Breed Me Cursed Alpha (Lyra and Ronan) novel Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Ronan

Hypocrisy has a smell.

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It clings to this fortress like old smoke, like ghosts that never quite learned how to leave. Sweet on the surface. Rot underneath. Every smile I pass this morning carries it. Every bowed head. Every murmured ‘Alpha’ said with just a little too much warmth.

They think they’re winning.

I sit at the head of the table and feel it in my bones. The way the room leans toward Lyra without touching her. The way their eyes keep sliding to her stomach and then to me. The way hope has made them gentle.

Hope is more dangerous than hate.

They were not gentle when they voted.

I remember that chamber. Stone cold beneath my boots. The circle of elders with their hands folded, their faces drawn tight with fear and hunger and calculation.

‘You are failing the pack, Alpha.’

Failing. As if I had not bled for them. As if I had not buried more of my siblings than I can count. As if I had not stood alone between the Goddess and annihilation.

‘If you refuse to use the Luna, we will be forced to consider… other leadership.’

Demote. Replace. Install someone who would do what I wouldn’t. Someone who would take Lyra and break her into a womb.

They didn’t call it that. They called it duty. Balance. Fate.

Bastards.

I drag a breath through my teeth and force myself back into the present. Lyra is beside me, her knee almost touching mine, her scent sliding under my skin. She smells like warmth this morning. Like clean water and sunlight and something deeper that makes my wolf grind his teeth.

Her breathing is a little too fast.

I notice everything about her. The way her fingers tremble when she lifts her cup. The way her shoulders hold tension like she’s braced for a blow. The faint flush on her throat. The place I kissed last night.

Fuck.

The memory hits me hard and hot. The taste of her. Soft. Sweet. Like I’d bitten into something that was never meant to be consumed. My body reacts before my mind can catch up, heat pooling low and sharp.

20:22 Thu, Feb 12 d..

Chapter 46

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‘Cold shower, Ronan. You’re going to need a damn ice bath.’

Cain laughs in my head, a dark, jagged sound. You could just take her.

“Shut up.”

‘She wants you.’

“You don’t know what she wants.”

‘I know what she is.’

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My jaw tightens. Cain presses closer, a presence like a storm against my skull. He wants to surge forward, to claim, to mark, to bury his teeth into Lyra’s skin and end all this pretending.

I won’t let him.

Across the table, Kyle eats like he hasn’t been fed in weeks. Shoveling food into his mouth, eyes darting, posture loose in a way that sets my teeth on edge. He’s too comfortable. Too damn comfortable for a man who showed up half-dead and bleeding lies.

Cain bristles at the sight of him.

Break him, my wolf snarls. He reeks of rot.

I don’t disagree.

7

Kyle catches me looking and flashes a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. The same smile he probably used as a child when he’d done something unforgivable and knew it. I see Lyra glance at him, hopeful, fragile, and something in my chest tightens.

He’s playing her.

And I’m letting him sit at my

table.

My mother’s gaze burns into me from the other side of the room. She watches Lyra like she’s already a vessel. A means to an end. Her smile is soft. Maternal. Deadly.

Cain slams against me.

‘She would kill her, he growls. ‘Your own blood would kill her

I see Marcus in my mind. Lyra’s father. The man who sold her. The man who ordered her hand cut. The man who thought he could use my curse to break me.

Cain loses it.

The impact inside my head is violent. Like something huge and furious throwing itself against a locked door. My vision flickers. My hands curl into fists on the table.

‘Let me tear him apart,’ Cain roars. ‘Let me bathe in his blood.’

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Chapter 46

“Not now.”

‘You are weak.’

“I’m controlled.”

‘You are afraid.”‘

“I am not afraid of you.”

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The room hums with forced cheer. Plates clink. Laughter rings too loud. Wolves pretend everything is normal while they dream of children walking out of the shadows.

I think about the ones who grabbed Lyra. The hands on her arms. The figure I held by the throat before it flickered out of my grasp. Was it Luke? Which bloodline is his?

Too many wolves.

That’s the curse of a large pack. You lose track. Faces blur. Loyalty becomes a rumor.

I have been lazy.

I hate that.

I should know every wolf who breathes in this fortress. Every heartbeat. Every scent. And I don’t. Which means there are people here who would kill her for what she represents.

I will find them.

A shout cuts through the noise.

“Alpha!” Panic. “King Ronan.”

The doors slam open. A warrior stumbles in, breath ragged, eyes wild. “We’ve spotted rogues. Near the border.”

The room shifts.

Hope curdles into fear. Conversations die. Bodies tense. Wolves half-rise from their seats.

I push back from the table and stand. Lyra does too, instinctively, eyes wide.

I catch her shoulders.

“Stay,” I tell her, my voice low and firm.

“But-”

“Stay.”

She swallows, then slowly lowers herself back into her chair. Obedience does not suit her. It still twists

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Chapter 46

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something ugly in my gut that she gives it so easily.

I lean down and kiss her.

It is not soft.

It is not gentle.

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It is a promise and a warning and a refusal to let the world take her without a fight. Her breath hitches. Her lips part. For a second there is only us.

Cain slams into me.

“Mark her.”

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