บททั้งหมดของ MARKED BY THE ALPHA I CAME TO KILL : บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

The house looked exactly as Nyra remembered it. The drive wound long beneath old trees, their branches meeting overhead in a way that turned the approach into something like a tunnel. The house itself sat with its stone walls gleaming soft gold in the afternoon sun, dark green shutters framing tall windows that had always, in Nyra's memory, seemed too large for the rooms behind them. A wide veranda wrapped the front, with wicker chairs still arranged the way they'd always been arranged, and beyond the house she could see the old orchard, grown a little wild at its edges, red apples not yet ready for picking hanging heavy on branches that badly needed pruning. She knew this house the way she knew the back of her palm. The third step up to the veranda creaked if you placed too much of your weight to its left side. One of the parlor's side windows stuck every winter until someone forced it closed with a shoulder. Magda kept sweets in the second drawer of the sideboard, always had, si

The road gave her time to think, which she wasn't entirely grateful for. For years, Nyra had measured journeys by how quickly they took her away from somewhere. Every posting had been a departure, every road a means of getting farther from wherever she'd last been. She'd never once ridden toward something instead of simply away from something else. This was the first time she'd found herself counting the miles in the opposite direction. She thought that over slowly as the trees thickened around her, the road narrowing toward the familiar border crossing into Blackthorn territory. She had two lives now, she realized, in a way she hadn't quite let herself articulate before. Magda's house, the Order, the long string of assignments and changing names and rooms she'd never stayed in long enough to call her own. And Blackthorn. Somewhere she was actually returning to. --- She smelled the keep before she saw it, woodsmoke and something roasting, before she'd even cleared the last stre

Nyra woke after a poor night's sleep, still thinking about Lucian's words and the way he'd looked at her. She'd expected, coming back from Magda's, that things would settle into whatever they'd been before she left. Instead, Lucian had kept a deliberate distance, and she found herself irritated by how deeply she let it affect her. She saw him in the courtyard on her way to the training yard. "Morning." "Morning." That was all. There was no warmth, no easy teasing, nothing like the rhythm they'd built over the past weeks. She told herself she was relieved not to have to navigate anything more complicated before breakfast. She wasn't. Elora found her not long after, already mid-complaint before she'd finished crossing the yard. "Frances keeps reopening the same cut on her arm no matter how many times I tell her to leave it alone. She says she's trying to test her healing abilities." Nyra knew Frances. She was the only one of the younger wolves who didn't cower when Mira raised

Chapter 28: The Other Assassin Then Elora threw first. The blade arced toward Nyra's throat. Nyra twisted aside, feeling the wind of it against her skin, then lunged forward. Elora was already moving. She caught Nyra's wrist, turned with her momentum and drove an elbow into her ribs. Pain flashed through Nyra's side as she stumbled back, but Elora was already coming again. Her movements were fast and precise, the same controlled patterns Nyra knew too well. A feint to the left, a strike toward the ribs, then a low sweep meant to take out her legs. Nyra jumped over it and drove her fist toward Elora's jaw, but Elora blocked, their arms colliding with enough force to make Nyra's shoulder ache. For a moment, they simply stared at each other. Then Elora smiled sadly. “I didn't expect to like you, Nyra.” Nyra's breathing was already hard. “Then why are you doing this?” “You know why.” Elora attacked again. Nyra blocked the first strike but missed the second. The blade caught her a

Nyra didn't stop. She cut through the forest, away from the main road, away from Blackthorn, away from everything that seemed familiar. Branches whipped at her face. Her boots sank into mud. She didn't slow down. At first, she ran because she needed to put distance between herself and Blackthorn. Now, it dawned on her that she wasn't getting tired. Her legs moved with a strength she didn't recognize, her breathing remained steady and her body seemed to recover with every passing mile. She was faster than she used to be. The ground passed beneath her in a blur. Roots and rocks appeared in her path and disappeared just as quickly, her body twisting around them before she'd consciously registered the obstacles. Her movements felt sharper, faster, almost instinctive. She should have been exhausted. The fight with Elora had taken everything. Her ribs had cracked. Her palm had been sliced open. Her body should have been screaming. It wasn't. Her healing was different now. Faster. H