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Chapter 21
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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
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 24
Good morning, Your Majesty.” Hannah glides into my sitting room with baby Jo on her hip. They’re wearing matching pantsuits, compliments of Hannah’s new boss.I spent thousands of dollars on them.“Good morning, gal Friday,” I giggle back. “Wait, is that what gal Friday means? My dad always used that phrase, but he’s like, a hundred and thirty.”“Yeah, my dad is cool, so... I wouldn’t know.” Hannah sits Jo in the playpen I bought to keep in the residence, with the toys I bought to go with it. “What are you going to spend your husband’s money on today?”“I don’t know. How does one buy international real estate?” I tap my lips. I don’t want a vacation home in Negril, but maybe somewhere less sunny. “I’m sure Owen would love a cozy little cottage in Siberia. That’s a place, right?”“As your secretary, I must advise you to hire a tutor.” Hannah sighs. “And as your friend, who wants to keep her new, very high-paying job, I must advise you to not piss your mate off too much.”“I don’t think
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 25
Stop!”My shout alarms Owen, but he does, at least, stop taking his clothes off.“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demand.“It’s the twenty-third.” He gives me a moment to realize my error, which I don’t, and then goes on, “My secretary said—”“Who the fuck was that?” I jab my index finger toward the window, but Owen’s gaze falls on the playpen and he looks over his shoulder, in the direction Hannah has just gone.“I assumed she was someone you knew—”“Not Hannah!” I press my fingers into my temples. “The woman you were kissing outside!”He doesn’t react the way a man who’s been caught cheating on his wife should react. That is, with any remorse at all. He blinks. “You saw that?”“Yes, I saw!” I pace furiously in front of the fireplace. I wish he gave me a wedding ring, so I could throw it into the flames. “Who is she?”“Amber Rogers.” He doesn’t try to deny it at all.“The former queen?” I hate the way my voice accelerates upward with my anger.“The deposed queen, yes.” Ow
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 26
Owen doesn’t see me at breakfast. He doesn’t see me for another whole week. I thought for sure that his panic about needing an heir would drive him to my bed before my fertility window closed, but he’s as stubborn as I am.We’ll be a hundred before we have any kids.Meanwhile, I’ve started to doubt my course of action. Though Aconitum Hall is a castle, it’s way too small when one is aware of one’s mate on a microscopic, metaphysical level. Owen is never far from my thoughts; our connection becomes more and more insistent the longer we stay near but apart, and I’m not the only one feeling it. I can smell his arousal every night as I lie in my bed, and I know he’s doing the same thing I’m doing with my hand beneath the covers. Worse, he knows I’m doing it, and somehow that makes it even hotter.I hate that I think about my cheating husband as hot.“Hey, are you with us?” Hannah asks one afternoon, snapping her fingers in my face.I swat her hand away. “Yes, sorry. I got distracted. It
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 27
That night, I waited until the residence was mostly silent, and I set off to find Owen.I have no idea where his bedroom is. I’ve never been there. Whenever I’ve asked anybody, they’ve lived evasive about it. But I was wrong about Hannah not being able to help me in this; she finds out in about three minutes, just by playing ditzy to a guard.I study her scrawled map and tuck it into a drawer with a deep breath before I leave my sitting room. Now that I know Owen has a bit on the side, I’m not sure what I’ll find when I arrive at his room. What if I barge in there and he’s mid-coitus with his mistress?Ugh, what if that’s what I’ve been feeling every night when it seems like his sexual energy is going to reach out grab me,e and pull me straight into his bed?The door to Owen’s tower is hidden. No joke, it’s a hidden panel in the wall of his study, and I have to admit, it’s pretty thrilling to pull a candle bra on the wall and see a huge bookcase swing open to disclose a spiral stairca
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 28
For a man who assured me he won’t be manipulated with sex, Owen sure works fast. My sisters arrived from Newfoundland the morning before my coronation, less than twenty-four hours after Owen and I made our deal.Hannah pulls me away from a fitting for my coronation gown to head down to the empty throne room. There’s already a secondary throne on the dais for me. Even though I’m not queen yet, I take it anyway.The majordomo is there, and he waits for Hannah to signal him before the guards open the doors and he announces, “Tara and Clare, formerly of the Toronto pack.”The “formerly” part of the sentence has to sting. So does, I imagine, the part where their last names have been stripped from them. Even from across the throne room, I see Tara flinch. But Clare holds her head up regally as they approach, and they both curtsey when they reach the dais, but I jump up and nearly tackle them.“I’m so glad you’re okay!” I don’t care that tears roll down my face while I hug them.Clare steps
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 29
I enter Owen’s study a few minutes before nine. I don’t want to be late to close our transaction. It might affect future negotiations. The secret door is open. The staircase winds up into the darkness. I take a deep breath on the first step. Owen another. The closer I get, the stronger our connection becomes. I hold my breath as I climb, and by the time I reach the top, I’m lightheaded. I would be anyway.Owen stands in front of the fire in the white shirt and black trousers he was wearing during the day, but I notice that this time, he’s not drinking anything.It strikes me as odd because he’s almost always drinking some kind of alcohol. Its absence alerts me to its near-constant presence, and for a moment, I'm concerned about using the constant witness of his position.Well, he could make things at home a lot less stressful if he stopped being a cheating asshole who can only get his wife to fuck him as payment for favors.He glances down at his watch before he takes it off. “Right
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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
