Breed Me Cursed Alpha (Lyra and Ronan) novel Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Lyra

:

They carry Ronan through the corridors like a fallen crown.

I do not let go of him.

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Hands reach for his shoulders, his legs, his head, and I snarl before I can stop myself. “No. Not you. You. And you.” I point, choosing the healers I trust, the ones whose eyes do not slide away from his face like they are already imagining a future without him.

The infirmary smells of herbs and stone and fear.

They lay him on the bed and I climb up with him, knees on either side of his hips, curling my body around his like I can keep him here by force of will alone. His chest barely rises. I press my cheek to it, listening, counting, begging his heart to keep time.

“Lyra,” someone starts.

“Touch him and I break your hand,” I say without looking up.

Silence answers me.

I bury my face into his neck, breathing him in, grounding myself in what is real. He is warm. He is here. My fingers slide into his hair and I hold him the way you hold something precious when the world is trying to

steal it.

The bond feels wrong. Not gone, but frayed. Like a thread pulled too tight, humming under my skin.

“Stay,” I whisper against his throat. “You promised me so much.”

Footsteps gather. Voices rise. Too many bodies in a room meant for healing.

I lift my head and see them watching. Measuring. Some with worry. Some with relief they do not bother to hide. The realization lands hard and cold in my chest.

This is not care.

I curl closer to Ronan, shielding him with my body, my arm locked across his ribs. If they want him, they go through me first.

His breath stutters. I feel it before I hear it.

My heart lurches.

“I am here,” I tell him, pressing my mouth to his skin, a promise and a plea all at once. “I am not letting you go.”

Suddenly thhe room turns loud all at once.

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Chapter 30

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Not shouting at first. Na. Worse. Careful voices. Reasonable tones. The kind people use when they are about to justify something unforgivable.

“He cannot stay like this.”

“He nearly tore a warrior in half.”

“This is not sustainable.”

I lift my head slowly, my arm still locked across Ronan’s chest. His heartbeat is faint beneath my palm, uneven enough to make my stomach twist every time it stutters.

“He is alive,” I say. I don’t call the lies out. “That should be enough.”

An elder steps forward, hands folded, eyes distant. “Alive is not the same as safe.”

“He protected you,” someone mutters. “Barely.”

Another voice, sharper. “And next time?”

I sit up fully, still on the bed, still over him. “There will not be a next time,” I say. “Because you will not provoke him again.”

A few heads snap toward me. Others look away.

His mother moves to the foot of the bed.

Her voice is calm. Too calm. “Ronan must be restrained until he stabilizes. For his sake. And everyone else’s.”

Restraints. The word lands heavy.

“No,” I say.

She does not look at me. “He cannot be allowed to wake confused. Or angry.”

“You mean controlled,” I answer.

Her gaze finally flicks up. Cold. Appraising. “You are emotional.”

“I am his mate.”

That draws murmurs.

“Which makes you compromised,” an elder replies.

ission

My grip tightens on Ronan without my permission. I feel the bond shiver in response, thin and strained, like it might snap if pulled any harder.

“This is for the good of the pack,” someone insists.

I look around the infirmary. At the faces that once bowed. At the wolves who ate at his table. Who slept safely

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Chapter 30

under his rule.

And I understand.

This is not about safety.

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This is about convenience.

Ronan unconscious is easier. Ronan restrained is manageable. Ronan dead would be final.

Cain presses against the bond suddenly, not loud, not violent. Just present. Watching.

I inhale slowly, steadying myself.

“You are not protecting him,” I say quietly. “You are preparing to erase him.”

No one denies it.

And that silence tells me everything I need to know.

The silence stretches too long.

I feel it before I hear it. A pressure sliding along the bond, slow in a way that is not Ronan. My breath catches and I lower my forehead to his, hiding my face from the room.

That is when Cain speaks.

Not aloud.

Inside

my

head.

Soft. Close. Almost amused.

“They were always going to do this’.

My fingers curl into Ronan’s shirt. I do not react. I cannot give him that.

“They do not fear me, Cain continues. “They fear him. And fear makes cowards honest.’

A flash of images presses into me. The clearing. Raised weapons. Faces twisted by relief when Ronan fell. I

swallow hard.

‘You think you saved him,’ Cain murmurs. ‘You only delayed them.’

My heart hammers. The bond feels wrong, like two currents pulling in opposite directions. Ronan is there, faint and exhausted, barely holding the edge of consciousness. Cain is stronger. Awake. Waiting.

‘They want him gone,’ Cain says. ‘I am simply useful.’

I squeeze my eyes shut. Do not listen. Do not answer.

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Chapter 30

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‘If he wakes wrong,’ Cain adds, ‘they will finish what they started. You know this. Let me take over. Kill them all.’

My throat tightens. I know. The certainty settles heavy in my chest.

I lift my head and meet the stares around the room. No one notices the war happening under my skin. They see only a woman kneeling over a fallen king.

Cain’s presence coils tighter, almost satisfied.

‘You should be afraid,’ he whispers. ‘Not of me. Of them.’

Ronan’s breath shudders beneath my hand.

I press my palm flat against his chest, grounding myself in what is real. In him.

“I am here,” I whisper, more to the bond than the room.

Cain laughs quietly inside my head.

‘For now.’

I feel them watching me still.

Not just looking. Weighing. Measuring how much space I take up on the bed. How tightly I hold Ronan. How quickly I might break.

Good.

Let them see.

I lift my head and straighten my spine, even as my hand stays pressed to Ronan’s chest. His heartbeat flickers under my palm, faint but there, and the bond responds when I rise. It sharpens. Focuses. Like something ancient recognizing a shape it understands.

“Enough,” I say. “Leave.”

The word cuts clean through the murmurs.

An elder scoffs. “You don’t give orders here.”

I turn slowly, meeting his eyes. “I just did.”

For a heartbeat, no one moves.

Then, astonishingly, several pack members step back. Not away from Ronan. Away from the elders. They lower their weapons. Their shoulders ease. Instinct, not choice.

I feel it then. The bond tightens, not painfully this time, but with weight. Authority. Ronan’s presence answers me even unconscious, a low resonance that carries through the room.

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His power. Borrowed. Shared.

Others bristle.

“You would command us?” someone snaps. “You were not born to this.”

“I was chosen,” I answer. “By the moon for him.”

That lands harder than I expect.

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Arguments break out instantly. Voices overlap. Leadership. Stability. Risk. Ronan’s name is used like a problem to be solved.

“He cannot lead like this.”

“He may never wake properly.”

“We need contingency.”

I look down at Ronan, at the man who carried all of them, and something settles cold and unmovable in my

chest.

“You will not decide his fate while he lies here,” I say. “You will not restrain him. You will not touch him without my consent.”

“And if we refuse?” an elder challenges.

I feel the bond flare, answering my anger.

“Then you will learn,” I say quietly, “that I am not asking.”

The room shifts.

Not with sound. With absence.

Ronan’s chest stops rising.

It is subtle enough that no one notices at first. No gasp. No dramatic stillness. Just a wrongness under my hand, like the rhythm I have been counting slips half a beat and never finds its way back.

“No,” I whisper.

I

press my palm harder to his chest. Will it. Demand it.

Nothing.

Panic detonates inside me. “Healers,” I snap. “Now.”

They rush forward and I do not move, forcing them to work around me, my body still curled over his like I can shield him from death by proximity alone. Someone presses fingers to his neck. Someone else checks his pupils.

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The bond stretches thin.

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Ronan’s pulse flutters weakly beneath my hand, so faint it feels imagined. I cling to it, breath hitching, my forehead dropping to his.

“Stay,” I beg. “Please. Stay with me.”

The bond wrenches suddenly, like something tearing loose.

Ronan’s heartbeat stutters once.

Twice.

Then nothing. Ronan is no longer breathing. His heart is no longer beating. The machines remind me of this. The sound cuts through everything.

A single, endless note.

Biiiiiiii

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