All Chapters of RIDE OR DIE: The Alpha's Reckless Queen : Chapter 21 - Chapter 24

A man tells you you're his soulmate and somehow the first thing you say is "put some pants on."It came out before I'd fully processed what he'd said, some old, practical, deeply unromantic part of my brain apparently deciding that a naked man kneeling in gravel was the more pressing crisis of the two, easier by far to address than the enormity of what he'd just told me. My whole body was still humming with adrenaline from the chase, from the wolf, from every impossible thing that had happened in the past hour, and somehow it was the sight of him kneeling there, bare and vulnerable in the cold, that finally cracked something loose in me.Ronan blinked at me, and for one absurd second the wrecked, raw intensity of the moment cracked wide open into something almost funny."That's—" he started, and then, despite everything, despite the Vipers somewhere out in the dark and the mate bond he'd just detonated between us, something that might have been a laugh escaped him, rough and disbeliev

Nothing says "meet the family" like a room full of armed werewolves debating whether to kill you or protect you.The pack council chamber was nothing like I'd expected — not some medieval throne room, but a long, plain hall with rough-hewn benches and a fire pit at its center, packed wall to wall with wolves who'd clearly dropped whatever they'd been doing the moment word of the Viper declaration reached them. Killian had walked me in himself, one hand steady at my back, though I noticed he stayed close to the door, like some part of him expected he might need to get me out fast.The air itself felt charged, thick with the particular tension of a room full of people who'd rather be doing anything except sitting through this conversation. I recognized a few faces from that first dinner weeks ago — the healer who'd offered me a second helping of stew, the young man who'd asked about rain — though none of them met my eyes now, too caught up in the gravity of whatever debate had been ragi