All Chapters of Married to the Alpha Who Killed My Father: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

They returned to the compound well past midnight, the household staff roused despite the hour to see their Alpha and his Lady safely home, and Aria found herself too exhausted and too wound tight with unresolved feeling to properly rest, despite the day's enormous toll.Mira met her at the door to her chambers with a warm cup of tea and an expression of visible relief, though she said little beyond a quiet inquiry about whether her lady required anything further before retiring. Aria waved her off gently, unable in that moment to summon the energy for even the small courtesies of ordinary conversation, her mind still turning over every detail of the day's events, the garrison's near-collision with disaster, the young Voss rider's grief-stricken recognition, the strange, hollow relief of a border secured that still felt, somehow, incomplete.Rurik met them in the main hall, his relief at their safe return quickly giving way to th

Petra's inquiry concluded within the week, considerably faster than Damion's own reckoning had taken, the evidence against her, once investigators knew precisely where to look, proved thin enough in scope that the Council settled on stripped title and permanent exile rather than the harsher judgment her role in a border patrol's death might otherwise have warranted. She had known, the inquiry eventually determined, considerably less than Damion had implied in his final, calculated attempt to spread the weight of his own guilt, a minor conspirator swept up in something far larger than she'd ever fully understood, punished all the same for the small, selfish complicity that had made her useful to him.Aria attended none of the formal proceedings this time. She had given everything she had to give during Damion's judgment, and found, in the days that followed, that she no longer possessed the appetite for further courtroom reckonings, however necessary they remained. She left Petra's fate

Aria woke to the feeling of Kade's mouth pressed warm against her shoulder, his arm curled around her waist, and the low, satisfied rumble of his voice murmuring something against her skin that she felt more than properly heard."That's a rather indulgent way to wake someone," she said, though she made no move to pull away, arching back against him instead with a contentment that still, days later, felt almost unfamiliar in its easy simplicity."You're my wife," Kade said, echoing her own words from days earlier, his hand tracing a slow, deliberate path along her hip. "I'm allowed a certain amount of indulgence.""Is that so." Aria turned in his arms to face him properly, morning light spilling gold across the rumpled sheets between them, and found herself smiling at the unguarded, sleep-warm affection in his expression, none of the careful diplomatic composure he wore for Council sessions, none of the grim determination that had carried them both through months

Aria remained confined to her chambers for three days before she began to understand exactly what the old stories about fated bonds under strain had meant, a dull, persistent ache settling into her chest that had nothing to do with grief alone, a physical hollowness that worsened with every hour Kade spent avoiding her.She had read of this once, years earlier, in one of her mother's old texts on pack customs, passages describing how a fated bond, once formed, created a kind of tether between two wolves that resisted distance and, more painfully still, resisted doubt. She had dismissed it at the time as romantic embellishment, the sort of poetic flourish old texts often attached to biological realities considerably more mundane. She understood now, alone in her chambers with an ache settling deeper into her chest by the hour, that the old texts had likely understated it.Mira brought her meals with careful, apologetic silence, c

The Vale family estate sat modestly at the edge of the eastern hunting grounds, considerably smaller than Aria remembered from her brief betrothal years — a weathered manor house surrounded by overgrown gardens that spoke of a family whose fortunes had long since faded from whatever prominence they'd once held.Aria studied the estate as they approached, memory tugging at details she hadn't thought of in years — the crumbling stone wall that had once marked a formal garden's boundary, the small orchard where she and Corin had walked together during their brief, dutiful courtship, both of them performing an affection neither had genuinely felt. She had been relieved, at seventeen, when circumstances finally gave her cause to end the arrangement. She hadn't considered, until this moment, how much of his own life might have quietly stalled in the years since.Garrick's men positioned themselves discreetly among the tree line before Aria and Kade approached the