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Chapter 62
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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 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 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 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 1
If there’s anyone I can question relentlessly about the political nightmare of the past five years, it’s my best friends. Hannah, Ryan, and I have been a matching set of three since kindergarten. We still are, even though Ryan and Hannah are mated now.Despite having been apart for so long, going to their house is like all of us getting together after school. Sure, there was full immaturity squeezing over each other when I arrived, but we quickly fell into our old ways, like I didn’t break contact with them for five years.Except for the “my best friends are in a mating bond” thing. “How did that happen, anyway?”“It was him, or marriage to Dave Byron,” Hannah says with a gagging noise.I echo her disgust with, “Gross.”“Be nice,” Ryan admonishes her. “It’s not his fault his parents never told him no and gave him every damn thing he wanted.”Hannah ignores him. “Ever look at someone and just know, deep in your soul, that they were an ugly baby? That’s Dave Byron.”We’re clustered aro
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 2
Tara and Clare recommend that we meet together for lunch since the ball didn't provide us much of an opportunity to converse.at an eatery for people.I endured salads and the main course, and right now, while I sip my drink, I'm trying not to ask my own sisters whether their husbands are aware of where they are."And that's what they were discussing at the Ella," said the speaker. Clare snaps, gesturing with her palm toward my face.“Sorry. It's too many mimosas. That is false. I've had two of those, and I'm not even drunk. I make an effort to pay attention to what she says. She said something about remodeling her master bathroom. You said before that they couldn't knock down a wall."Are you alright?" Tara questions me sincerely.Do I tell them that after the ball, my head is all over the place? Because I'm unsure of my place in the pack? Because if my closest friends don't trust me after that, my sisters may not either. Their spouses also don't appear to be great supporters of the
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 3
Mother is waiting for me the moment I step through the door. “Ashton is here,” she hisses, reaching to fuss with my hair. I dodge her and she clucks in frustration. “What were you thinking, running around the lawn like a stray dog?”“I was thinking how nice it is to be home.” I blink innocently at her.Her eyes narrow. “Is this all a game to you?” Before I can answer, she goes on. “After the stunt you pulled, leaving the pack and now whatever that display was at the ball, it’s a miracle that anyone will still associate with us.”“Why wouldn’t they—”“Because they’re afraid that what you did will spread!” Mother snaps, loud enough to be overheard, so she immediately lowers her voice again. “You were the first werewolf in a hundred years to reject the transformation and invoke the Right of Accord. Everyone was terrified that you’d opened the floodgates. People wouldn’t speak to us because they were afraid of losing their young, too!”It never occurred to me that by invoking the Right,
Captured by the Alpha King Chapter 4
The full moon is a holy time for werewolves. Much in the way humans might dress nicely and congregate at a house of worship, a werewolf pack gathers for their own ceremonies together. For the Toronto pack, the place we gather is about an hour and a half northwest of Toronto. Long before Canada was New France, back in the days when our ancestors fled northern Europe in longboats, a pack inhabited a small village in the area, on what is now two-hundred acres of unspoiled land we can safely roam as the creatures we become every full moon.The transformation ceremony takes place in the ancient circle of standing stones built over five centuries before Columbus could erroneously claim the first European steps onto the North American continent. The three stones bear tributes to the gods of our pack: Fenrir, the wolf who will devour Odin at Ragnarök, Lycaon, the cruel king punished by Zeus, and Lupa, she-wolf mother of Romulus and Remus. Once, the circle stood in a forest clearing. Now, i
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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
