All Chapters of Pandora: Hunted by the Two Alphas She Abandoned: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

At some point, Faolan rolled onto his back and pulled me with him. Against his chest, I found my place, my cheek resting where his heartbeat kept time with mine. One of his arms remained locked around my waist while his other hand moved lazily along my spine.Faolan had not spoken for several minutes. At first, I assumed he was falling asleep. Then, his hand stopped moving.Our relationship was quiet, but it wasn't serene. Beneath the satisfaction he had displayed moments before, there was something heavy, like ashes hiding an airless fire.I lifted my head and saw that his amber eyes remained fixed upon the ceiling. "What's wrong?"His throat shifted under my hand. "I should have been happy..."My fingers came to a halt against his chest. "What?"Faolan's arm loosened enough for him to sit upright. I moved beside him and drew the sheet around us, watching as he refused to meet my gaze. "When you died," he said. "I should have been happy." Pain moved through the bond. "Your father was

The journey to the capital took three days.The cleric who had arrived at Crescent Ice before our own messenger traveled with us, but questioning him produced little. High Priestess Ava had awakened him before dawn, placed a staff in his hand, and ordered him to ride until he found the woman standing beside the two Alphas of Crescent Ice.She had given him no name.Apparently, she had not needed to.I spent every hour of the journey urging my horse faster. Asterion enforced our nightly stops with the patience of a jailer, while Faolan answered correspondence beside the fire and complained that he had traded several years of his life for one night in my arms. I reminded him that no one had forced him to make the bargain.He maintained that love had deprived him of reason.On the second evening, Asterion returned the temple records the cleric had carried and sat beside me near the fire."Every Main Temple has a High Priest and High Priestess," he said. "Their authority is equal, and the

My eyes opened to terror.Asterion's face hovered above mine, stripped of every trace of the cold composure he wore before the rest of the world. Water dripped from his dark hair onto my cheeks. His arms were locked around me so tightly that I could feel the frantic beat of his heart against my side.Faolan knelt beside us in the glowing pool. His fingers had been brushing tears from my face, but they froze the moment I blinked.Neither of them breathed.Relief came first, violent enough to soften their expressions. Remorse followed, darkening their eyes as though they had failed to protect me from something neither of them could fight.They looked at me as though I had died again.Only this time, they had watched it happen."Pandora?" Faolan's voice cracked around my name.Asterion tightened his hold. "Look at me, my moon."I was looking at him. I could not seem to do anything else.The last time the world believed me dead, these two had been left with nothing but a battlefield and i

I woke with one hand trapped beneath Asterion's and the other enclosed within Faolan's.Neither held me as desperately as they had after I returned from the celestial realm. Their grips had loosened sometime during the night, yet neither had completely released me.Carefully, I attempted to withdraw my right hand.Faolan's fingers tightened before his eyes opened."I was only getting out of bed," I said."That is what someone planning to disappear would say.""If I intended to escape, I would not announce it."Asterion opened his eyes on my other side. "That was not reassuring, my moon."I looked between them. Their hair was disordered from sleep, but the wariness in their faces had returned too quickly. A single movement away from them had been enough to awaken the fear neither male had entirely released."I followed your voices back yesterday," I reminded them. "I am not disappearing this morning."Faolan studied my face. "What are you doing, then?""Preparing to leave." I sat up, f

Could this be Ragriel?Lady Euphyllia Caelthorn-Franciosa stopped across the council table with General Lucretius Xior Franciosa beside her.Neither stood before the other.Even when Kennedy greeted Lucretius by his military title, the general did not move forward to claim the center of the discussion. He remained beside his wife, close enough that the backs of their hands occasionally brushed.Two attendants waited behind them.One was a dark-haired woman dressed in the modest silver-and-blue uniform of a Waevalon servant. The male beside her wore the armor of a royal guard. Both lowered their gazes when Kennedy acknowledged the delegation.I dismissed them almost immediately.My blood remained fixed upon Euphyllia."Have we met before?" I asked.Kennedy had begun inviting everyone to sit. He stopped.Euphyllia regarded me with pale, unreadable eyes. "Not in this lifetime."Something beneath my ribs stirred.The answer should have sounded ridiculous. Instead, my blood accepted every