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chapter 59
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 60
The throne room doors open and suddenly, all I see are images from the night my family and I had been forced, terrified, into vans and brought before the king.I look over at Nathan. His expression is totally cold, just like it had been that night. For the first time since then, I’m afraid of him.My lungs heave for breath, and I can’t stop swallowing. I’m trembling. I’m going to cry.A hand touches my shoulder, squeezes reassuringly. The contact is so brief that by the time I look up at Xiao, it’s already over. She hasn’t stopped scanning the crowd.How did she know I needed that reassurance? That I wouldn’t object to it? This isn’t the first time she’s been eerily tuned into me.I’m unnerved and comforted all at once.The room is arranged differently than it had been that awful night. There are more seats. Enough for at least a hundred people. They’re in a semicircle but parted by a single aisle; the thralls escort the sometimes-resistant werewolves down the outside and fill them in
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 61
Tara comes to see me while I’m still changing out of my gown. She bursts into my dressing room and practically pushes Hannah down to get to me.I hold my injured arm out of the way, so she won’t accidentally bang into it when she collides with me and wraps me in a strong hug.“What happened to you?” she cries against my hair.How does she not know? It’s the whole reason she was—and Clare still is—under lock and key. “Nobody told you what was going on?”Tara steps back, shaking her head, eyes fixed on where my hand should be. “They said the king ordered further investigation of our husbands’ plot. What happened to your hand?”“An assassin bit it off,” I say, more concerned with what was going on while I recovered. Especially since Tara goes pale, clearly receiving this information for the very first time. “You had no idea I was attacked?”“No! And I don’t understand…how did an assassin bite your hand off?” She still can’t take her eyes from my bandaged stump. “How could anyone possibly
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 62
I’m on the sofa in my office, my laptop on my chest, chin tucked down very attractively, I’m sure, when Nathan enters. He murmurs a dismissal to the guard at the door; Xiao hit her limit of work hours a while ago.“What are you doing?” he asks softly.“Watching a body language expert on YouTube.” I close the lid and precariously move the laptop to the floor. I can’t wait until my other arm isn’t so sore that I can’t use it to carry things. “Trying to learn how to catch liars.”Nathan is shirtless, wearing gray sweatpants, of all things. I assume that means he’s fresh out of bed with his mistress. Or, he didn’t get any and now he thinks those stupid gray sweatpants that are ridiculously flattering of the bulge region are going to tempt me.That’s not out of the question, as furious with him as I am.He comes to the sofa and lifts up my feet, putting them in his lap when he sits. “Do you think human psychology works on werewolves?”I raise an eyebrow. “I didn’t say I was going to use it
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 63
I laugh in Nathan’s face.“I’m not joking.” He laughs, but not in disbelief. He’s overjoyed.“Right.” I’m not falling for it. “You can’t possibly tell that from some pussy juice.”He arches an eyebrow. “I’m more than willing to check again.”I smack his shoulder. “Be serious!”“I am being serious. Bailey, I know you inside and out, physically. You smell different, you taste different,” he holds up his hands to indicate his helplessness. “I wouldn’t joke about something I want so badly.”That’s a good point. Nathan does want an heir. It doesn’t seem like something he would joke about.But I can’t get my head around it. Not just the part where he can tell from the way I taste, but the fact that he noticed before I did. That he noticed something the thralls didn’t even notice. “They did surgery on me, though. They must have tested me.”“It would have been too soon to tell,” he reminds me. “You were attacked the morning after the last time we had sex.”He’s right. That would have been way
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 64
Despite Nathan’s insistence to the contrary, I want to see Clare.I have to see her.Nathan tells me firmly that he’s going with me, if only on the car ride. His presence is oddly touching, though I know it has more to do with protecting his pregnant mate than emotionally supporting me.The pack’s dungeons are located at the ceremonial grounds, beneath the council building. We pull up to the front doors and Nathan takes my hand. “You’re sure you don’t need me.”“I just need to see my sister alone,” I tell him. Again.It’s not like she’d be thrilled to see him, anyway. He’s the one who threw her in the dungeon.The royal flags on the front of the car are enough to gain me immediate entrance to the building, and the first security thrall I meet inside takes me down to Clare’s cell, no questions asked. I wonder if that’s Nathan’s doing, too.The dungeon is exactly what the word invokes. Deep below the earth, with cold stone walls slick with mold and damp, it’s probably the same foundatio
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 65
The full moon has arrived. She brings death with her.The ceremonial grounds are somber; the pack hasn’t seen an execution in centuries, let alone one of this scale. Every adult pack member is in attendance, gathered on stands erected around the open curve of the ceremonial building. Nathan struck down the condition that every member attend. He felt there was no reason for children to view the carnage of the proceedings.The mates of the condemned are squeezed into a separate set of risers, a box constructed below the observation balcony. They have to watch. They need to see what their mates’ treachery has wrought. And they’ve been positioned where the rest of the pack can see their anguish. Where everyone will watch them watching their mates die.I spared our parents. They won’t have to watch Clare die.Nathan, Tara, and I are the only ones who look down from the mezzanine, though Tara’s chair is behind and slightly to the right of mine. It keeps her from viewing the grounds She does
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 66
My sister is dead.I take a sip from my mug and stare across the kitchen.It’s after midnight. The last of the thralls that work down here have left for the night. No one is around.No one except Xiao, who stands patiently by the door while I nurse my mug of tea in silence.I’m sure she prefers the silence to the crying I sometimes do.It’s been a week since the full moon. Since I killed my sister.The most difficult part of grieving Clare is the knowledge that she knew someone would kill me. She was willing to sacrifice my life for her mate’s ambition. Or his revenge.Would she have grieved me? Would she have felt this same guilt?Xiao says something, but it’s into the communication device on her wrist. She keeps her voice low, and I can’t hear what’s going on. It could be that Nathan is looking for me; he’s been bossy and clingy since finding out about my pregnancy.Of course, when I wanted him to give a damn about me, he was distant. Now, when all I need is space, he’s constantly f
Last Updated : 2024-10-29Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 67
Be nice, I implore silently as Nathan stares Xiao down across his desk. I sit beside him, close enough that I can feel how tense he is. It makes me want to give him a neck rub in sympathy. And sympathy for Nathan isn’t my default.“It’s not a common spell.” Xiao is in the middle of explaining “everything” as Nathan demanded. She’s remarkably cool under pressure; Nathan isn’t just the king of the pack, but he holds power over thralls, as well. But she delivers the facts like she’s teaching a class. “Thralls use it sometimes when the spark is going out of a relationship or, in more unscrupulous cases, to trick someone into a relationship with them.”“And you practice this magic on werewolves? Without our permission?” Nathan growls.“I’ve never heard of it before, but I’ve trained in defensive magic and combat, not love spells,” she replies.“Why didn’t you mention this to us before?” I wonder aloud. “Why haven’t any of the thralls mentioned it?”“I can only speak for myself, but I thoug
Last Updated : 2024-10-29
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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
