All Chapters of THE ALPHA I WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO LOVE : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I barely slept that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw those words carved inside my mother’s pendant.When the daughter returns, the blood debt must be paid.Darius left just before dawn, promising he’d look into the inscription. I didn’t thank him. Trusting him, accepting another promise—honestly, I wasn’t sure I could do it.But I couldn’t just forget what he’d told me: the inscription had been written before my mother died. Someone knew I would come back. Or maybe someone wanted me to think they did.I sat by the window, turning the pendant over and over. Sunlight glinted off the silver crescent and caught on a tiny scratch near the clasp—my mother’s scratch. I remembered her thumb rubbing that spot when she was worried. She wore it the day she died. Now, here I was, replaying a question I’d spent years avoiding. What had my mother been trying to stop?A knock wrenched me out of my thoughts.“Come in.”A young servant entered with a tray of tea, left it, bowed, and scurried

I’d already killed him once. At least, that’s what the message on my bedside table said—my own handwriting, staring at me in the grey dawn every time I tried to look away. I hadn’t slept. The room felt smaller every time my eyes drifted back to those words.Who was I supposed to trust? The man who’d risked everything for me, or a warning scrawled by my own hand? The worst part was the memory. Not even a real memory—just a flash. Blood on snow. Darius reaching for me. My hands smeared red.But I didn’t remember killing him. I never had. Still, something inside me reacted to the message—a sick sort of recognition.I needed answers. I already knew where to start.The key, hidden away by the archivist right before he died. He’d told me to look beneath my mother’s grave. Maybe the answers had been sitting under my nose all along.I dressed before the sun was up, the sky still bruised and dark. I fastened my mother’s pendant around my neck, slipped the key into my pocket, and left quietly.

The eastern gate rattled again—another удар of the enemy’s battering ram. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Somewhere outside, men screamed, steel rang, and the warning horns blared through the chaos.I gripped the war table so hard my knuckles ached.“They’re not here for the kingdom. They’re here for you.” Darius’s words wouldn’t leave me alone.Three thousand soldiers were parked around Bloodmoon, but they’d barely bothered our best defenses. They ignored the northern watchtower. The western road was untouched. They focused everything on the eastern gate.Forget conquest. This was about me.I turned to Darius. “Why do they want me alive?”He stood at the open window, his dark coat snapping in the wind. His face was unreadable, but his fingers dug into the stone ledge.“You heard what the scout said,” he answered. “The High Council ordered you taken alive.”“That’s not good enough.” “It’s all I’ve got right now.”“Then get more.”He looked at me sharply—finally a reaction.We said not

By sunrise, I’d figured out two things about Darius Thorncrest. First, he could command an army without ever raising his voice. And second, he could lie straight to my face and somehow make me feel like I was the one being cruel.I found him in the command room, hunched over a map, his coffee going cold. He looked wrecked—honestly, so did I. Neither of us had slept. “You have until sunrise,” I'd said last night. Sunrise was here. Time to get answers.“What did you burn?” I asked.He didn’t even glance up. “Good morning to you, too.”“Don’t try to charm your way out.”“Wasn’t planning to.”“Great. So what was on that parchment?”He finally looked at me. He hesitated—his shoulders all bunched up under his black shirt, eyes guarded—but then he put down the map.“It had a location on it,” he said.I waited.He exhaled. “The old sanctuary beyond the northern ridge.”“The altar?”“Possibly.”“So why burn it?”“Because the location was right next to a second mark. I recognized it. I didn’t w

“Ask him what he did the night you died.”Lucian’s words stuck with me, echoing long after he left the archive. I stood there by the table, just staring at the execution record in my hands. The ink had faded a bit, but my name—Seren Vale—was still sharp. Execution authorization pending review. That date matched the day I died.Behind me, Darius shifted against the wall, his shoulder stiff under his shirt. He’d refused to let the healer look at it, insisting he’d survived worse. I honestly wasn’t sure anymore if it was stubbornness or him hiding something from me.“What did Lucian mean?” I said.Darius’s jaw clenched. “He wants you to doubt me.”“That’s not an answer.”“No,” he said, meeting my eyes. “It isn’t.”That honesty unsettled me more than any lie could.I folded the record and slid it into my pocket. “Then I guess I’ll have to find the answer myself.”I brushed past him.“Seren.” I stopped in the doorway, but didn’t turn.“Don’t meet Lucian alone,” he called.A bitter laugh sl