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Closer to the Crown

Author: Vexa Moon
last update Last Updated: 2025-10-01 18:06:23

Ardon

I should be thinking about the ridge, the grain allotments, and the bridge that keeps asking for coins, but the image that won’t leave is a kitchen maid pulling a child out of reach and setting her behind cover before my guards finished the work. Every time I set my pen down, Esme’s balance and the clean line of her weight return uninvited. Korrath paces under my ribs each time her name threads my thoughts and he doesn’t quiet when I tell him to.

By the second bell I’ve cleared the steward’s stack and sent Thalos a route he can press without overreaching while Varick will have to wait for the signatures that warm his winter. I take the north passage to the council wing because the morning session won’t manage itself, and because I want the corridor that touches the kitchens whether I admit it aloud or not.

Darian meets me at the turning with a brief report. “Bound rogues gave us three names, two lies, and one path through the marsh that isn’t worth our time. No new burn inside t
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  • Mated to the Alpha King    The blade or the cup (Part two)

    Esme A runner from House Merren appears and thanks Marek at the door with a nod. The child from the rogue attack stands behind her mother on the far side of the hall, too serious for her years. Her gaze catches mine and stays and she lifts her hand in a quick movement and drops it. I can’t lift mine. It feels stuck to the tray.King Ardon’s voice cuts through the noise with a single word to the herald. The staff strikes once for attention. The petition that began in the afternoon must be finished in a smaller circle. He rises and the court adjusts. He doesn’t look at me as he steps down. He doesn’t need to. I feel the attention he keeps even without his eyes on my face.Darian peels off to answer a guard with a ledger and Nixton threads along the wall, testing the gaps in bodies for threats. Lady Selene turns with a smile that shows courtesy and something edged underneath. She glances my way once more, the look holds the promise that she will move pieces I can’t see.“Esme.” Marek’s

  • Mated to the Alpha King    The blade or the cup (Part one)

    EsmeMarek’s orders carry me from the scullery to the sideboard without pause the next day. Cloths stacked, goblets lined in rows and pitchers tilted to test the pour. I wipe each rim and set each cup with the base straight to the table’s grain. My hands know this work but they won’t stop shaking.The dagger rests against my thigh under the skirt, leather sheath tied to the garter at mid-leg. I adjusted the knot twice before coming in. The steel sits where my fingers can find it through the fabric. I keep counting the steps from here to the dais in case numbers can steady me.The vial rides in the pocket of my apron. Glass against skin. The liquid inside moves when I breathe. It warmed under my palm on the walk from the kitchen and left a faint bitter scent on my fingers that soap did not clear. I rub my thumb to my forefinger and the trace returns. Father’s last line runs through me without effort. Kill him, or she screams your name.“Esme,” Marek says, standing at my shoulder. “Oute

  • Mated to the Alpha King    The hallway

    ArdonThe corridor runs straight from the councilwing toward the service doors. Stone underfoot, torch brackets at steadyintervals, the carved screen that marks where the light shifts. I walk it atodd hours because the city’s work can wait and the house’s quiet is easier tohear. Tonight I move with the kind of slowness that keeps muscles ready butdoes not announce it. It’s been a long day. Especially when Darian came backjust after the kitchen’s evening rush to tell me about Lady Selene’s latestscheme to get Esme into trouble. Her scent is the first thing out of place.Soap and rosemary sit at the edge of it, the result of stair-side work. Underthat is a sharper note I don’t like, bitter, close and aged against skin. Itthreads into the air and tells me someone was here and carried something theyshouldn’t have. I follow it with my head before I see her.She is small in the space, only a stepinside the band where torchlight pools. Storm-grey eyes catch mine. They widenin a way that almos

  • Mated to the Alpha King    The threat

    Esme The pillow isn’t smooth after I return from a privy visit. Something flat and stiff sits under the seam near the center. I slide my hand in and find paper. My fingers know the texture even before I see the ink. I draw it out a little at a time so it won’t rasp against the fabric and disturb anyone else.His handwriting crosses the page in hard, even strokes.Kill him, or I’ll carve the truth into her flesh until she screams your name.My throat tightens. The air moves in and stops halfway as I press the paper to my knees to steady my hands and read the line again because I don’t want to believe I saw it right the first time. The letters don’t change and the bottom edge cuts my skin where my grip is too hard. I let go before I tear it, then grip again because my fingers won’t be still.Mother’s face rises in my mind without effort, the basement floor, cold and damp. Her cheek, swollen and mottled, her mouth trying to smile for me when I was small and trying again last spring when

  • Mated to the Alpha King    In the halls

    EsmeNight strips the palace down to stone, light, and the sound of work that never stops. Torches burn in steady intervals. The floor holds the day’s warmth in some stretches and gives up cold in others. I step where the boards won’t complain and keep to the band of flooring that hasn’t been polished thin by traffic. My lungs pull air in slow even draws. The rhythm keeps my hands steady.I count the turns between the kitchens and the north foyer. I place the watch points that matter; the carved screen, the herb yard threshold, the stair above laundry where the guard on rotation tends to shift his weight at the same place every round. I’m here to build a clean path, the kind father wants. The letter under my mattress might as well be inside my ribs.I pass the scullery door. The troughs sit quiet under the faint smell of soap. A bucket ticks as the last drops find the bottom. Someone left a cloth folded in a neat square on the edge but I keep moving.At the corner before the council w

  • Mated to the Alpha King    The festival

    SeleneMusic swells from the gallery and rolls through the ballroom in clean layers. Chandeliers burn bright as gold on the walls answers with a hard shine. Women step in silk and jewels while men shift through ranks and titles with faces trained for court. The steward placed me at Ardon’s right and I hold that ground in sapphire that turns heads without effort. He looks over the room once, then lets his gaze move where he wants it. It doesn’t stop on me.It finds the servant girl at the edge of the floor.Plain linen, sleeves rolled and the tray held flat against her body. She stands at the entry to the refreshment line, waiting for an opening between a minor lord and his son. She has learned how to belong to the background and somehow draw attention anyway. It puts heat under my ribs.I keep my smile set to the angle that photographs itself on other people’s eyes. “Majesty,” I say, low, for him alone. “The court is pleased to see the city in light again.”“The city pleases itself,”

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