All Chapters of The Alpha's Forbidden Auction Mate : Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Mira's POVI couldn't stop turning it over, long after we'd returned to our separate rooms, long after the Court's formal gathering had finally wound down into quiet, sleeping stillness around us.Because it's safer.The words had settled into something considerably more complicated than I'd initially registered on that moonlit balcony, and lying awake in the unfamiliar bed, staring at the strange, star-carved ceiling overhead, I found myself examining the phrase from every possible angle, unable to shake the particular unease it had left behind.Safer for who?For me, I'd initially assumed, some protective instinct on his part, the same careful, overcorrected caution he'd shown weeks earlier when he'd grabbed Callum's wrist across that formal dinner table. That interpretation had made sense once, back when his careful distance had seemed rooted entirely in wanting to shield me from whatever danger continued circling closer with each passing revelation.But something in the particular

Rowan's POVThe ride back to Blackwood was unusually quiet, and I understood, within the first hour, that the silence wasn't going to break on its own.Mira sat across from me, gaze fixed on the passing countryside, the same landmarks I'd described so easily on our journey out now sliding past without comment from either of us. She hadn't spoken more than a handful of sentences since we'd left the Moon Court's outer gates, and something in the particular quality of her stillness told me clearly enough that this wasn't simple exhaustion.She was thinking. Turning something over, methodically, the way she'd approached the archive's disorganized shelves weeks earlier, sorting through pieces until they formed a shape she could properly examine.I recognized what she was sorting through. The old woman's shocked whisper in the entrance hall. The council's grim revelations about the divided factions. The mural with its scratched-away face. The strange, lingering glances from attendants who'd

Rowan's POVThe room beneath the archive had existed for longer than I had been alive, sealed and forgotten by everyone except the small handful of Alphas who had inherited its key alongside their title, passed down quietly through generations without formal explanation, simply understood as one of the many private burdens that came with leading Blackwood.Even Elias had never entered it.I found myself standing outside its heavy stone door that night, the key cold and unfamiliar in my palm despite having carried it since my father's death years earlier, and understood, with growing certainty, that whatever I decided within the next few minutes would shape everything that followed between Mira and me considerably more than any single conversation could manage on its own.I turned the key.The door opened with a groan that suggested genuine disuse, decades of stillness disturbed for the first time in longer than I properly knew, and I stepped inside carrying only a single lantern, its

Rowan's POVWe walked back through the old forest in comfortable quiet, the weight of everything I had just shared settling into place between us, and I found myself, more relaxed than I had been in weeks, genuinely grateful for having finally chosen honesty over careful, protective silence.Mira had been quiet for a while, processing everything about Selene and the ancient peace and its subsequent destruction, and I let her have the space, understanding she needed time to properly absorb information this significant.Then she asked the question that stopped me entirely."Why did you buy me?"I stopped walking.The question landed considerably differently than I expected, not because it was unfamiliar, she had asked some version of it before, back during our very first conversation in that private auction room, but because something in the way she asked it now, quiet and genuinely curious rather than accusatory, made it clear she wanted the actual, complete truth this time, not the ca

Rowan's POVLyra arrived without warning that afternoon, the same way she always did, though something in the particular urgency of her expression as she crossed the pack house's front grounds told me immediately this visit carried more weight than her usual teasing appearances.She did not speak to me first.I stood in the study doorway, watching her cross the entrance hall with clear intent, and found myself, uncharacteristically, entirely bypassed as she addressed Mira directly instead."I need to speak with you," Lyra said, her voice carrying none of its usual playful edge. "Alone."Mira glanced toward me, something questioning in her expression, and I found myself, despite every protective instinct urging me to insist on remaining present, simply nodding my agreement."Go ahead," I said. "I'll be here."Something flickered across Lyra's face at my easy acceptance, surprise mixed with what looked, briefly, like genuine approval, and she led Mira toward the small sitting room adjac