บททั้งหมดของ The Wolfless Bride No One Wanted, Except the Alpha: บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

ELIRAI waited until the estate had gone fully quiet. I waited until the last set of footsteps in the corridor outside my room had faded, until the only sound left was the wind pushing against the old glass windows. Then I slipped out barefoot, my shoes in my hand, and made my way toward the enclosed stone staircase that led down to the fourth floor.Laron's order kept ringing in my head the whole way down. You will not enter his chamber again without my permission.I wasn't going to enter it. I only needed to get close enough.The stairwell was colder than the guest floors. The stone walls sweated a faint moisture that made my palm slip against the railing. I stopped three steps above the fourth floor landing, out of sight of the two enforcers I could hear murmuring low near the silver reinforced doors, and pressed my back flat against the wall.I closed my eyes and reached, the way I'd learned to reach in my sleep. Except this time I was wide awake, and my heart was hammering so har

ELIRAThe announcement came at midday, in the grand foyer, where every remaining candidate had been summoned without explanation. I stood near the back of the crowd with Niar close beside me. We both watched Laron climb the short staircase at the center of the room like a man stepping up to a throne that wasn't his yet."Ladies." His voice carried easily across the marble floor, warm and public, nothing like the voice he'd used on me in his study two nights before. "I have wonderful news. Given the extraordinary progress we've seen in Alpha Rurik's condition these past weeks, the Council has decided the selection process should not be drawn out unnecessarily. Compassion, after all, demands urgency."A ripple of murmurs moved through the crowd. My stomach dropped before he even finished the sentence."The final selection ceremony, originally scheduled for the coming weeks, will now take place in six days' time." He let that settle, watching the room take it in, clearly pleased with the

ELIRAI took the paper from her shaking hands and held it toward the thin moonlight, careful not to tear it.The words were uneven, some letters pressed harder than others, like the hand writing them had been trembling the whole time.The toxin remembers.That was all it said. Three words, written in what I now had no doubt was blood, hidden behind a small carved wolf in a room that belonged to a girl who had vanished without a trace six months ago."What does that mean?" Niar whispered. "The toxin remembers what?"I didn't know. I turned the paper over hoping for more, but the back was blank."Maybe she didn't finish it," I said slowly. "Maybe she meant to write more and never got the chance."Niar took the paper back, holding it close to her chest like it was the last piece of her cousin she had left. Which, I realized with a sick twist in my stomach, it probably was."She was trying to tell someone something," Niar said. "She hid this here on purpose. She wanted someone to find it.

RURIKThe sedation had gotten worse.I felt it in how my thoughts moved now. Slower. Thicker. Like wading through mud that kept getting deeper every time I tried to push through it. The bond with Elira remained my only clear thread through the fog, and even that had grown harder to hold onto lately. The guards had doubled their patrols outside my door. Laron's new physician had started adjusting my dosage twice a day instead of once.I understood exactly what he was doing. He wanted me buried deeper, faster, before I could find my way back out.But he hadn't accounted for the pull that had grown between Elira and me. That strange, electric thread that sharpened my mind every time she came near, even now, even through stone walls and distance and a fog that worked constantly to drown me.Tonight, for the first time in months, I felt something else tugging at me too.My mother.She'd come earlier, sitting in the chair beside my bed the way she always did, talking quietly to a son she bel

ELIRAThe list went up on the announcement board in the grand foyer three days before the final selection ceremony, and by the time I reached it, a crowd had already gathered thick enough that I had to push through just to see my own name.Five names remained.Tanya's was near the top, unsurprising given her bloodline and her family's standing on the Council. Two other noble candidates I recognized but had never spoken to filled the middle of the list, girls from high tier packs whose families had clearly spent considerable effort ensuring their daughters' continued presence.Niar's name sat fourth, and my chest tightened with something between relief and worry when I saw it. Relief that she'd made it this far. Worry about what that meant for what still lay ahead of her.My own name sat last, and beside it, in smaller print than the others, a single line of explanation that made my stomach drop the moment I read it.Retained pending further medical evaluation.Not selected for merit.