Lahat ng Kabanata ng Bewitching the Alpha: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

I ran until my lungs burned like they were filled with broken glass.The Grey Lands were a nightmare of sensory deprivation. No sound but the crunch of ash under my boots. No color but the endless, swirling slate of the mist. No direction but away.I had left Sibal broken in the snow. I had blasted him with the stolen power of an Alpha Prime, a release of energy so violent it had felt like vomiting light. I thought it was over. I thought I had bought myself time.I was wrong.I didn't account for the crash.The golden fire that had been sustaining me wasn’t infinite. And I had just expelled a massive amount of it in a single strike.The withdrawal hit me about two miles past the ridge.It started as a tremor in my hands. Then, a cold sweat that turned to ice on my skin. Then, the ground began to tilt.I stumbled, my knees hitting the frozen earth."Get up," I rasped, clawing at the dirt. "You have to get to the Altar."I tried to stand. My legs were jelly. My vision blurred, the gray

I snuggled deeper into the blanket, pressing my face against Guilermo’s chest. The scent of him was a balm to my shattered nerves. His hand stroked my hair, a rhythmic, soothing motion that matched the beating of his heart beneath my ear."We're almost there," he whispered, his voice vibrating through his ribs. "Just a few more miles to the safe house.""I'm cold," I murmured, shivering despite the heat radiating from him."I know," he said. "I'll make a fire. I'll make you soup. We'll fix this."I closed my eyes, letting the darkness take me. I was safe. I was rescued. The nightmare in the Foundry was over. Sibal was defeated. Ibbie was gone.I frowned.The sound of his heart… it skipped. It didn't sound like a muscle contracting. It sounded like a gear slipping."Guilermo?" I asked, pulling back slightly to look at him.The interior of the truck was dark, lit only by the passing streetlights."Rest, Lilura," he said.But his voice… it wasn't right. It was flat. Tinny. Like a recordi

I woke up in the backseat of the truck.Guilermo was gone.Panic flared in my chest, sharp and immediate. I sat up, wincing as my shoulder protested."Alpha?"The truck was empty. The heater was still running, but the driver's seat was vacant.I looked out the window.We were parked on the ridge overlooking Oakhaven. The mist of the Grey Lands was behind us, a wall of churning gray. Below, the town was waking up. Smoke curled from chimneys.But something was wrong.There were trucks in the square. Black trucks. Coven trucks.And men in dark robes were swarming the streets."Marco!" I shouted, pounding on the glass.The door opened. Marco was there, looking grim."You're awake," he said."Where is he?" I demanded. "Where is Guilermo?"Marco pointed down the hill."He went to finish it."I followed his finger.At the gates of the Coven House, a figure stood alone.He was shifted. The massive black wolf, standing like a shadow against the white snow. He wasn't hiding. He wasn't sneaking.

The ceiling of the guest room was painted a soft, creamy white, but to me, it looked like the inside of a coffin.I lay there for a long time, just breathing. Every inhale was a negotiation with my ribs. My right shoulder was encased in heavy plaster, weighing me down into the mattress like an anchor. My left arm was wrapped so tightly in gauze that my fingers were numb, sticking out of the bandages like swollen sausages. My body felt less like a person and more like a collection of broken parts that someone had glued back together in the dark.But the physical pain, the throbbing in the bone, the sting of the disinfectant, the deep, muscular ache of exhaustion was nothing compared to the silence in my head.For weeks, ever since the assimilation, there had been a hum. A background noise. It was the sound of Guilermo. It was a low, steady static of his emotions, his proximity, his life force brushing against mine. It had become my baseline for "normal."Now, it was gone.Or not gone,

I woke up to the sound of the wind rattling the single pane of glass in the loft. The fire downstairs had burned down to embers, leaving the air in the cabin crisp and biting.I tried to push myself up."Ah."The sound escaped my lips before I could bite it back. My right shoulder, the one the Coven guard had shattered was a landscape of hot, grinding agony. My left arm, wrapped in gauze where I had ripped out the needle, throbbed in sympathy."Don't move."Guilermo was there.He came up the ladder from the ground floor, moving with a silent, predatory grace that belied how exhausted he must be. He was holding a steaming mug and a bottle of water.He stopped at the edge of the mattress.He didn't sit down. He didn't reach out to steady me. He stood a careful three feet away, respecting the demilitarized zone we had established in the truck."I brought pain meds," he said. His voice was gravelly, the sound of a man who hadn't slept."Thanks," I whispered.He set the mug and the pills o