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chapter 24
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 25
Tara can’t look me in the eye now. “Not like at the festival. It’s a real whip, and it really, really hurts. I felt so bad for Josh because he kept saying ‘sorry’ after every lash.”“No way.” I push myself up from the bed and bolt across the room, as if I can escape the ceremony by getting further from my sister’s description of it.“Do you want me to keep talking, or have you heard enough?” Tara asks, genuine concern behind her words.I don’t want to hear anymore, but not knowing will only make whatever I imagine after worse than it probably actually is. “Fine.”She hesitates, but continues when I shoot her an icy glare. “After the whipping, he transforms and the two of you…mate.”“While he’s a werewolf?” Maybe I’ve been around humans too long, but that sounds so disgusting to me. Plus, everyone else in there is doing it, too? “Do the acolytes like, watch or something? This is so gross!”“Nobody watches. That I know of,” she quickly revises. “But trust me, it’s not as mortifying as i
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 26
He pours himself some scotch, barely looking at me as he asks, “Is it what you want?”“I want the mating pact between Ashton Daniels and I dissolved. I want it dissolved or else—” Or else, what? I’ll leave the pack forever? They can’t force me to stay, but the thought of trying to live in the human world on my own, without my father’s financial support, terrifies me.“Never resort to ultimatums, Bailey,” he says calmly. “It puts you in a weak position and ends a negotiation.”“It’s not a negotiation. It’s just…I can’t be with him. The thought of the mating ceremony alone disgusts me.” My face gets hot talking about it in front of him. I quickly add, “And I don’t want to have to live with him and be the mate he wants me to be.”Tears roll down my cheeks and I swipe them away, but the words I don’t want to say, the ones I haven’t dared myself to even think, force their way out, pushed by my panic. “I’m afraid.”Now that I’ve acknowledged my fear, the full force of it grips me. Sheer ter
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 27
I arch up as his sucking kisses move across my collarbones and chest, grind my pelvis against him in desperation. My panties are soaked, my pussy aching with need that only intensifies when his mouth closes over my nipple. He grazes me with his teeth and I shout, long past moaning. I don’t care if every thrall in the mansion hears me. All I want is for Nathan to know how he affects me, how much I want him, how totally I’ll surrender my will, my dignity, everything I have if he’ll just take me right here and now.Sparks of sensation race through my blood at every sweep of his tongue over my tightly drawn up flesh, and when he turns his attention to my other breast, I swear my cunt flutters the way it does when I come from touching myself. It’s not enough to satisfy my craving for him.“I smelled you,” he groans against me. “The night of the full moon. I hunted for you. I knew you wouldn’t be there, but I searched for you. Your scent was inescapable. Maddening. What were you doing?”“Ma
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 28
I try not to think about that as the maître d’ leads me through the dimly lit main floor, to a round banquette of soft ivory leather. Ashton waits there, his coppery hair combed back and brushing the collar of his expensive suit jacket. He rises with a broad smile, takes my hands and kisses my cheek. “I almost gave up on you.”I wish you would. I physically bite my tongue to keep from saying it. “I’m sorry. I got turned around on the way here.”He frowns as we slide into our seats. “You drove yourself?”“Mmhm,” I affirm through my closed lip smile.“You shouldn’t have.” His concern is infantilizing and infuriating.“Why not?” I tilt my head and pick up the wine list that was left for us on the table. There’s a reason I drove myself tonight: the car is a good excuse not to go home with him. After all, I can’t just leave a Bentley in a parking garage overnight, even at a pack-owned establishment.“Toronto is a dangerous city,” he says, as if I didn’t live in London for five years on my
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 29
“I—”“You don’t actually know me.” Now that the dam has broken, I can’t hold back the flood of rage I’m feeling. “You don’t know anything about me.”“I’d like to get to know you,” he says, too baffled to shut me up.“After we’re mates, right? When you can rearrange all the little bits of me?”“Of course not!”I shake my head and keep my voice low and neutral so we don’t cause a scene. Not here, at a restaurant owned by a pack member. It’s too full of eyes and furry fucking ears. “If you knew me at all, you’d know I don’t spend hours upon hours in libraries. I hate libraries. I hate reading. I’ve tried to do as little as possible since we left school.”“Noted, then,” he tries to appease me.But I don’t stop there. “You would know that Negril is the last place I would want to vacation because I sunburn through eighty SPF sunblock, and I loathe sand. And the thing that would make me happiest in my life? Would be staying as far away from my parents as possible.”“Negril is far away,” he s
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 30
Nathan doesn’t contact me for a full week.The preparations for my mating ceremony have hit crisis mode. Mother, Clare, and Tara fret over the morning-after celebration. Everything from the guest list to the centerpieces have to be perfectly correct to hopefully erase the stain of What I Did.I try my best to participate, if only to keep up the pretense that I’ll be marrying Ashton.His threats haunt me. Nightmares of desperately trying to run from him, only to be dragged back to the pack kicking and screaming have me waking up in a cold sweat nightly. I’m constantly exhausted and on-edge, and people are noticing.“The bags under your eyes,” Mother says at dinner one night, making a quiet tutting noise in lieu of finishing the thought.“I haven’t been sleeping well.” Because of you, because of what Father agreed to. Because of the pack and the fact that I’m a prisoner.“Ma’am?” Hudson steps into the dining room, followed by two thrall soldiers with the royal seal sewn onto their Kevla
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 31
Nathan doesn’t answer him. He just pronounces the sentence. “All of your material assets are forfeit to the pack. You and your immediate family will be remanded into the custody of the royal guard and taken to a place of exile, where you will remain for no less than one century.”I’ve never been shot, but I know in my soul that it’s less painful that the blow Nathan has just delivered. My sister. I’ve just come home, just gotten her back, and now Nathan is banishing her?He sentences Julien and Clare to the same, and my chest aches with agonizing pressure. My sisters…gone. We may live much longer than mortals, but a century is still an eternity to be parted from them.Three families receive a reprieve from banishment but not from the loss of their bank accounts, their houses, their cars, their seats on the council. Another receives twenty-five years of banishment but retains their home and business. Nathan is ruthless in his edicts, ignoring the shouts of outrage from the condemned.N
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 32
Father looks to Mother, then to me, before he stammers, “W-what about banishment, Your Majesty?”“Would you like to be banished?” Nathan asks coolly. “What about you, Mr. Daniels? Is that a punishment you believe you all deserve?”None of them answer. If a feather drifted through the air and brushed up against the ceiling, we would hear it. And Nathan lets us sweat in that silence.“I’m an outsider. It’s not a secret,” Nathan says, his piercing gray eyes fixing on my father. “But you, Thomas. You fought harder for me to assume this position than any council member. What could have changed, that you now think of me as a threat to your pack’s independence?”I think back to the night in the ballroom, the hushed conversations and whispers that Nathan had come to take the Toronto pack for Greater London. If Father believes that, he must have some reason.“But would I seize my queen’s throne?” Nathan asks. “Perhaps a marriage pact between your daughter and I will convince you that I am not
Last Updated : 2024-10-29
Latest chapter
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 100
We plan furiously, and fast. Xiao secures a location, a tiny cabin that’s way off the grid in Manitoba. We’ll be isolated from the world, but most importantly, from the pack; they don’t know that our thralls have hideouts all over Canada.Even though she only has to make a few calls, we decide not to chance letting anyone know that we’re leaving. Yet again, we’re bugging out. We’re leaving our kingdom because our subjects want us dead.It’s almost midnight when Nathan and I go to my bedroom, and I start hauling out all my luggage.“You don’t have to pack tonight,” he says gently.I don’t look at him. “I don’t have to. But I’m going to.”“You’ll tire yourself out. We’ll have a long drive tomorrow.”I shake my head. “Then I can sleep on the drive.”Nathan comes to my side and puts his hand on my arm. “Bailey… don’t do this to yourself.”“Don’t do what?” I snap. “Take anything with me to fucking Manitoba? Just resign myself to dying in the wilderness, ripped apart by polar bears?”He doe
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 99
“Bailey and I won’t change. We’ll remain here, under guard, at Aconitum Hall,” Nathan declares, and my heart sinks. I’ve gotten to be in my werewolf form once. Just one time. I was looking forward to transforming again.But Nathan’s right and I can pout about it later. We will be more vulnerable in a dark forest with potential traitors.“That will keep the two of you safe, but what about the rest of the pack?” Hannah argues. “Two werewolves have failed in their attempts to kill you, the objects of the thralls’ spells. The thralls know about it. So, who’s to say that they’ll even allow us to turn? We’re interfering in something they thought they’d kept secret. They could easily poison us, trap us, do anything to us when we set foot on that ceremonial ground.”“If all of us stayed home, they’d get suspicious,” Ryan says. “Maybe they’d believe we were against them.”“Aren’t we?” I ask. “They’re working magic on us against our will, without our knowledge or consent. They’re working agains
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 98
The thralls want to exterminate werewolves? “That doesn’t make any sense. They need us—”“Needed us.” Tara stresses the past tense. “They have all the arcane knowledge they need now, except for one thing.”“Dominion over life and death.” Nathan stands and paces the length of the room.The earlier sense of proactive hope sucks from the room.“They basically forced you two to breed,” Hannah says. “Dominion over life.”“There’s more.” Tara steers us back toward her research. “After the gods fall and the earth is submerged in water, life begins again. Two humans survive Ragnarök: Lifthrasir and Lif.”“How do they survive the end of the world,” I ask, silently tacking on and who would want to?“They hide. They run away to the woods and hide until everything is over,” Tara says with a shrug. “And when they come out, they repopulate the world.”“That would be dominion over death, wouldn’t it?” Nathan suggests. “Rebuilding anew on top of that destruction?”“Are the thralls acting out Ragnarök
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 97
“In which case, why would the thralls give her the magic she would need to throw a wrench into their plans?” Nathan grimaces and curses under his breath.“I’m going to write this…” Hannah says, uncapping a new marker and turning back to the whiteboard. “…in blue… so we know… it’s unsubstantiated…”When she turns back, the “moonstone” entry has a color-coded bullet point that reads: “humans”.“Fantastic,” Ryan exclaims. “This gives us a direction to move in.”He reaches across the table and grabs a notebook and pen. “Make fun of Hannah all you want, Bailey, but look. She brought paper.”“Paper can be destroyed,” Nathan muses. “Good idea, Hannah.”She gives me a playful little smirk.I laugh and gesture at the board. “Okay. Now, let’s talk about this Tyr and Fenrir thing. I admit, I’m not the expert in mythology here, but they never boned down, that I can recall. What’s the point of symbolically making them have a baby?”“Good point.” Hannah writes, “Not literal symbolism” as a bullet po
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 96
Two days later, we have a secret meeting in the conference room at Aconitum Hall. Just Nathan, me, Hannah, and Ryan, and of course, Xiao, who stands by, guarding the door.Hannah has us all set up, with a white board and different colored markers— “to stay organized!”—as well as notebooks, pens, highlighters, all types of stuff we don’t need.“You just wanted to take a trip to the office supply store,” I accuse her.“I can neither confirm nor deny,” she answers, contentedly stroking a pack of gel pens.“While the abundance of stationary is impressive,” Nathan begins, “Let’s start with what we know so far.”He turns to the white board and writes “wwksf” in the upper left corner.All of us, even Xiao, make alarmed noises at the chaotic shape of the letters.“How about someone with better handwriting?” Ryan suggests, tacking on a hasty, “no offense, Your Majesty.”“He doesn’t get to take offense in here,” I remind Ryan. “Remember, this is informal.”“Well, who has better handwriting?” Na
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 95
The doctor tilts her head. “It’s still very early. How did you know?”“I could tell,” Nathan answers while I try to figure out how to phrase, “He tasted it in my pussy juice.” He’s much more tactful about it. “She smelled different.”A smile touches the corner of the doctor’s mouth. “A lot of males know first, if they’re especially in-tune with their mates.”I’m not sure we can describe Nathan as being “in-tune” with me, but I smile back weakly, anyway.The doctor runs me through a barrage of questions: am I experiencing morning sickness? have I noticed weight gain? what about swollen feet, dizziness, fainting?Every time I answer, I wonder if it means something, if my answers will reveal that surprise, I’m not really pregnant at all.I must not be the first person to worry about that in this office, because Dr. Campbell says, “Relax. This is just a thorough record of your symptoms. We’re establishing a history for you and baby.”“Oh. Good.” I feel a little silly. “I know it’s weird,
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 94
Somehow, in all the ugliness of pack politics and multiple attempts on my life, I totally forgot about pre-natal care.I’m just not sure how to get it, at first. Thralls are in charge of all of our medical care, and I don’t know how much we want them to know. But Nathan and I decide that we can’t take a chance with the baby’s life.As we wait in the exam room, looking at all the posters of werewolf fetal development and the plastic anatomical model of the baby’s head in the birth canal—no thank you—I find the situation becoming more real by the second.“Did you ever think you’d have kids?” I ask Nathan, who’s looking over a pamphlet about the first trimester.He lifts his eyebrows and folds the pamphlet before neatly tucking it into his inside jacket pocket. “I assumed I would. In a hypothetical, detached kind of way. There’s so much pressure to find a mate and breed right away. That’s never appealed to me.”“It’s not so appealing to me, but here I am. In a paper gown.” I laugh nervou
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 93
“They’re not thralls?” She’s just as bewildered by the information as I was. “Like, thralls that ran away from the pack or—”“Just humans who use magic.” Since I don’t know the details of how that all works, and since that’s not really the point of the conversation, I go on. “We needed someone outside of any pack, who could examine the spell objectively and tell us what we needed to know, without any investment in the outcome.”“What did he find?” The fact that Tara is talking to me now, not just looking for ways to snipe at me, feels like a cheap thing to be happy about. It doesn’t mean anything other than that she’s interested in this particular conversation.But I’ll take it. “I’m bound with runes from Tyr’s aett.” I don’t have to explain what those are; Tara’s always been a bit of a mythology nerd. “And Nathan is bound with etheric chains.”“Like Fenrir,” she says, referencing the wolf held captive by the gods. She glances down at my stump. “Wait. Nathan didn’t—”“No, Nathan isn’t
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 92
Tara is dressed all in black, seated on the sofa in the parlor adjoining her room and Clare’s. That door is closed, draped with black bunting.I sit in the chair perpendicular to the sofa and silently will my sister to look at me, to speak to me beyond the mumbled, “Your Majesty,” I got when she curtseyed formally at my entrance, or the offer of a beverage, which I refused.“How are you?” I ask finally.“It’s very lonely here,” she says flatly. “It was different, with Clare. More like when we lived at home, before we were mated. We didn’t see each other much when you were away.”“Because you were newly wed?”She nods.“I understand that,” I try, hating myself for even attempting to link my experience with hers. “Getting caught up in your mate’s life and drifting away from your own.”“It’s a bit different for you. You’re also caught up in being queen.” She finally makes eye contact with me. “Do you think that maybe you got too caught up in it? And that’s why…”She doesn’t finish her se
