Semua Bab The Maid Who Stole My Alpha: Bab 11 - Bab 20

(Daciana POV)Ashina’s message lay in my hand like a living thing, wet with rain, red ink, and the cruelty she knew how to sharpen.Nobody in the ruined feast hall spoke for several breaths, because even warriors understood when words had become a weapon.I read the final line again, though every part of me hated giving her poison a second chance to enter me.“Ask Bardolph what his father did to her before she died.”The words tried to make me look at Bardolph with new horror, but I had already learned that truth and manipulation could wear the same face.Bardolph stood across from me with blood on his shirt, pain in his eyes, and a silence that told me the message had wounded him too.“I do not know what she means,” he said, and his voice sounded rough enough to cut through his own throat.I wanted to believe him because his confusion looked real, but my heart had once believed tears that belonged to Ashina.Conri stepped closer, taking the message from my hand before I could read it

(Daciana POV)The black feather in Tala’s palm looked small enough to blow away, yet it carried enough poison to split the lower house in two.Rieka stood between two guards with her wrists held tight, her face pale with anger, fear, and the terrible pain of being doubted.Every servant in the corridor watched me, waiting to see whether the queen in servant brown would protect one of their own.I looked at the feather, then at Rieka, and remembered Ashina crying in Blackfang with the same kind of perfect timing.Trust had nearly killed me before.But suspicion could kill the innocent just as easily.“Take the chains off her,” I said, and the corridor filled with shocked whispers before the guards could move.Conri stepped forward, his face unreadable, but he did not stop me, which told everyone the choice was mine to carry.Tala’s eyes widened with worry, yet she remained silent because she knew this was about Rieka anymore.It was about whether I would rule through fear or whether As

(Daciana POV)Otsana’s warning stayed in my chest long after she left, beating beside the mate mark like a second frightened heart.If Ashina learned how to command the wounded bond, she would not need chains to drag Bardolph or me into her hands.The thought made my skin crawl because I had spent so much strength trying to become free from Bardolph’s mistake.Now the moon itself had left a thread between us, not soft enough to comfort me but strong enough to be used against us.Conri dismissed the servants from the lower hall, but his eyes never left my shoulder where Bardolph’s old mark still pulsed faintly.Tala wanted me to rest, Rieka wanted me to eat, and Otsana wanted to bind the mark with silver herbs before midnight.I wanted all of them to stop looking at me like I was a wound walking upright in burnt brown.“I need air,” I said, stepping away from the opened box and the letter my mother had left behind.Conri moved before anyone else could answer, but he did not touch me or

(Daciana POV)Blackfang knelt before Ashina like fear had become a king, and every black feather above us glowed with stolen obedience.I stood in the courtyard wearing servant brown, watching the pack that once rejected me bow to the woman who had destroyed us all.Ashina’s hand rested on her stomach, and her smile carried the cruel peace of someone who had found the perfect shield.A child.Nothing divided wolves faster than a child claimed beneath pack law, especially when the mother stood wounded, beautiful, and publicly wronged.Bardolph stood beside me, pale and silent, and the living bond between us trembled with shame I did not want to feel.His shame entered me anyway, hot and ugly, reminding me that his mistake had grown teeth inside another woman’s mouth.I wanted to hate him cleanly.I wanted the sight of Ashina’s hand on her stomach to kill every memory of loving him.But hatred was not clear when the bond still breathed, when his pain still found me, and when a pack’s fu

(Daciana POV)Gonzalo knelt beneath the moonlight with every wolf staring at him, and the black feather over his heart burned through his armor.For one long moment, nobody spoke, because betrayal looked different when it wore the face of a man everyone had trusted.Conri stood frozen beside me, his sword still half-raised, his silver eyes fixed on the captain who had guarded his life for years.I had seen Conri angry before, cold before, dangerous before, but I had never seen him look truly wounded until that moment.Gonzalo had stood beside him in war, carried his orders, protected Northridge gates, and smiled like loyalty had lived inside his bones.Now the moon had shown Ashina’s unborn child tied to him, and every oath he had ever spoken trembled beneath that silver truth.Ashina stood inside the sacred circle with one hand over her stomach, crying and laughing softly like even she feared what had been revealed.Adolphus watched us all with a smile that made the night feel older,