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Chapter 15
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Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 16
Maybe it’s not a good idea to sleep with the man who just turned my entire world upside down. But dismissing the almost painful need that binds us is a growing agony, and the closeness of his body is a welcome distraction. It’s not like things could get better by not doing it, and for some reason, Owen’s hands on me feel tighter than my anger does.His heated kisses reach the collar so I lean away to take it off. He pulls the lace cups of my bra down and buries his face against my breasts, and I arch my back, trusting that he can hold me up with a single hand splayed across my lower back. Gripping my thighs around his waist helps steady me, but it maddens me at the same time. I physically ache to feel his skin on mine, to touch as much of him as I can with as much of myself as I can, and my jeans are not helping.“I couldn’t get you out of my mind,” Owen mutters. “All of the things I wanted to do to you…”“Do you still want to do them?” I gasp as his teeth close over my nipple and I
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 17
I wake to an unfamiliar voice.“Your Majesties, a letter from the council.”I can barely open my eyes, persuaded I’ve only been asleep for a few minutes, but the sunlight that assaults me through the windows says otherwise. I mumble something, trying to push myself up, but I’m too weary and my muscles are too sore to expend any real effort.The blankets rustle as Nathan gets out of bed and I watch through the unwilling, narrow opening of my eyelids as he walks across the bedroom, totally nude, like there isn’t another person with us. He takes a scarlet envelope from the thrall’s silver tray and waves the man away.I momentarily duck my head under the covers when Nathan turns back, a strange mix of horny and bashful forcing a chuckle up my throat that I subdue when I arise and see the frown on his face.He’s standing by the bed, reading, a wrinkle between his dark eyebrows growing deeper as his eyes flick across the page, and I have to sit up. Carefully. With the top sheet wrapped a
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 18
After Ryan and Hannah leave, I snoop through the residence and find a study. As one would expect, the king’s bookshelves are filled with magnitudes on pack law, including the intimidating twenty-volume pack charter.Research is way less fun when you’re not doing it with two equally motivated individuals. And when your entire future hangs by a thread. But what it lacks in fun, it makes up for in not getting any results. It’s dark out by the time I give up.I glance out the window of the study and spot the moon. We’re two days from Lupercalia. Two days from understanding what my life is going to be like.By ten o’clock, Nathan still hasn’t returned to the residence.“Amanda?” I ask through the intercom in my sitting room. “Has the King left word of when he’ll be back?”There’s a click and Amanda answers, “His Majesty isn’t planning to return tonight. Do you have a statement you’d like me to pass along to his secretary?”He’s not coming home. “Do you know where he’s gone?”Click. “By pac
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 19
Lupercalia. The challenge is here.I’m taken from Aconitum Hall to the ceremony grounds in a chauffeured car. I sit by myself, across from two unsmiling, armed royal thralls. I get the feeling that they’re protecting a piece of disputed property. I’m not the future queen tonight.Not that I wasn’t pampered like royalty. Before I left there were manicures and waxes, a makeup artist, a hairdresser, all of them sent to prepare me for my mating ceremony. There had also been a tailor, who nipped and tucked an off-the-rack suit for my testimony before the council; black pencil trousers, and a single-breasted jacket over a light blue silk chemise, all of it making me look much older than I single-breasted in a thorough twist, knotted at the nape of my neck, and it will, the stylist assured me, look as good down as up.Because after my testimony, I’ll be taken straight to the ceremonial chambers and prepared for whoever wins the challenge.Unfortunately, the robe for my mating right is the
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 20
The chamber is as cold and dark as I imagine. My arms ache. I’ve been waiting, chained, for what feels like hours, but through the grate overhead, I can tell the moon isn’t directly above us yet.This isn’t how Tara said it would go. She’d mentioned a ceremony, other people being here with us.I’m all alone, in a cell that smells of earth and is oppressive in its chill humidity. The acolytes did anoint me, that part was true, but they didn’t wait for my mate to arrive. Now, with my back to the door, chained to a damp wooden post, there’s no way for me to tell who will come in. And if I change my mind…It’s too late to change my mind.I stifle a sob of fear. I can do this. I gave my testimony. Sure, I messed up by playing that recording and by entrapping Ashton. I thought I was doing the right thing but apparently, I wasn’t. Whatever happens, whoever comes through the door, I’ll face the effects of my actions and I’ll do it without becoming a sniveling crybaby.I want to cry, though.
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 21
Nathan carries down the path, to the ritual grounds. The other members of the pack have already transformed; I hear their calls from the dark woods.I twirl some of his furs in my fingers, my head cradled in the dip of his shoulder. “I didn’t expect it to be like that. I don’t know what I expected it to be like, but not at first.”He makes a noise like the snorting of a bull and his claws tighten around me.I slap his chest. “Control yourself. I’ve still got to transform. I wonder what I’ll look like.”My hair is blonde, and I’ve seen blonde werewolves that turn out white or gold. People with darker or ginger hair take on varying shades of brown or black or even the deep silver of Nathan’s fur. And I’m interested to see how my face ends up. Just like with people, every werewolf looks different. I reach up to touch Nathan’s muzzle, and his lip pulls back to bare his teeth in warning.I’m not worried he’s going to bite me or eat me. I’m more worried that he won’t make it to the ritual
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 22
Two days after my first transformation, I’m still ravenous. At first, I was exhausted. I didn’t mourn the fact that my mating ceremony blowout didn’t happen; I would have slept through it, anyway. I spent twenty-four hours sleeping, waking up only to pee and scarf down whatever the thralls left in my bedroom, despite its temperature. When one’s body has completely transformed into a different creature and back again, even rubbery, cold eggs are tasty.“Maybe I got a parasite from that rabbit,” I muse aloud. I finally woke up enough to come down to breakfast with my mate, who watches with amusement as I demolish plate after plate of pancakes, ham, bacon, fried potatoes, and more apple juice than my body should be capable of holding.“A parasite wouldn’t affect you like this so soon.” He chuckles to himself. “From the rabbit or me.”It takes me a minute—and another spoonful of oatmeal—to get what he’s talking about. “I wouldn’t refer to a baby as a parasite. But maybe we should have ex
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 23
When I was a little girl, I sometimes wondered what life was like for Cinderella after she married the prince and her vicious stepmother was punished. The story ended after all the exciting parts; did that mean nothing ever happened to her again? It’s starting to feel like that was the case.Aconitum Hall has no shortage of diversions. Televisions in nearly every room, a glorious, multi-room pool in the basement, a library with more books than we had at the academy, and of course, internet access.Werewolves are feudal, but not completely stone aged.There are only so many episodes of syndicated television I can watch, though, and only so many social media sites I can scroll to before I’m insanely bored in a too-quiet house. I call Hannah, and she answers on the first ring.“Is everything okay? You never call me,” she says in lieu of hello.“Sorry, I know.” I can instead say no over the number of times Hannah and I have spoken on the phone since I returned. “I didn’t mean to alarm you
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Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 66
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 let 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 Owen 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.”Owen comes to my side and puts his hand on my arm. “Ella… 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 doesn’t get angry a
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 65
Do the thralls want to exterminate werewolves? “That doesn’t make any sense. They need us—”“Needed us,” Tara stresses in the past tense. “They have all the arcane knowledge they need now, except for one thing.”“Dominion over life and death.” Owen stands and paces the length of the room.The earlier sense of proactive hope sucks from the room.“They 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?” Owen suggests. “Rebuilding anew on top of that destruction?”“Are the thralls acting out Ragnarök, then?
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 64
Two days later, we had a secret meeting in the conference room at Aconitum Hall. Just Owen, me, Hannah, Ryan, and of course, Xiao, who stands by, guarding the door.Hannah has us all set up, with whiteboards and different colored markers— “to stay organized!”—as well as notebooks, pens, highlighters, and all types of stuff we don’t need.“You just wanted to take a trip to the office supply store,” I accused her.“I can neither confirm nor deny,” she answers, contentedly stroking a pack of gel pens.“While the abundance of stationary is impressive,” Owen begins, “Let’s start with what we know so far.”The whiteboard reads and writes “weeks” 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, Nono offense, Your Majesty.”“He doesn’t get to take offense here,” I remind Ryan. “Remember, this is informal.”“Well, who has better handwriting?” Owen demands, an
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 63
Somehow, in all the ugliness of pack politics and multiple attempts on my life, I forgot about prenatal 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 Owen and I decided that we couldn’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 Owen, 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 nervously. “H
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 62
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 newlyweds?”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 sen
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 61
We summoned council members to Aconitum Hall. The Council Chambers are at the ceremonial site, and the ceremonial site is where all the thralls are.It astonishes me that for centuries, no one—except Owen’s uncle, apparently—had cause to suspect the thralls as a source of potential treachery. It astonishes me more that now, with proof, convincing some members of the council is still nearly impossible.“We’ve overlooked a major threat,” I try to explain to the ten men seated around the large table in the conference room. There are only ten of them because we executed the others, which makes addressing this group that much more tricky. I don’t want them to think that they have to outwardly agree with me or I’ll cut their heads off, but that’s probably what’s going to happen. “Thralls are a part of our lives every day. They’re in our homes. They’re in our school, our businesses. And they’re content to do all of that and allow us to live in luxury and ease because they can harness our m
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 60
“Black moonstone.”Xiao drops the pendant, now enclosed in a plastic baggie, onto the table between Owen and me.He leans forward in his chair and reaches for the baggie, but I’m not taking any chances. I smack his hand away with an annoyed, “Don’t touch it!”I’m still shaking, Even though we’re on the plane and safely away from Wyrding House, I’m still terrified that yet another shoe is going to suddenly drop.I made Xiao threaten the thrall pilots and leave a member of her trusted team in the cockpit as a reminder.I am not going to die today.Xiao gestures to the unremarkable-looking cabochon in the pendant. “The assassin who took your hand had some in a bracelet. I think it’s fair to assume that this is what they’re using to change.”I shake my head. “Moonstone is a pretty common gem, isn’t it? I’ve never heard of it… this.”“Maybe that’s why we never heard of it,” Owen muses. “If we knew, perhaps we wouldn’t need the thralls and their rituals.”“There’s thrall magic involved here
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 59
We haven’t been at Wyrding House long enough to completely unpack; Harriet offers to help but I don’t like people going through my stuff. Plus, Owen and I barely bought anything with us in the first place.“I feel bad for Xiao,” I say, taking one of my shirts from the wardrobe and folding it over my arm. It ends up in a sloppy bundle, but it gets the job done enough that I can stuff it into my bag. “She just got here and now we’re turning right back around.”“I’m sure she prefers having you in a more secure location,” is all Owen says, moving far faster than I am.“Do you think they’re going to be breaking down the door any second?” I ask, trying to keep my tone light.“I think the longer we stay here, the more likely that becomes a possibility.” He zips his small, wheeled carry-on. “We have a pissed-off magician who could sell us out to the highest bidder and a house teeming with traitorous thralls.”“Only the below-stairs servants,” I say, mimicking Harriet’s pompous delivery.He
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 58
se are rough estimates.” Jonah looks between us. “Anything substantial happened to the two of you thirty and six years ago.”My stomach flips over.Five years ago, I invoked the Right of Accord and left my pack.Twenty-five-ish years before that, Owen had done the same thing.I expect to see those facts register on his face, but they don’t. My thoughts are such a jumble, that the only way I can express what’s going through my mind is to whisper, “The Right of Accord.”He blanches.Intrigued by the change in tone, Jonah sits up, giving us an interesting incline of his head. “All right, you two. Spill the beans.”Owen casts a questioning glance at me, but I can only shrug. I have no idea what the rules are about disclosing this information to a human magician. I wouldn’t tell a random human on the street about it, but he knows about werewolves already. Not telling him won’t keep our existence a secret.Owen comes to the same conclusion. “The Right of Accord is a rarely invoked law among
