All Chapters of The Wolfless Bride No One Wanted, Except the Alpha: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

ELIRAI opened my mouth to scream into the hand pressed hard over it, and a voice hissed close against my ear, low and urgent, cutting through my panic before it could fully take hold."Quiet. It's Hale. Lady Aquine sent me."The grip on my arm loosened at once, and the hand over my mouth fell away just as fast. I spun around, my heart still slamming against my ribs so hard it hurt, and found a broad, gray haired man dressed in dark clothes, his face creased with worry rather than any kind of menace. Beside him stood another man I didn't recognize, younger, tense, his eyes already scanning the shadows behind us like he expected trouble to follow."You scared me half to death," I gasped, one hand pressed flat against my own chest, trying to slow my racing pulse."Better scared than caught," Hale said, his voice rough but not unkind. "Her ladyship's been watching these grounds since midnight, waiting for some sign of you. Come. Quickly, before anyone else notices we're standing out here

ELIRAI didn't actually remember leaving the Council chamber afterward. I only remembered Lady Aquine's firm hand on my arm, steering me out through some side door while the elders argued heatedly behind us, their raised voices rising and falling like waves I simply couldn't swim through anymore."Don't listen to a single word he said," she told me firmly, once we were finally alone together in the quiet corridor outside. "He is deliberately trying to break you apart from the inside so you cannot stand against him tomorrow.""What if it's actually true, though?" My voice came out small, younger sounding than I actually felt inside. "What if my mother really was part of some family that betrayed this entire pack generations ago? What if that's genuinely what Elder Kael sealed away, and not some kind comforting story about protecting me from strangers, but the actual, ugly truth about where I truly come from?""Then it changes absolutely nothing about who you are as a person," Lady Aqui

ELIRA"This was never actually about them," Dorian said, his voice rising sharply with mounting frustration now, that careful softness slipping away entirely to reveal something harder and more desperate underneath. "This is about you, Elira. Your own life. Don't you honestly think you've earned the right to finally save yourself, after everything this entire family has put you through these past weeks?""I don't need you, of all people, telling me what exactly I've earned," I said firmly. "I've spent my entire life being told what I supposedly owed to other people, what I was allowed to want for myself, what I was always expected to be grateful for. I'm completely done listening to that kind of thing from anyone now. Especially from you, Dorian.""So you'd genuinely rather stay here and possibly die for strangers, than simply leave safely with me and actually live?""They're not strangers to me anymore." My voice cracked slightly on the words, but I pushed forward through it anyway,

ELIRAWe stayed like that for nearly a full minute, his eyes open and fixed steadily on mine, his hand growing warmer now where it had been cool before, before I felt his grip slowly begin to loosen, his strength visibly fading even as I watched it happen, helpless to stop the tide pulling him back under."Don't fight it," I said gently, smoothing a strand of dark hair back from his damp forehead with my free hand. "Rest. Please, Rurik. You don't have to prove anything else to me tonight. You've already proven more than enough for one night, more than I ever thought possible.""I wanted you to see me," he said, his voice already thinning at the edges, growing softer with every single word he managed to push out. "Really see me. Not through some dream in a forest neither of us fully understands. Not through a bond stretched thin by distance and heavy sedation. Just me. My own eyes. My own voice, speaking to you directly.""I saw you," I said, keeping my voice steady for his sake even t

ELIRAThe Council was summoned again by midday, the bell ringing out hard and sudden across the entire estate, startling candidates and servants alike out of whatever ordinary tasks they'd been going about. This time the summons came at Laron's own command, not Lady Aquine's, and I felt the difference in the very air the moment I stepped through those tall chamber doors.The elders filled the same seats as before, but their faces had changed overnight, wary now in a different, more cautious way, watching Laron with the particular suspicion of people who had seen enough contradictory evidence in the past day alone to no longer fully trust either side of this growing conflict.Laron stood at the front of the chamber, composed and immaculate as always, every inch the grieving, dutiful regent he'd performed so convincingly for six straight months."Honored Council," he said, his voice carrying easily through the cold stone chamber, pitched perfectly for maximum effect. "I come before you