جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

​The word vibrated through every nerve in my body. ​Mate. ​For a second, the world went silent. The cold wind blowing off the mountains didn't bite anymore. The sharp throb in my bruised ribs vanished beneath a wave of sudden, overwhelming heat. I stared across the moonlit court at Alpha Kael, my pulse hammering in my ears. ​His golden eyes weren't cold anymore. They burned with a dark, intense light. The terrifying Alpha who held the entire territory in his grip was frozen mid-step, his broad chest heaving as he stared back at me. He smelled of rain, cedarwood, and ozone—a scent that felt like home to a part of me I didn't even know existed. ​I have a mate, my inner voice whispered. The Goddess didn't forget me. ​I took a small step forward, reaching out on instinct. "Kael..." ​Gasps broke out across the crowded court. ​"Did she just move toward the Alpha?" "Look at her eyes—they're glowing!" "No way... the Moon Goddess wouldn't pair him with a curse!" ​The whispers turned

The rough bark of the ancient oak bit into Selene’s back as Kael closed the distance between them. The scent of ozone, damp pine, and the metallic tang of rogue blood rolled off him in suffocating waves. He didn't look like the pristine, ruthless Alpha who had stood over her on the marble dais hours ago. His velvet coat was torn, spattered with dark gore, and his raven hair fell wildly across a brow glistening with sweat. But it was his eyes that made Selene's lungs seize. The cold, icy distance was completely gone, replaced by a raw, unhinged fervor that seemed to burn straight through the twilight haze. "Stay back," Selene choked out, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to sound brave. She reached blindly for her waist, forgetting for a split second that her skinning knife was buried somewhere in the wet leaves yards away. "You banished me, Kael. Pack law is clear. Step over the boundary, and I’m rogue prey. You have no rights to me." "Pack law be damned," Kael growled,

The silvery glow radiating from the ancient cave runes pulsed in rhythm with Kael’s frantic, shallow breathing. Outside the barrier, the fog swallowed the black-cloaked hunters, but the silence inside the stone chamber felt far more suffocating. ​Selene knelt over Kael, her knees digging into the cold gravel floor. The black, ink-like tendrils of the hunter's curse had reached his jawline, throbbing like dark lightning beneath his pale skin. His silver eyes were unfocused, staring up at the vaulted ceiling as if seeing ghosts. ​"Kael, stay with me!" Selene shouted, slapping his burning cheek with a trembling palm. "Who killed my parents? Who gave Thomas the poison?!" ​"The... Silver Lunas," Kael rasped, his hand tightening around her wrist until her bones groaned under the pressure. "Your bloodline... wasn't destroyed by rogues, Selene. It was... wiped out. Erased from within the High Council..." ​Selene felt the air leave her lungs. Wiped out. All her life, Beta Thomas and Elder

Step by step, Beta Thomas emerged from the darkness. Selene scrambled backward, clutching the leather-bound journal to her chest with her good hand. Her left arm hung entirely limp at her side, cold and numb, the skin surrounding her wounded palm turning a sickly, bruised violet. The magic she had used to push back Kael’s death wasn't just fading—it was actively consuming her strength from the inside out. Blood trickled from Thomas's broken nose, painting his sneering lip a sticky crimson, but his eyes burned with a dark, triumphant fervor. In his hand, he casually swung the obsidian blade, its black metal humming with that same nauseating, high-pitched frequency that made Selene’s stomach churn. "You run fast for a wounded stray," Thomas drawled, his heavy boots crushing a ribcage among the skeletal remains on the floor with a dry, splintering crack. "But you're out of places to run, girl. Nowhere left to go." Selene forced herself to her feet, pressing her back against the free

​ ​The temperature inside the cavern plunged until ice crystals crackled across the smooth marble floor. The twenty black-cloaked hunters formed a seamless semicircle, their silver-tipped spears held with terrifying precision. At their head stood the Arch-Hunter—a towering silhouette encased in jagged obsidian armor that seemed to swallow the dim crimson light bleeding from the vault doors. ​Where a face should have been under his dark helm, only two burning, void-like slits glowed. ​"Kael of the Silver Fang," the Arch-Hunter’s voice echoed, sounding like grinding tectonic plates and grating iron. "You stand on an altar built by your grandfather's cowardice and maintained by your father's treason. Lower your steel." ​Kael didn't back down. He pulled Selene closer against his side, his arm a rigid band of muscle anchoring her trembling form. The golden fire in his eyes flared, wrestling furiously with the black veins choking his throat. ​"If you want her, you'll have to cut throug