The Alpha's Silent Bride: Seventh Time's The Charm novel Chapter 3

Chapter 3: 003: Protective Rage

~ RONAN ~

"The council’s demands are just stupid."

I snort, not even bothering to look at Nikolai as I say it. He knows, because he was there, he had sat right beside me through three hours of the councils debating the terms of an alliance that should have taken twenty minutes to settle.

"A seventh bride might just be the charm," Nik says, with a tinge of smirk in his voice without looking at me.

"Shut the fuck up, Nik."

"I’m just saying..."

"We both know she’s going to end up dead like every other bride, so drop it." I say, even though It fucking hurt to say because I want to put a end to all of these fucking madness.

Nikolai goes quiet.

’He’s not wrong though,’ Kael my wolf, mutters from the back of my skull. "Seven’s perfection, idiot. Try to remember that."

You too?

’Just saying what you won’t.’

I shut him out. Something I’ve gotten very good at over the years.

The territory of Westbrook comes into view, and whatever I think about the council and their demands and the whole cursed arrangement, I file it away. I don’t walk into another Alpha’s territory distracted, because that’s how you end up dead.

Nikolai splits off at the gates, saying he needs to confirm the meeting time with Warren’s Beta, and I walk the grounds alone.

It’s a decent territory. Well-kept, well-guarded. Warren runs a tight pack, I’ll give him that. Whatever else he is.

’Something’s off,’ Kael says suddenly. I slow without meaning to. My scan around, every hair in my skin prickling, and alert.

’There.’

I don’t know what I’m expecting; A threat, maybe, or a scout who got too close. Instead I round the corner near the main staircase and stop.

There’s a girl on the stairs.

She’s descending slowly, carefully, like each step costs her something. The gown she wears is too fine for someone who moves like she’s still learning how to hold herself upright. She’s so ethereal, even thouhh she’s looking pale with dark circles rounding her eyes. A fading mark across her cheek that my wolf catalogs before my brain even catches up.

She hasn’t seen me yet.

"You should go meet her," Kael urges, purring loudly in my ear. This is the first time he’s acting all giddy and excited just by seeing a female.

I don’t move. I’m trying to place the scent, and that’s the strange thing. She has a scent, but it’s a faint one, as though it’s barely there, like something that was almost extinguished—like a candle someone tried very hard to put out that refused to go completely dark.

One minute I’m still trying to decipher it, the next, she trips on her gown and is already falling. My adrenaline surges, and I close the distance between us immediately.

She lands in my arms instead of the floor, and for a second we’re just... still. Fucking still. My brain is calm, the raging storm in my chest pauses to ease.

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