Alle Kapitel von The Alpha's Forbidden Flame: Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 20

Camille's POV His heartbeat lived inside my chest now.I hadn't noticed it before—too much noise, too much chaos, too much fire burning through my veins to feel anything subtle. But lying awake in the small room above Midnight Moon, the Quarter finally quiet beneath a moonless sky, I felt it. A second pulse beside my own. Steady but weak. Present but fading. Dimitri's heart, beating in tandem with mine, connected by a bond I hadn't asked for and couldn't escape.I counted the beats. Sixty-two per minute. Slower than a wolf's heart should be. Slower than it had been yesterday, when I'd pressed my hand to his chest and felt the rhythm strong beneath my palm. Something was draining out of him, and that something was me.I threw off the thin blanket and crossed to the window. The streets below were empty, the tourists and revelers long since retreated to their hotels and homes. Only shadows moved in the Quarter now—shadows and the things that lived inside them. I pressed my forehead agai

Camille's POV "Abomination."The word came from the serpent woman, her scaled skin catching the chandelier light as she leaned forward in her seat. She said it casually, almost conversationally, like she was commenting on the weather rather than pronouncing judgment on my existence. Around her, murmurs of agreement rippled through the Conclave—heads nodding, lips curling, eyes sharpening with the particular hunger of predators scenting wounded prey."A hybrid carrying the First Flame," she continued. "Wolf and witch, bound together in ways that violate the natural order. The old laws are clear. Such creatures are to be destroyed before they can—""I am not a creature."The words left my mouth before I could stop them, cutting through her speech like a blade through silk. The serpent woman's eyes widened—surprise, or perhaps offense at being interrupted. I didn't care. Something was rising in me, something that had nothing to do with Scarlett's fire and everything to do with years of

Camille's POV I refused to burn.Even as Vaughn's hunters regrouped in the shadows outside Midnight Moon, even as their tactical formations shifted and their silver weapons gleamed in the streetlights, I kept Scarlett's fire locked behind my ribs. The cost was too high. My mother's face was already gone. Luna's first word could be next, or her first steps, or the sound of her laughter when I tickled her feet. Every flame had a receipt, and I couldn't afford to pay."Camille." Dimitri's voice was strained, his body barely upright. "They're coming back."I could feel them through the bond—not just Dimitri's fading heartbeat, but something else. A predator awareness that belonged to my wolf half, sharpening my senses even without Scarlett's fire to fuel them. Six hunters circling the building. Two on the roof. One at the back door.And Vaughn Ash standing at the front, patient as stone, waiting to see what I would do."I can fight," I said. "Without the fire.""You can't." Morgana was a

Camille's POV I cried for six hours.Not the quiet, dignified tears of a woman in control. These were the ugly sobs of someone breaking apart—snot and salt and sounds that came from somewhere deeper than my throat. I curled on the floor of Midnight Moon's back room, surrounded by the wreckage of Vaughn's attack, and I mourned the memory of my daughter's first breath like it was a death. Because it was. A piece of me had died tonight, burned away to fuel a victory that now felt hollow as an empty grave.Dimitri sat beside me the whole time. He didn't touch me, didn't speak, didn't try to fix what couldn't be fixed. He just stayed—his heartbeat pulsing faintly through our bond, thirty beats per minute now, barely enough to keep him alive. I was killing him too. Every tear I shed, every breath I took, every moment I existed as this broken thing I'd become—it all drained a little more of his life force. And I couldn't stop. Couldn't hold back the grief any more than I could hold back the

Camille's POV The elders wanted me gone.I knew it before I walked into the great hall, felt it in the weighted stares of the pack members I passed, tasted it in the air thick with tension and fear. Shadow Moon had been kind to my daughter. They had sheltered her, fed her, protected her from the hunters who wanted to collect us both like rare specimens. But kindness had limits, and I had brought war to their doorstep simply by existing.The great hall was carved into the mountain itself—stone walls lined with torches, wooden benches arranged in a semicircle around a raised platform where five chairs sat empty. Five elders. Five votes. Five chances for my sanctuary to be denied and my daughter to be thrown back into the wilderness with nothing but a dying man and a mother who couldn't remember her birth."Camille." James appeared at my side, his weathered face creased with worry. "Are you sure you want to do this? Cecelia and I can speak for you—""No." I straightened my spine, lifted