<h4>Chapter 59: Chapter 59: THE FERAL ALPHA</h4>


    <strong>MAEVE</strong><strong>’S POV</strong>


    His chest rose and fell as he stepped forward, out of the circle, the air around him dropping enough to send a chill crawling over my skin.


    "If this bond will not end without bloodshed... then maybe it is not meant to end at all. Maybe we will rot with it. Forever. Until the end of our days."


    The words came out rough, an echo of two voices—guttural, possessive—not entirely his own. Ivan’s eyes darkened further, only lighting with the fiery gold of his wolf.


    "She has always been ours. Foolish mortals. Why do you believe you cane between us? From the moment the goddess gave her to us, she was ours to keep, ours to consume, ours to break if we choose. No severance, no shiny stone, no fucking priest will take her from me. And the only blood that will spill is that of the one who dares to stand between us."


    My breath stilled. This wasn’t Ivan speaking anymore. It was in the way his muscles strained against the fabric of his shirt, his frame dancing on the edge of a full bi-pedal shift.


    Goosebumps prickled over my skin, my fingers going cold the second those golden eyes locked on me.


    "And if she thinks she can sever this... if she believes she can walk away from us again and be free... she will learn there are worse things than being mine."


    "Your Highness..." Revierrie’s voice was soft, but the fear threading through it made my stomach tighten. "You’re not yourself right now. Why don’t you step back into the circle and I can renew your Tempering Spell?"


    My brows shot up. Tempering Spell.


    I didn’t know much about the gimmicks of sacred rituals and spells kept by priests and priestesses, but my time with my old healer teacher had exposed me to certain sacred tricks.


    The Tempering Spell was a ssic—often used on rogues who had lost their humanity and grown feral... or worse, alphas on the brink of madness.


    So, if Ivan’s Tempering Spell needed to be renewed...


    My breath caught.


    The answer came when Ivan’s brutal gaze snapped to the poor priest. In the next heartbeat, his hand shot out, gripping the front of Revierrie’s robes and hurling him back as though he weighed nothing.


    The priest flew through the air, the breath ripped from his lungs before he mmed brutally into a nearby tree.


    My jaw dropped.


    Francis lunged for Ivan, intercepting him as he stalked toward the priest, his shirt already ripping as his size expanded by the second.


    But Francis’s poor attempt nearly got him killed—it was impossible to restrain a man-beast of that size, of that strength, in the storm of such unpredictable fury.


    They collided hard, the growl ripping from Ivan’s throat vibrating through the ground beneath my feet.


    I’d seen him angry before. I’d seen him dominant, cruel, cold—but this was different. This was... feral.


    His eyes—those once-stormy grays—were now nearly ck, swallowing the moonlight whole, shing gold in sharp, hungry glimpses.


    Francis was still struggling when Ivan suddenly stopped resisting. His head turned sharply, his gaze locking on me through the chaos.


    My heart froze, my pulse spiking in fear, and yet—despite my backward steps—something inside me pulled desperately toward him.


    To run to him. To cup his face in my hands. To demand that he calm down. To promise him I wasn’t leaving.


    A lie. A lie my own wolf urged me to make true.


    His stare left me breathless—shaky, terrified.


    And yet, there was something in it that shifted, a forceced with both rage and a fleeting sh of fragility.


    Then, without another nce, he tore himself free from Francis’s grip and disappeared into the trees with brutal speed.


    The shadows swallowed him whole, the beast inside him pressing forward with an earth-shaking howl.


    Squirrels scattered into the undergrowth.


    My pulse pounded hard in my ears, my skin prickling as the sound of the forest came alive under the prowl of a predator.


    By the time my body remembered how to move, Francis was already rushing toward the priest.


    I was right on his heels, my healer’s instincts taking over before my thoughts could catch up.


    I crouched beside Revierrie, my hands moving over his arms and shoulders for breaks, checking the side of his head for swelling.


    He groaned faintly, his breathing weak, but nothing felt obviously broken.


    "Don’t move yet," I instructed quietly, supporting him as he shifted against the tree trunk. His hands trembled when they clutched at my arm. "You could’ve snapped something—goddess, what just happened?"


    No one answered me.


    "Revierrie?" I pressed, searching his pale, sweat-slicked face. "Did he—has Ivan ever—?"


    The priest groaned but didn’t meet my eyes. The elder—Barty, I believed—approachedst, not with concern, but with the same permanent scowl he seemed to be born with.


    "Well, that was a waste," he said dryly, his eyes flicking over the priest like he was an object rather than a man who’d just been hurled like a rag doll.


    I whipped my head toward him. "Are you not going to exin what I just saw? What was that? His eyes, his voice—"


    Barty cut me off with a dismissive flick of his hand.


    "What it was, healer, was another failed ritual. And a waste of time." He pointed toward the dark line of the trees where Ivan had disappeared. "The real question is how the priest ns to fix it."


    Revierrie coughed, wincing as he straightened slightly against the trunk.


    "It was supposed to work this time," he muttered, shaking his head. "The alignment was perfect. The moonstone... I don’t understand. I made the necessary research—I was sure."


    "There’s no point whining about it," Barty said tly. "You rushed things. If you’d taken more time to find a proper solution, His Highness might not have—"


    "Might not have what?" I demanded sharply, ring at him. "Lost control? Snapped like that? Does no one think I deserve an answer here?"


    Francis hade to stand just behind me, but his face was unreadable. Barty, on the other hand, didn’t even seem fazed.


    "If you needed more time," he went on, ignoring me entirely, "His Highness would have given it to you."


    Revierrie’s hands clenched at his sides, the shakiness in his fingers shifting from pain to anger.


    "There’s no need for you to rub it in, Barty. I can see the facts as clearly as you can."


    "Then fix it," Barty snapped. "This is twice you’ve failed the crown. Fail a third time, and you may not get the chance to try again."


    I stood, stepping between them before the air got any more tense.


    "Enough. Arguing won’t change the fact that the ritual didn’t work." I nced at Revierrie, softening my tone. "You’ve been holed up for days trying to solve this. I don’t doubt your effort, and I’m sure you’ll find a better solution."


    Barty only scoffed. "Effort doesn’t matter if it still doesn’t work."


    Before I could shoot back, a howl split the night—ferocious and utterly terrifying. It tore through the clearing, sank into my skin, and rattled my bones.


    A shiver ran down my spine despite the heat of the candles still burning around us.


    I turned toward Barty again, hoping for some kind of exnation.


    "That’s him, isn’t it?"


    The elder only gave me a thin, dismissive look.


    "Look, healer," he said instead, "I know you want to y nice about the priest’s so-called hard work, but Ash Creek can’t afford to waste more time. The longer this drags on, the longer the coronation gets pushed back. With your arrival, formalities demand that the king ends the bond before taking his new Luna and sitting on the throne."


    He wasn’t wrong. The failure meant the next attempt would be at the next full moon—dying the coronation exactly as Devon would want.


    That would buy him time to move his own pieces into ce. And me... more time to find the ck book.


    But the truth was, I wanted this bond gone as soon as possible. I wasn’t sure I could coexist with all these emotions, with the maic pull between me and Ivan.


    I desperately needed it gone so I could focus without a care.


    Francis stepped forward then.


    "Can I talk to you for a second?" he asked, gesturing toward the trees.


    I still had a dozen questions wing at the back of my mind about what had just happened with Ivan, but it was clear no one here was going to answer them.


    "Sure," I said finally.


    We left the others behind, stepping into a more isted part of the forest.