Ruthless Alpha, and his Curvy Saint Chapter 91

Angel’s POV

I opened my eyes to find him watching .

Not intrusively - he was sitting on his side of the bed, already dressed, leaning back against the headboard with his arms loosely folded, and there was sothing in his expression that was - warm. Unhurried. Like he had been there a while and hadn’t minded.

"Good morning," I said, voice thick with sleep.

"Good morning." The smile that ca with it was slow and genuine. "You’re beautiful when you sleep."

The blush arrived before I could do anything about it.

"Stop that," I said, pressing my face into the pillow.

"I’m simply making an accurate observation."

"You’re being kind."

"I’m being factual." His voice carried that particular certainty that rrick always had - the ease of soone who had decided sothing and saw no reason to qualify it. "There’s a difference."

I lifted my face from the pillow and looked at him with the skepticism that the statent deserved.

Beautiful. . With my face that obviously looked blotchy right now. From crying yesterday and sleeping with that sa tear-stained face.

Let not even begin to talk about my heavy size.

"The puffy cheeks," I said flatly. "The..."

"Are you seriously sitting here arguing with a complint?"

"I’m questioning its accuracy."

"Angel." He looked at with an expression that was both amused and serious in equal asure. "I have lived long enough to know exactly what I’m looking at. I don’t say things I don’t an." He held my eyes. "You are beautiful. The fullness of you, the softness of you - all of you. Not despite anything. Because of everything." A pause. "Believe it or don’t, but I’m not revising the statent."

Sothing happened in my chest that I allowed for exactly three seconds before I cleared my throat and sat up.

"I’m going to go get ready," I said.

He smiled. "Probably wise."

The maid had packed up everything, which I appreciated. I washed and dressed in sothing plain and practical - appropriate for travelling, inappropriate for whatever rank I was apparently now supposed to inhabit - and stood in my old room for a mont before I left it.

The window Terrell had latched shut.

The chair he’d sat in all night, watching sleep.

The tray on the table from dinners I hadn’t tasted.

I looked at it all for one mont.

Then I went to find rrick.

He was waiting in the corridor, which I appreciated. We walked down together and the castle felt different in the morning - quieter, the ceremony of the night before settled into the stones like sothing absorbed.

When we got to the dining hall, Terrell was at the table.

I saw him before he saw - or before he chose to acknowledge that he saw - sitting at the head of it in the morning light with a cup in his hand and his jaw set and his eyes sowhere distant.

He looked up when we entered.

For one mont - just one - his eyes found mine.

Sothing moved through them that I caught and imdiately lost again, too quick to na.

Then he set down his cup.

Stood up.

And walked out of the room.

Just like that. No drama. No acknowledgent. He simply... left. Before I had even reached my seat.

I sat down.

I looked at the empty chair at the head of the table.

rrick said sothing beside - sothing gentle and redirecting, offering bread, pouring sothing warm - and I answered him and ate what was put in front of and acted like soone having a normal morning

But the empty chair sat at the edge of my vision the entire ti.

And later, when rrick’s n were assembled and the horses were ready and the whole organised departure was underway - bags loaded, farewells exchanged, the Black Wolf gates standing open - I found myself looking.

Just once.

Scanning the courtyard, the steps, the windows.

Terrell was nowhere.

He didn’t co out.

Didn’t appear at a window.

Didn’t send word.

I turned forward as we rode out through the gates and I told myself the tightness in my chest was the morning air and nothing else.

I told myself that very convincingly.

Almost.

His indifference settled into my bones like cold weather, and I tried not to think too much about it.

The gates of Black Wolf territory disappeared behind us and I kept my eyes forward.

I was good at that. Forward. One foot in front of the other, or in this case one horse in front of the next.

rrick rode beside - close enough that our horses’ strides fell into an easy rhythm together. His n ford a moving periter around us, front and back, the kind of formation that was ford to protect.

The trees thickened on either side of the road.

And there it was.

The feeling arrived without announcent - cold, dark, settling between my shoulder blades like a hand pressing between them. I found myself scanning the treeline unconsciously. Left side, right side, the shadows between the trunks, the places where the undergrowth was dense enough to hide...

Stop it, I told myself.

I scanned the treeline again.

Soone had tried to kill on our journey here.

The culprit was never found. No explanation given. Which ant whoever it was, was still out there. Roaming free and probably preparing to strike again.

A branch moved on the left.

My whole body pulled tight.

A bird ca out of it, wings loud in the morning quiet, and flew away over the canopy.

I breathed out slowly.

"Angel."

rrick’s voice. I turned.

He was watching with the rapt attention of soone who had been watching for a while. "You’re alright?"

"Yes," I said.

He looked at the treeline I had just been watching with my eyes. Then back at .

"You’re safe," he said, simply. Not the reassurance of soone trying to convince , just a statent of fact. "I have twelve n on this road. Four of them I’ve trusted with my life for longer than most kingdoms have existed. Nothing will reach you."

I nodded.

"Angel."

I looked at him properly this ti.

"Nothing," he said, "will reach you."

I took a breath. Let the trees be trees for a mont.

"Tell sothing," I said, trying to keep my mind busy and occupied.

"Anything."

"Tell about when you were young." I settled more comfortably in the saddle. "You and Terrell. How did it end up the way it is now - him at Black Wolf, you ruling your own territory?"

Sothing shifted in rrick’s expression. Like the look of soone deciding where to begin a long story.

"Every territory under my authority," he said, "ultimately belongs to Terrell. As Alpha, everything falls under the Black Wolf banner. My lands, my villages, my castle - it’s all part of the sa structure." He glanced at . "Think of it like... Terrell holds the whole sky. I hold a particular portion of it. The stars in my section still belong to the sa sky."

"That’s a very poetic way of describing it."

"I have my monts." The corner of his mouth moved. "The practical version is that one Alpha cannot personally govern every village, every dispute, every trade agreent and territorial boundary across that much land. Terrell needed soone he trusted absolutely to manage a sector. Soone who understood how he thought, shared his priorities, and would never use the position to build sothing against him." He paused. "There are only so many people who fit that description."

"So he gave it to you."

"He gave it to . My lands still operate under Black Wolf law. But the day-to-day - the governance, the relationships with neighbouring territories, the wellbeing of the villages - that’s mine."

I thought about that. "And your people - they shift into black wolves too?"

"Every one of them."

I blinked. "Even if they weren’t born into the pack?"

"Even then." He glanced at sideways. "When soone joins the Black Wolf pack, takes the oath, accepts the brand - the pack bond changes them at sothing deeper than skin level. Their wolf, if they have one, eventually turns." He paused. "It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s gradual. Weeks, sotis months. But it happens."

"Lyra’s family," I said slowly.

"Yes. Whatever colour their wolves were before - grey, brown, white - they’ll turn in ti." He looked at . "That’s partly what the marking does. It’s not just identification. It’s a physical tethering to the pack. The brand works with the bond to begin the process."

I sat with that for a mont. A whole family, slowly changed at the cellular level by the pack they had chosen. Or been brought into.

"Is that - does it hurt them? The changing?"

"No more than any shift hurts." He considered. "Less, actually, for those who’ve been shifting for years. The colour change is subtle. Most of them don’t notice it happening."

I nodded slowly, filing it away. There was so much I didn’t know. So much that had been happening around and inside the people around that I had no frawork for.

"Tell more," I said. "About how it all works. The hierarchy, the rules, what it ans to be..." I hesitated on the next word. "Luna."

He looked at with sothing that was quiet and serious and warm all at once.

"I’ll tell you everything," he said. "I promised you that. All of it - the structure of the pack, the duties that co with the title, how to navigate the politics, which elders to trust and which ones to watch carefully." He held my gaze. "You won’t go into any of it blind. Not on my side."

Relief settled in my chest at that.

We rode in comfortable silence for a while after that - the kind of silence that was simply two people occupying the sa space without needing to fill it.

Then rrick said: "Do you intend to co back? To Black Wolf territory?"

I kept my eyes on the road ahead.

The question sat in the air between us, patient.

"I don’t know," I said.

rrick said nothing.

"I don’t know when," I anded. "Or if..." I stopped. Reorganised. "I need ti before I can be in that place again. Around..." I didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t make .

"I understand," he said. Just that.