جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

Adrian’s phone vibrated before the silence between us had time to settle.Adrian released my hand and answered it.Serena’s weak, tearful voice carried through the speaker.“Adrian, my wolf has gone quiet again. I can’t feel her. Am I dying?”“Don’t be afraid. Stay at the healers’ lodge. I’m coming.”He ended the call, snatched up the black cloak that bore the Alpha’s crest, and strode for the door.“Evelyn, Serena’s condition is unstable. I have to go now. Can you notify the guests and the visiting pack delegates that tomorrow’s ceremony is canceled?”The witch’s darkness burrowed another inch toward my heart as I watched him step across the threshold.“What about the Elders?”Adrian had removed three Elders from the council for publicly opposing our bond. In the assembly hall, he had snapped the silver staff that symbolized his succession and declared he would rather surrender his title than give me up.Silvermoon had spent six months preparing for our ceremony.Now I was expected to

Adrian caught my wrist as I lifted the last chest from the wardrobe.His fingers landed directly over the curse marks.Pain lanced through my bones and drove straight into my heart. The color drained from my face as I tore my hand free.“What happened?” He reached for me again.I yanked down my sleeve.“Nothing. A silverleaf thorn caught me.”Serena coughed behind him before he could question me further.Adrian glanced back at her. In the end, all he did was smooth my sleeve into place.“The east guest room gets cold at night. I’ll have the servants light the fireplace. Stay there for a few days. Once Serena is stable, I’ll move you back myself.”His touch was gentle. The love in his eyes was real.But he did not notice that I packed only what I would need for the journey north and left the rest in sealed chests.“All right,” I said again.The door shut behind them. I carried my medical notes into the guest room and locked the travel seal application beneath them.Each night, I inspect

The marking ceremony began when the moon reached the highest point above the altar.Adrian stood beneath the statue of the Moon Goddess in the Alpha’s ceremonial robes, but all his attention was fixed on the mate-link connecting him to Evelyn.Evelyn had always answered when he reached for her through it, no matter how late the hour.Tonight, he had called to her seven times.Every call had struck a wall of silence.The priest cleared his throat for the third time. “Alpha, it is time to receive your mate for the ceremony.”Serena walked toward him in a sweep of moon-white silk.The candles, the crown, the gown—even the crystal chalice of moonwater on the altar—had been chosen by Evelyn.Until that moment, Adrian had convinced himself he was merely lending them to a dying friend. That replacing one name with another did not change what the ceremony meant.Now every object before him seemed steeped in Evelyn’s scent.And the woman who should have been standing beneath the moon was gone.

The guards could not stop Adrian when he charged into the Forbidden Forest with Evelyn’s journal pressed beneath his cloak.He followed the lingering scent of her healing herbs to a clearing scorched by black fire.Ash from the dead witch still clung to the earth. Ancient symbols for the Love-Devouring Curse had been carved into the trees.The pack priest arrived, took one look at them, and lost all color in his face.“This curse draws its power from the witch’s willing sacrifice of her own soul. It cannot be broken.”Adrian seized the front of his robes.“Evelyn is the greatest healer Silvermoon has ever had. She has saved hundreds of wolves. You expect me to believe she cannot save herself?”“Healing magic repairs the body and the inner wolf. Witchcraft obeys the laws of sacrifice.” The priest’s voice remained quiet. “The spell feeds on her memories of the one bound to her heart as a lover. No healer can treat a bargain already paid for with a soul.”“What if I stand in front of her?

The man stopped in front of me with snow melting across his shoulders.His black cloak had been torn open by branches. Blood seeped through the rough bandage around his left hand. He looked less like the ruler of a powerful pack than a rogue who had been wandering the northern wilderness for weeks.“I found you,” he breathed.He reached for me.My body moved before I could think. I stepped back.His arms froze in the empty space between us. The joy on his face slowly gave way to panic.“Evelyn, it’s me. Adrian.”The name matched the one in my journal.I gave him a polite nod.“The Alpha of Silvermoon?”The question seemed to strike him harder than any weapon. His eyes reddened.“I’m more than your Alpha. I’m your mate. We shared a home for six years.”“We never completed a marking ceremony.”“Our wolves chose each other long before any ceremony.”He took one desperate step forward, then caught himself as though afraid of frightening me away.“I did not mark Serena. I stopped before the