Semua Bab The Alpha’s Forbidden Omega: Bab 71 - Bab 80

Juni’s POV“You’re early.”Kieran stands in the kitchen doorway with his coat still on, dust on the hem from the yard rounds. Afternoon light cuts across the flour-dusted table where I have been set to shape loaves like any other pair of hands. The cook has decided, without asking the bond or the ledger, that work is a better cure for stares than ceremony. She may be right. My shoulders still climb every time a junior pauses too long at the mark on my throat.“I said I’d come before supper,” he answers. “I lied by an hour.”“Tragic.” I tip my chin up. He kisses me in front of the ovens, brief and deliberate, and the bond warms through the claim first—steady, domestic—before the older current hums once and settles. Someone drops a spoon. Someone else decides the spoon is fascinating.We leave the kitchen with bread still on my wrists. In the inner court he takes my hand as if the household needs the lesson repeated: she is not a visitor, not a rumor, not a blade that happened to swing

Juni’s POV“If I trip, you pretend it was the path.”Kieran’s mouth tips. “If you trip, I catch you and the path takes the blame anyway.”The lower households sit on the south slope: laundry lines, open kitchens, children chasing a dog through stacked firewood. Not the formal court. Not the council table. This is where stares become stories if you let them. The bond runs close under my skin—claim steady, older current low and listening—as we walk without an escort large enough to look like fear.A woman pinning wet shirts goes still when she sees the mark. I stop before the silence hardens.“I was told the south slope bread puts the main kitchen to shame,” I say. “If that’s a lie, I need to know now.”A boy snorts. His mother flicks his ear, then, slowly, smiles. “Not a lie, my lady. Come then. Taste and judge.”The loaf is dense and good. I tell her so without ceremony. Someone asks whether the Goddess-mark burns in rain. Someone else asks whether I really pulled the Alpha out of a k

Juni’s POV“If you adjust my collar one more time, I’m biting you.”Kieran’s hands freeze at my throat, then settle, guilty, on my shoulders. Dawn is thin over the yard. Horses stamp. Leather creaks. The escort is already mounted—enough steel to make Crane’s held breath expensive, not enough to look like we are invading a neutral review. The bond is a tight line between us: claim locked, older current awake and restless, as if the bloodline knows the road leads toward paper that wants to define it.“It was crooked,” he says.“It was fine.” I catch his wrist and squeeze until his pulse kicks against my fingers. “I’m marked, not glass. You checked the exits. I checked the exits. Torvin chose our stone. We ride.”He searches my face the way he does before every road that has ever tried to take me from him. Then he nods once. Kisses me once—hard, brief, public—and the household sees it. Good. Let them. Let the south slope and the council and whoever still whispers *omen* see that I leave

Juni’s POV“You’re quiet.”Kieran rides close enough that our knees nearly touch. The waystation is already behind us, granite and ash swallowed by the bend of the track. Dust lifts off the horses’ hooves in pale sheets. The escort spreads along the column in the pattern we chose on the rug two nights ago—clean, disciplined, still tight enough that I can feel the leftover adrenaline in every shift of leather and steel. Neutral ink is drying somewhere in Torvin’s care: Seraphine’s name on it, the grab named as collection, bloodline panic marked suspect. I should feel lighter. The bond knows I don’t.“I’m waiting for the relief,” I say. “It hasn’t landed yet.”“It will.” His voice is rough with the leftover tension of the hall. “You were clear. The second nodded. That’s more than inns ever gave us.”“Inns don’t nod. They repeat.” I watch the scrub move past, thorn and pale grass, ordinary border country that has held too many of our emergencies. “Paper is better. Paper still doesn’t tell

Juni’s POV“Say what the scouts actually saw.”Kieran stands at the map table with his coat still dusted from the wall rounds. Night presses against the study shutters. Lamps throw a low gold across the river bend inked on parchment. I am inside after dusk as agreed—not caged, present—arms folded so I will not pace a hole in his floor. The bond is tight under my skin: claim locked, older current prickling beneath the mark like weather building behind glass.He doesn’t soften it. “Two barges shifted closer to the quay after midnight. Lanterns hooded. Men unloading crates that weren’t grain. Our scouts counted at least thirty armed, maybe more under canvas. No banners. Crane’s plain coats directing the lines. No movement onto the road yet. No scouts of theirs on our spur that we could mark without being seen.”“Waiting.”“Watching to see if Torvin’s record made us pull steel home and leave the border soft.” His mouth is a hard line. “It didn’t. Watches stay doubled. The south gate runs