The Alpha Who Hunted Me First

Chapter 5 The Advisor

Word Count: 1106 | Released on: 16/07/2026

oft, unhurried manner of a man who had spe

felt something crawl up her spine the moment Corvin stepped through the doors beside Lord Marrow and Lady Selene. It wasn't recogniti

startled off the gallery rail before she recognized Emory, arms c

l wh

orvin, who was bowing over Selene's introduction with the easy grace of a man who had done this a thousand ti

s he r

"Unofficially, he was one of three wolves who sat on the war council the season Duskwood burned, back when I was too young to b

y a man might scan a room he already knew every corner of. His gaze drifted up toward the ga

top hammering for

ething," sh

wrong." Emory's voice had gone tight all the same. "But

to satisfy politeness, and the look on his face when he climbed the gall

in passing, that he'd heard the Ashbourne healer had taken on a girl from the coast recently,

ld. "How would he e

're here. Emory's kept it that quiet. Which means either someone in my own household is talking out of turn, or

the one Emory

s the same week a Duskwood survivor walks into my hall, and immediately starts asking after

during betrothal negotiations. If we accuse a retired advisor of orchestrating a massacre with no proof beyond an old burn pattern and a bad f

et proof,"

urned to l

lt. "So let him meet her. Let me stand in a room with him and see what he

ot," Kian sai

et to decide

m not putting you in a room with a man who may have burn

ttled. If I don't do this now, we may never get another chance to find out the truth." Her voice cracked slightly, the first real crack she'd let either of them see. "I

eyes that looked, for once, less like an Alpha weighing strategy an

y, "you do not go anywhere near him wi

at all, you leave. No arguing, no finishing a

haling slowly. "For what it's wort

looking away from Wren.

alled in to discuss a rare herb blend Corvin claimed interest in, and Wren spent the whole of that night

areful to be the wind, and when she crossed the room and eased the shutter open, there was nothing outside but the dark gard

ight outside her window. An

Chapter End

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The Alpha Who Hunted Me First

Wunmi Ijaola Werewolf

“Wren Calder was seven years old the night the Ashbourne wolves burned Duskwood to the ground. She was the only one who ran fast enough. Fifteen years later, she walks into Ashbourne territory wearing a dead woman's name and a healer's apron, carrying enough wolfsbane in her sleeve to stop an Alpha's heart. One drop in his cup. That's the whole plan. Wren has spent half her life training for exactly one night. Then Alpha Kian Ashbourne looks at her across a crowded hall, and her wolf goes down on its belly like it's been waiting for him since before she was born. Fated mates don't happen to girls like Wren. They especially don't happen with the son of the man who slaughtered her pack. But the bond doesn't care whose blood is on whose hands, and neither, it turns out, does Kian, once he catches her wrist an inch from his wine and smells exactly what she is to him. He doesn't kill her. He doesn't expose her. He locks her inside his own house and dares her to try again. Now Wren has to survive a pack that wants her dead, resist a mate bond that wants her to forgive the unforgivable, and find out the truth her mentor never told her: that the massacre at Duskwood might not have been Kian's father's order at all. Someone else lit that fire. Someone who is still very much alive, and still very much afraid of what Wren might remember. She came to end an Alpha's line. She didn't expect to need him to survive what's coming for both of them.”