aiden shouted over the clash of steel, already moving to cover my back just like we had practiced as kids, some old instinct kicking in despite everything that had come betw