Lahat ng Kabanata ng Bloodbound To The Alpha Beast: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 48

AURELIANThe first thing I felt was cold.Not the kind that wakes you, but the kind that settles in the marrow and refuses to leave. My fingers dragged against something rough—stone, split and wet. The air reeked of smoke and rot. My chest jerked as I sucked in a breath that tasted like old ash.I pushed myself up too fast. Pain snapped through my body, sharp and bright. My legs trembled beneath me, my vision tilting. For a second, all I could hear was the sound of my heartbeat crashing against my ribs.Then the silence came. Heavy. Too heavy.Moonlight slanted through the cracks above, cutting pale ribbons through the dark. Shapes swam out of shadow—walls that weren’t whole, a ceiling torn open to the night, marble scattered like bones.And then I saw them.Bones.Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Piled in corners, caught under stone, bleached white and dusted with ash. A ribcage split open beside what had once been a pillar. A child’s skull crushed beneath a fallen beam.My throat closed. I s

AURELIANThe sun had begun to feel too kind. It filtered through the cracks in the tent and painted soft gold over the ground, warming what little snow clung stubbornly to the grass. Every morning it rose over the camp like mercy, touching the ragged edges of human tents, the smoke curling from fires, the soft murmur of laughter. The world looked alive again, but inside me everything still felt winter.Days had passed since I woke in their care, and still I couldn’t stop listening for the sound of chains. Sometimes I’d reach for them by instinct, expecting cold metal, and find only my skin, bare and unmarked. It left me more uneasy than comforted.My people moved around me as though I were something fragile—half a memory, half a hope. They smiled too easily when I passed, eyes shining, voices lowering to whispers of the prince. They treated me like someone saved, not someone still lost.Vethros’s voice came and went like breath, never loud enough to drown the noise around me, but alwa

AURELIANThe smoke followed us like guilt.It clung to the horses’ manes, to the folds of my cloak, to every breath that tried to feel clean. The village had burned hours ago, yet I could still smell it—charred grain, wet ash, something sweeter underneath that I didn’t want to name.We rode slowly through the wreck, boots crunching over what used to be walls. The men spoke in low voices, collecting what could still be used—swords, flour, anything the flames hadn’t turned to shadow. One of them laughed when he found a dozen of wine half-buried in soot. The sound scraped something raw inside me.Before, I would have laughed too. I would have called it justice—the beasts burned Eldoria first, they started this, they deserved to lose something. But now, watching a man drag a blood-stained blanket from the rubble, I couldn’t tell what part of this still felt like victory.If I hadn’t seen what I’ve seen… if I hadn’t been his captive, felt the pulse of what lives beneath their skin, maybe I

AURELIAN The forest was too quiet. I realized it only when I sheathed my sword at my hip and turned from the lake, the cold water still clinging to my palms. The camp should’ve been stirring by now—early chatter, someone cursing over burnt porridge, boots crunching over pine needles as soldiers prepared for drills. Instead, silence pressed between the trees like a held breath. A thin unease crawled along the back of my neck. I took a step toward the path and the forest air shifted. Birds burst from the branches overhead in a sudden, frantic flurry, wings beating against the sky as if fleeing something unseen. My hand fell to the hilt of my sword. ‘Aurelian,’ Vethros murmured, too low, too calm. ‘You feel it too.’ The earth seemed to pulse beneath my boots. The air thickened, carrying the faintest tremor—like the breath of something massive moving between the pines. Then— A scream. High, sharp, human. I froze. Another scream followed, deeper this time, then shouts—