The Wolf King's Reluctant Mate의 모든 챕터: 챕터 31 - 챕터 40

The paper flapped violently in the freezing wind. Eric held it high so the whole wall could see the dark bloodstains on it. "Look at your King!" he shouted, his voice cutting clearly through the battle ground. "Destroying his own mind for a girl who will be dead in a year! Give her to Talon and Dravenwood lives!" Rowan's massive black form answered with a roar that shook loose snow from the high walls. He charged straight into the next wave of yellow-eyed wolves. He did not dodge. He did not slow down. Talon’s men holding the silver-tipped spears could not touch him. I saw his claws open a jagged path through the throng of men almost as fast as they appeared. The mania had taken him completely, and the enemy vanguard broke under the weight of it. I tried to call him back through the channel of our bond. Only white-hot heat answered back, all I could sense was a raw anger and completely empty or devoid of any o

Rowan held my eyes for a long moment before he managed to speak. The red hadn't faded from around the black yet, and for a second, I didn't know which one of us the silence was for."Darius," he said. His voice was rough, and gravely. "You have been saying something will awaken. Give it a name and end my confusion."Darius leaned on his staff. "The open scrolls never wrote it clearly, the first-era healers stated the name is forbidden. They used the old tongue only.""I can read the old tongue," I said. "Sarlen taught me. If the name is in the ledgers, I can find it."Standing near the counter, still under guard, Hector made a short, tired sound. "Call it whatever you like. If you do not mark him soon, he dies and Talon's army finishes the rest of us. So choose."

"Traitor!"Bram's voice cut across the dark. He drew his broadsword in one clean motion. Snow shook from the rocks above.Jaron did not lower his blade. The men behind him held their ground, their weapons already out. Ten of them are still in cloaks of the Dravenwood pack army. Familiar faces I had seen on the wall only days before."You trusted a king that is already tainted, Captain," Jaron said. "Eric has the numbers. Frostfang stands behind him. Why die for a king who cannot even hold his own mind when we can be paid and live?""You sell your own for gold," I said.Through the bond the quiet current snapped. Heat surged from Rowan in a hard wave. Smoke began to rise from his shoulders in thin threads.

Rowan did not make a sound. He pushed me behind him, the calm in the bond vanished. A hard protective heat took its place and his claws slid out with a soft click.The metallic sounds grew closer, deliberate and even.A tall figure stepped out of the dark pines into the thin grey light. It was no ordinary being in a heavy looking grey cloak. The hands that hung at their sides did not end in ordinary nails or alpha claws. They were long, slender talons of dark polished iron."Sovereign Guard," I whispered.The figure stopped ten paces from the ruined cabin. Snow settled on the shoulders of the cloak. For a moment no one moved. Then, slowly, the figure reached up and pulled back the hood.Golden-blonde hair fell loose over the

“Sarlen is not our father,” Lira said, her voice cutting through the wind.“He is simply the man who stayed to help out most times. That is an entirely different thing, and it should count for far more than blood anyway, but it took my own mind ten winters to believe it.” Her voice didn't soften, but it lost its superior edge.“Our biological father was an alpha from a rogue border pack. Mother never mentioned him after he abandoned us. He caught the first scent of trouble and ran before they even got to us.He heard we were being hunted and ran for the hills before the trouble even came close. I know about it because I was old enough to see his cowardice. You were not, still nothing but a mumbling child then.”The words landed heavily behind my ribs, sitting there like a block of ice. For ten winters, I had carried one precise, unchanging truth of that night—my mother, my sisters, and the kind human healer who had dragged my naked frame out through the embers.But there had been anot