Semua Bab The Alpha Rejected Me, His Father Claimed Me: Bab 61 - Bab 66

Aeloria didn't wait to be struck.The soldiers charged as one, blades raised, every one of them aimed at the narrow gap where she stood behind Kaelen's shoulder, and in the half-second before they closed the distance, she understood with sudden, total clarity that trusting him to hold this line didn't mean standing idle while he did it.Fire tore from her palms in a wave brighter than anything she'd called before, catching the first three soldiers mid-stride and throwing them back across the courtyard stones. The world narrowed to heat and light, the desperate pull of power moving faster than she could control.The fire answered too quickly. Too easily. It reached past her hands, drawing heat from somewhere deeper than muscle and bone. She filed the thought away for later, when there might be time to be afraid of it.The heat of it rolled off her in waves, singeing the air, and somewhere at the edge of her awareness she registered her own hair lifting slightly with the force of wh

The healing hall had gone strangely quiet around them, other wounded and their tenders falling silent one by one as word spread of who lay dying on the center cot, until the only sounds left were Nyra's clipped instructions and the ragged, failing rhythm of Kaelen's breathing. Somewhere behind her, Aeloria was dimly aware of Bram standing at the doorway, hat clutched in both hands, unable to make himself either enter or leave."Aeloria." Nyra's hand closed gently around her shoulder. "I don't think there's anything more we…""There has to be." She didn't look up, didn't let herself hear the rest of the sentence. "There has to be something. I refuse to believe there isn't."Elga pushed through the crowd gathered near the cot, her old hands finding Aeloria's shoulder before anyone could stop her. "Child. Look at me."The old woman's grip was surprisingly strong for someone so frail. Its steadiness cut through the rising panic in Aeloria's chest more effectively than any of the shout

Three days passed, and they found nothing. Riders went out at dawn and returned at dusk with the same report each time: no sign of Calista, no ransom note, no word from anyone who might know where Voss kept his prisoners. Silver Hollow's walls were half rebuilt, the scorch marks scrubbed from the courtyard stones, and still Aeloria woke every morning to the same useless silence where an answer should have been. "Nothing again," Corvin said, dropping into the chair across from Kaelen's desk, delivering bad news for the fourth day running. "Draven's men have searched every abandoned outpost within two days' ride. Nothing. Whoever built that hidden network Voss has been using, he built it well enough that even Iron Fang's own scouts can't find the seams." "He's had thirty years to hide it," Kaelen said. "We've had three days to look." "I know how the arithmetic works, Kaelen. I don't like it any better than you do." Aeloria stood at the window, arms crossed, watching the courty