บททั้งหมดของ The Alpha’s Forbidden Omega: บทที่ 41 - บทที่ 50

Seraphine’s POV“Say it again.”The man across the table does not look up from the map. Crane’s river house smells of damp wood, lamp oil, and coin that never bothers with crests. Outside, barge horns roll over the water. Inside, I am done being graceful about what Kieran Voss took from me in front of every pack that mattered.“They’re home,” I say. “His territory. Mark verified. Summit emptied. And according to your road reports, she could barely stay in a saddle and he still handled her like she was the only solid thing in the column.”That gets his eyes up.“Jealousy is expensive, my lady.”“Call it what you want.” My hands are flat on the table so they will not shake. “I stood in a gallery and watched him put another woman’s claim on the record. I stood in a corridor and told him the match was dead. He went home with her anyway. He looks at her the way he never once looked at me in three years of negotiation. I’m not here to cry about it. I’m here because Crane needs a door into V

Juni’s POV“You’re distracted.”Kieran looks up from the maps spread across the table in his study. Afternoon light cuts long bars across the floor. I am in the doorway with two cups of tea and the particular courage of a woman who has had a full night’s sleep and a morning that did not include clerks. The bond gives him away before his face does—warm claim on the surface, a tighter line underneath where he is holding something he has not put in my hands.“Border business,” he says. “The shipment I mentioned. Wren’s sorting it.”“The courtesy note that was ‘probably nothing.’” I set a cup beside the map weights and keep the other. “You’ve been in this room since the second breakfast. Wren has come and gone three times. The cook asked if you were at war again.”His mouth tips, not quite a smile. “The cook asks that whenever I skip the midday meal.”“Kieran.”He holds my gaze for a breath, then sighs and pulls a chair out for me. I sit. The dual current of the bond eases with proximity—

Juni’s POV“They’re still there.”Wren’s voice is low in the gray before sunrise. I am dressed and on my feet; the leftover weakness is only a ghost now, and the bond is already tight with Kieran’s focus. He stands at the study table with a rough sketch of the southern farm road and the high trail above it. The mark on my neck is quiet. The cooler current under it is not—it hums like a wire in bad weather, as if the bloodline can smell a trap the same way a wolf smells steel.“How many?” Kieran asks.“Three on the trail, as of the last pass. Position in the scrub above the second bend—good view of the road, hard to approach without being seen. The shipment left the contractor’s yard at first light under our escort. If they move on it, it’ll be at the bend.”“And the counting-house man?”“Back toward the river before dawn. No Seraphine. No crests.”I step closer to the table. My pulse is already up. Not fear exactly—readiness, the old running life lifting its head.“If you scatter them

Juni’s POV“Here. And here. And the run after the next full moon.”Kieran’s finger tracks the southern farm map across the study table. Lantern light pools on the ink. Outside, night has settled over the walls. Inside, the bond is tight and useful—claim steady, the cooler bloodline current low and attentive, as if even it has decided maps are better than visions for the moment. I stand at his shoulder with a cup gone cold in my hands, watching the calendar someone else wrote onto our grain routes take shape in our own handwriting.“They’re not random,” I say. “Every mark the riders carried lands on a bottleneck. Bridge ford. Narrow cut. The bend where you took them. If we move the next three shipments on the old schedule, we ride into a pattern they already own.”“So we break the pattern.” He marks a new line in charcoal—later departures, different gates, an escort heavy enough to make a watching party think twice. “Wren starts the changes at first light. The contractors get new order

Kieran’s POV“Don’t get up yet.”Juni’s hand closes on my wrist before I can leave the bed. Morning light has just touched the window. I am half-dressed, already reaching for the day, and she is still soft with sleep, hair a mess on my pillow, mark dark against her throat. The bond is warm and lazy—claim settled into something domestic, the cooler current quiet, as if even the bloodline has agreed to a truce until breakfast.“Wren will be at the door in an hour,” I say.“Then you have an hour.” She tugs, and I let her pull me back down. Her smile is small and wicked and nothing like the woman who once measured every exit in a Summit corridor. “You promised. Maps shut up. Kissing until they do.”“I promised last night.”“It didn’t expire at dawn. Check the fine print.”A real laugh leaves me. I brace over her and kiss her properly—slow, morning-deep, the kind that makes the dual current of the bond pull sweet and low. She makes a soft sound into my mouth. My hand finds her waist under