Lahat ng Kabanata ng Alpha’s Masterpiece: Bound by Revenge : Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 9

The neon sign outside the window flickered, casting a low, crimson glow across the exposed brick of Julian’s studio. It was past midnight, the kind of hour where the rest of the city slowed down, but inside, the air felt thick, charged with an undeniable, heavy tension.Elena stood by the canvas, a charcoal pencil resting loosely between her fingers. She was supposed to be focusing on the lines, the shadows, the technicality of the form. But it’s hard to focus on technique when the subject is watching you with an intensity that makes your pulse skip.Julian hadn't moved from the chaise lounge in twenty minutes, yet his presence filled the entire room. He wore a dark shirt, the top few buttons undone, looking entirely too relaxed for someone who knew exactly what he was doing to her sanity."You're quiet tonight," Julian said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that seemed to vibrate straight through the floorboards."I'm concentrating," Elena replied, though her voice lacked any real

The morning sun did not just rise; it broke through the tall, frosted windows of the studio like a sudden weight, casting long, sharp lines of bright yellow light across the floorboards. The red glow of the neon sign from the night before was completely gone, replaced by the unforgiving clarity of day. But Elena did not wake up from the light. She woke up because of the heat. It was a sharp, melting sensation growing right between her thighs, heavy and wet, pulling her out of a deep, exhausting sleep.They had fallen asleep completely naked the night before, their bodies tangled together without a single shred of fabric between them, and that raw, skin-to-skin closeness had remained all through the night. Her mind was foggy, trapped in that slow, heavy place between dreaming and being awake, but her body was already reacting. The cool air of the room hit her exposed torso, but between her legs, it was a completely different climate. She moved her legs automatically, widening her stanc

The trunk of Julian’s car was massive. Elena knew that because she’d seen him load a bunch of heavy timber frames into it two weeks ago, laughing about how he liked old-school German engineering because everything modern felt like cheap plastic. Now she was sitting in the passenger seat of that same car, watching the windshield wipers smear a greasy film of rain and crushed bugs across the glass.It was five in the morning. Or maybe closer to six. The dashboard clock was broken, stuck permanently at 12:14, and Julian had her phone somewhere in the pockets of his heavy leather jacket.He hadn't tied his hair back today. It hung down around his jaw, dark and slightly damp from the mist outside the loft when they walked down the back stairs. He drove with one hand on the bottom of the steering wheel, his thumb tapping a slow, irregular beat against the leather wrapper. He hadn't spoken since they crossed the river."Julian," she said. Her throat felt dry, like she'd been swallowing sand

The sound of the third deadbolt clicking into place was always the loudest sound of the night. Elena lay completely still on the mattress until the heavy footsteps of Julian moved down the hallway, down the wooden stairs, and finally disappeared into the lower part of the house.The room was freezing. The small fire Marcus had built in the iron stove hours ago had burned down to gray ash and cold pieces of black wood. The smell of old smoke stayed in the air, mixing with the heavy scent of wet earth and the sharp, pine-and-copper scent Julian had left behind on her skin.Elena did not cry anymore. Her eyes felt dry and heavy, like someone had rubbed sand into them. She pulled her legs up slowly, her muscles stiff and aching from the way he had held her down while he forced her fingers onto the glass screen of his phone.*“You’re sister won't stop texting and calling you. Tell her you landed the gallery job,”* he had whispered into her ear earlier that night, his breath warm and terrif

The water in the drainage canal did not just run cold; it ran with the weight of the mountain behind it.Elena kept her right hand flattened over her abdomen, where a strange, heavy furnace was burning through the chill. She didn't understand it yet, not fully. She didn't know that three tiny, royal hearts were beating in unison deep within her pelvic bowl. Because of the specialized, numbing suppressants Julian had brewed into her tea every night for six months, the embryos had remained in a compact, incredibly dense metabolic state deep within her tummy. Her abdomen remained flat, showing no outward sign of life, and the heavy herbal elements had completely masked the biological shift, rendering the pregnancy entirely invisible to even the sharpest werewolf nose.Julian had no idea. Lilith had no idea. To the entire Crimson Moon Pack, she was just a fragile, empty human girl. But back in the examination room, when the doctor mentioned her blood thickening and fighting off a systemic