Semua Bab Rejected by My Alpha, Claimed by the Lycan King: Bab 61 - Bab 70

Cassian's POVI'd convened war councils before, during the worst years of the civil war, but none of them had carried quite this particular weight — not simply survival at stake, but the entire fragile unity of a continent already splintering faster than we could properly track."Let's begin," I said, spreading the latest correspondence across the map table dominating my private study, Rowan, Darius, Kael, and Elowen all gathered close around it. "Rowan. Diplomatic count first.""Twelve kingdoms formally pledged as of this morning," Rowan said. "Five openly aligned with Malachar. The rest still sitting on their hands, waiting to see which direction the wind actually blows before committing themselves.""That's worse than yesterday's count," I said."It's more honest than yesterday's count," Rowan corrected. "Two kingdoms we thought pledged to us walked back their commitment overnight. Malachar's people reached them first with considerably more persuasive arguments than we managed.""W

Lyra's POVWe crossed the border two nights past the last friendly outpost, disguised as a modest trading caravan, our ceremonial finery traded for plain travel clothes and our numbers deliberately kept small — myself, Cassian, Rowan, Darius, Kael, Mira, and a handful of soldiers dressed to pass as hired guards rather than royal escort. Mira had refused outright to let me travel this deep into hostile territory without a healer present, and after everything the past weeks had already cost us both, none of us had the heart to argue her out of it.Cassian had argued for a larger force right up until the moment we departed, and I understood his reasoning even as I'd overruled it alongside Rowan and Darius both. A larger party moved slower, drew more attention, and left more people exposed to whatever waited for us on the other side of that border. Small and quiet gave us at least the possibility of reaching the shrine before anyone noticed we'd come looking for it at all."Checkpoint ah

Lyra's POVDarius found the way in twenty minutes after the first shout echoed across the valley.It wasn't a door. Just a narrow seam in the shrine's western wall, hidden behind dead ivy and a fallen slab of white stone."Two guards left on this side," he whispered. "Give me a moment."He vanished into the dark. Two dull thuds followed, then silence, and then he reappeared, shaking out his knuckles."They'll sleep until morning. Go. I'll hold the door.""Darius—""Go, Lyra. That diversion won't last forever."Mira caught my hand, and we slipped through the gap together. The darkness closed behind us like a held breath.The air inside tasted of dust and cold stone. Beneath it hummed something far older, a low note I felt in my teeth rather than heard.Mira lit a small lantern and shielded it with her palm. "Lyra," she breathed. "Your collarbone."Silver light pulsed through my collar, slow and steady as a heartbeat. I pressed my hand over it, but the glow bled between my fingers."It

Lyra's POVCassian's pulse was fading beneath my fingertips.I counted each beat the way a drowning woman counts breaths. Slow. Slower. A long, terrible pause, and then one more."Mira," I whispered. "How long?""Less than an hour now." Mira's voice was barely steady. "The veins have reached his jaw."I stared at the black lines creeping along his skin, at the gray hollows beneath his eyes. Somewhere in the valley below, the horns sounded again, closer this time."We have to move," Rowan said quietly. "Whatever you're planning, Lyra, you have minutes before the patrols reach this ridge.""I'm not leaving him.""Nobody's asking you to. But the Moon Heart is inside that shrine, and that shrine is crawling with Malachar's soldiers.""I know where it is.""Then you know how this ends." Rowan crouched in front of me, his eyes pained. "You can't reach it. Not tonight.""Maybe I don't have to reach it."Silence fell over the small, desperate circle around us. Even Darius, who rarely stopped

Lyra's POVThere was no pain this time.That was the first thing I noticed. No burning, no roaring, no blinding white. Only a vast and quiet stillness, like the moment after a bell has stopped ringing.I opened my eyes to a sky full of stars.I stood barefoot in a field of pale grass that rippled without wind. A silver moon hung impossibly large above me, so close I could have touched its edge. The air tasted of rain and old stone and something I couldn't name."Cassian?" My voice carried strangely, thin and far away. "Mira?"Nobody answered.I turned in a slow circle. The field stretched in every direction, endless and glowing, and the horizon bled into the sky until I couldn't tell where one ended and the other began."Where am I?""Somewhere between," said a voice behind me.I spun around.A woman stood a few paces away, half-wreathed in moonlight. She was tall and slender, with silver hair falling past her waist and a thin circlet resting on her brow. Her face was one I had seen