All Chapters of Bound to the Alpha She Was Raised to Hate : Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Ronan's POVI didn't sleep after that conversation with my father.I kept turning it over, the exhaustion in his voice, the way he said it like an apology instead of a warning. I don't know how much longer I can protect her. Not against this. He never sounded like that before, not in my whole life, not even when things had gotten bad enough to bury someone in a quiet ceremony nobody wanted to talk about afterward.I kept thinking about Odessa gone. Back at Vale, married to Julian, that cold formal letter turned into her actual life instead of just a threat on paper.It scared me worse than anything the delegation had said at the border.I told myself that it was about the pack. About what happened if Corvin's plan actually worked, if he really did have proof of something dangerous enough to justify force. That's what I told myself, anyway, walking out to the training yard the next morning instead of eating breakfast, needing to move, needing to do something with my hands instead of ju

Odessa's POVRonan's hand dropped away fast, and what had almost happened between us got swallowed up completely by the urgency in Micah's voice."Show me," Ronan said, already moving.We followed Micah at a jog, cutting through the treeline toward the east ridge, a stretch of pack land I hadn't actually seen before, rougher terrain than most of the property, thick brush and uneven rock. Two other scouts were already there when we arrived, standing a distance back from something staked into the ground."Found it on our morning round," one of the scouts said. "Almost walked right into it."Ronan crouched down, studying the device without touching it, and I moved closer despite every instinct telling me to hang back.It looked crude at first glance, just wire and metal fixed low to the ground, tucked along a narrow game trail that wound between two thick trees. But the more I looked, the less crude it actually seemed. Every piece of it had been placed deliberately, angled to catch exact

Odessa's POVI found Ronan before breakfast, still in yesterday's clothes because I hadn't bothered changing, hadn't bothered with much of anything besides staring at that message on my phone half the night."You look like you didn't sleep," he said."Didn't." I held my phone out to him. "I think I know who leaked the patrol schedule."He took it slow, reading the message I pulled up, his face going through about three different expressions before settling on something hard."You told him this?""Not on purpose. Not like I meant to hand him anything useful." My voice cracked a little. "I was just venting, Ronan. Complaining about feeling trapped here. I didn't think….""Hey." He cut me off, gentler than I expected. "You didn't know. There's a difference between careless and guilty.""Doesn't feel like much of a difference right now.""It is one." He handed the phone back. "This is Julian?""I think so. I don't want it to be. Part of me is still trying to talk myself into some other ex

Odessa's POVI found Ronan in the study his father barely used anymore, maps spread across the desk, a list of names in his own handwriting off to one side."You heard," I said."Micah told me." He looked up, something tight behind his eyes. "You okay?""No." I sat down across from him, still holding my phone like it might explode. "I keep hoping I misread it somehow. I didn't.""You didn't." He turned one of the maps toward me, the east ridge marked in red, a second spot near the old training ground circled beside it. "I've been trying to figure out how deep this actually goes. Whether it's just him passing along things he overhears from you, or something bigger.""Feels bigger," I said. "That last message came too fast. Like he's not just hearing rumors, he's getting real-time updates.""From someone inside," Ronan said, grim. "Or from Corvin directly.""Either one is bad.""Both are bad." He rubbed a hand over his face, exhaustion showing plainly now, the same kind I felt sitting h

Corvin's POVThe report arrived just past midnight, folded once, sealed with wax bearing no house crest at all, which was exactly how I preferred my more delicate correspondence to travel.I was still awake. I rarely sleep much these days, not with so many pieces still moving, so many small threads requiring attention before they could be pulled together into something useful. My aide set the folded paper on my desk without a word and left just as quietly, closing the study door behind her with the kind of practiced silence I paid well for.I finished my tea first. There's no benefit to rushing information that's already arrived. Whatever it contained would still say the same thing whether I read it now or in ten minutes.I unfolded it slowly.The handwriting belonged to one of my more reliable people planted near Ironhollow's outer boundary, someone patient enough to watch a treeline for hours without growing careless, without letting exhaustion pull their attention from exactly the