Semua Bab My Alpha Lost Me To The Lycan King : Bab 71 - Bab 80

Chapter 72 King Alaric For one suspended, disbelieving heartbeat, I let myself hope Cordelia had come as an ally — that word of the Hollow Court's assault had somehow reached the Southern Provinces overnight, and she'd marched to honor whatever fragile alliance still existed between our thrones. Then I saw the banner riding at the formation's head, and hope died a swift, cold death. Not the twin swans of Cordelia's royal house. A silver wolf, encircled by a broken chain. "That's not Cordelia's army," I said, my voice gone hollow. "That's her banner stolen, or her throne compromised. Ismene—do you recognize that sigil?" Ismene's face had drained of what little color remained after the night's exhaustion. "The Hollow Court's oldest mark," she said. "Before they hid behind gray robes and quiet infiltration. I've only seen it depi

  King Alaric She didn't wake for three days. I refused to leave her side for any of them, sleeping upright in a chair beside her bed when I slept at all, watching the steady rise and fall of her breathing with a vigilance that bordered on obsession. Elder Maeve assured me, repeatedly, that this was simply what the body did after claiming three centuries of stolen power in a single night — that rest, not fear, was the appropriate response to what Elise had survived. I believed her. I still couldn't make myself leave. The kingdom, in those three days, slowly began stitching itself back together. Reyes led the search for Ashgrave's remaining forces, finding them scattered and leaderless, most surrendering without further bloodshed once word spread of what had happened on that northern ridge. Elliott returned to Frost Moon with Tyler at his side, promising to send word on

  King Alaric The shadow spreading across the sky wasn't advancing the way an army advanced, or the way the ravenous creature had crawled up from the valley floor. It simply *was*, unfurling patient and vast over the palace grounds like ink bleeding through water, and every guard in the courtyard below had gone still, weapons raised toward a threat none of them seemed to fully understand how to fight. "He's testing the wards," Elise said beside me, her hand gripping the windowsill hard enough to whiten her knuckles, the golden-dark-silver current beneath her skin flaring bright despite her body's obvious exhaustion. "The same way Ashgrave's men tested the palace hours before the siege began. Except this time, I don't think he's interested in subtlety." "Ismene!" I shouted down the corridor, already moving, Elise's hand tight in mine as we descended toward the courtyard at a pace that made her st

King AlaricThe collision between the Warden's light and the shadow's vast, hungry presence tore the sky open above the palace, violet and black warring in a storm that sent every guard, every servant, every soul still standing in that courtyard staggering for cover.I kept my grip on Elise's arm, refusing to let the chaos separate us, and it was only because I stayed close that I felt it too—the strange, distant pull she'd gone rigid against, her head turning sharply toward the palace's inner gardens despite the battle raging directly overhead."Elise, what is it?""That voice," she said, her own voice strained with effort, straining to hold her contribution to the Warden's working steady even as something else clearly demanded her attention. "I know it. Alaric, I *know* that voice."The storm above intensified, violet light driving the shadow backward in slow, grinding increments, and I understood we couldn't simply abandon the confrontation now, not when the Warden had explicitly s

King AlaricThe light swallowed her whole.I lunged forward on pure, unthinking instinct, but the moment my hand reached for her, a wall of violet-black force threw me backward, hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs, and I hit the courtyard stones with a jarring impact that left my vision swimming."Elise!" My voice tore raw from my throat as I forced myself upright, watching in horror as the light around her intensified, no longer the calm, gathered glow of a working carefully controlled, but something wild, overwhelming, three centuries of ancient grief and calculated cruelty pouring into a single, exhausted woman who had already given nearly everything she possessed."Don't interfere," the Warden said sharply, catching my arm before I could throw myself forward again, their own violet light flickering low and unsteady from the strain of the confrontation. "If you break the contact now, mid-transfer, you risk fracturing both of them at once—him, and her.""She can't survive