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หน้าหลัก / Werewolf / Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Crown / Chapter 2

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Chapter 2

ผู้เขียน: Elin
Silence. Two seconds.

Then Lydia's voice trickled through the mind link, sweet as poison. "Casbian, look."

"That lace neckline—don't you think it's prettier than the last one?"

And Casbian's voice, so soft I barely knew it. "They're all beautiful."

"You could wear a sackcloth and still be beautiful, my Luna."

My Luna.

He never called me that.

I was his mate. But those two words—that title—he handed it to a woman who had no bond with him at all.

I screamed through the link. "Casbian! I'm begging you!"

"Shut your mouth."

"Still using your sister for sympathy?"

"Is there no end to your shamelessness?"

"An Alpha's mate squatting in the Grey Zone, weeping and begging. How do you think it makes us look?"

I pleaded. "Casbian, Maya is bleeding. It's real."

"Enough, Ivy."

His voice came back colder than a winter wind. "Today is Lydia's dress fitting. As future Luna, every moment of her time matters more than whatever drama you're inventing. Get a hold of yourself."

The link severed from his side.

The backlash slammed into me. A white-hot detonation inside my skull. I clutched my head and crumpled. My ears rang so loud the world went mute.

By the time I dragged myself upright, Maya had stopped seizing.

Her hands were cold.

She was looking at me.

With trembling, failing fingers, she reached inside her shirt and pulled out a whistle—old, carved from bone. She pressed it into my palm.

Her lips moved. No sound.

Just a shape.

"Run."

Her hand dropped.

I held her stiffening body.

I couldn't cry. Not because I didn't want to.

The moment the bond snapped shut, something inside me snapped with it. My tears went with it.

Outside, the pack loudspeakers were looping Lydia's voice, recorded and polished: "Join us next week as I take my place beside Alpha Casbian—as your Luna."

That was supposed to be mine.

But I didn't even have the right to fight for it. To fight, you had to be acknowledged first.

And I wasn't even allowed to exist.

I don't know how long I sat there.

The door scraped open. A blade of cold air sliced in.

I squinted into the wind.

A figure stood in the doorway, tall, draped in a tattered cloak.

Every nerve in my body pulled taut. I lurched to my feet, shielding Maya's body.

"Who are you?"

He didn't answer. He looked at her body, then at me. Then he stepped to the corner, picked up the shovel leaning against the wall, and lifted Maya onto his shoulder. He carried her outside.

I think I understood.

Behind the mountain, in ground frozen hard as iron, he dug. He filled the hole with earth and set a wooden plank as a marker.

"Why are you helping me?"

"Six months ago. The alley behind the market. You saved my life."

He turned and dissolved into the dark.

I stood alone by the fresh grave, gripping the bone whistle Maya had left me. Its edge, carved sharp, had already cut into my palm.

That's when I felt it.

A flutter. Tiny. Deep beneath my belly.

Something stirred in my blood, faint and secret, pressing gently against the inside of my skin.

I pressed my dirt-crusted hand to my stomach.

Two heartbeats.

Faint. Steady.

I was pregnant.

With his pups. My Alpha's children.
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  • Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Crown   Chapter 10

    Six months later. Sunday morning. Millbrook.Old brick hospital. Ivy on the east wall. Window facing the sunrise. First contraction while the sky was dark. Second when the horizon bled gold.Four hours. Kael spent them in the hallway. Never sat down. Nurses took bets on his mileage.The first cry. He stopped.Two cries. A boy and a girl.The boy—dark hair, ice-blue eyes. The blue wasn't cold. Winter sky before snow. His father's coloring. Not his father's shadow.The girl—silver-gold wisps, dark amber eyes. Smaller. Louder. Fierce.I held one in each arm and thought of my mother."Leo. My father's middle name. Eleanor. After my mother."Kael came in. Unshaven. Hair a mess. Coffee stain on his collar. He looked at the twins and the mask was gone. Completely."They're beautiful."He held out a finger. Eleanor grabbed it and didn't let go."News from the north," he said. "Marcus was found guilty. The Northern Trade Guild has been dismantled. The council issued a formal apology to House Ev

  • Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Crown   Chapter 9

    Three days later—after Kael had slept for nearly twenty hours and woken hungry enough to eat an entire deer—the Blood Moon council convened.I stood in the great hall of the Blood Moon Kingdom for the first time. Kael stood beside me. Elara flanked my other side. Before us, on the raised dais, the council of elders sat in judgment.They brought Casbian in last.He looked broken. The recall had stripped more than his Alpha power—it had hollowed him out. His ice-blue eyes were dull. His shoulders slumped. The chains on his wrists were silver."Casbian of the Thornwood Pack." The head elder's voice rang through the hall. "You stand accused of binding a human woman to a mate bond against the laws of the Goddess. Of conspiring with Marcus of the Northern Trade Guild to instigate war between humans and wolves. Of leading an unprovoked assault on the human border. How do you answer these charges?"Casbian looked up. Not at the elder.At me."I did it." His voice was hoarse. "All of it. I boun

  • Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Crown   Chapter 8

    Elara sprawled on the dust-sheeted sofa. "Casbian's moving. Three packs. Blackpine, Greyscar, Stonehold. He's marching on the human border at dawn.""He's still following Marcus's plan," Kael said. "Even with Marcus in chains, the wheels are turning.""Then we stop the wheels." I stood. "The Blood Oath. We activate it at the border. Cut off the Alphas. The packs scatter."Elara looked at me. Then at Kael. "She's terrifying. I like her."The old altar on the ridge was a flat slab of stone, worn smooth by centuries of wind. The Everden crest carved at its center. I set the tablet down. The moment basalt touched stone, the wind died.I knelt. Drew the Moonbreaker. Pressed the tip to my fingertip."The blood of Everden isn't the palm. The palm is a vow. The fingertip is the bloodline."A single drop fell.The world went silent.Then red light erupted skyward. It drove into the clouds and spread—blood in water, rippling outward.On the opposite ridge, the wolf torches began to waver.The St

  • Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Crown   Chapter 7

    The human world hit me all at once.We crossed the border ward at dusk. The air changed—no more pine resin and cold earth. Gasoline. Fresh bread. Cheap perfume. Cobblestone streets and buildings jammed tight, grey-white and hard. Yellow light in the windows—steady, not flickering like oil lamps.I pulled my cloak tighter. "Where's the manor?""Old Quarter. This way."The streets narrowed. Cobblestones pitted. Facades peeling. Streetlamps sparse. But the air had an older quiet, like the stones remembered."Here."An iron gate. Rusted nearly through. Above it, a stone plaque with a faded crest. Crescent moon. Two crossed keys.I pressed my palm to the stone. The ring's gem flared once. The gate groaned open.Kael looked at me. "It knows you."The manor hadn't been lived in for a long time. Vast hall. Ceiling vanishing into shadow. Furniture under white sheets. Air of dust and old paper—not decay. Sleep.I pushed through corridors until I found the office. A family tree covered the wall,

  • Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Crown   Chapter 6

    We traveled through the night and into the next day. By the time we stopped to rest, the sun had set again.Kael draped his cloak over my shoulders and sat at the cave mouth, back to me, watching the east darken. I held the ring all night. The dark stone had warmed to my skin.My neck still stung where the blade had cut. But sharper than the sting was the memory of Casbian's face. That crack in the ice. That tremor in his voice when he said my name.*Ivy.*Three years of silence. Three years of *you little waste* and *shut your mouth*. And the moment I pressed a blade to my throat, suddenly I had a name.Too late. Far too late."You said my parents were hunted. Who?"Kael didn't turn around. The embers painted his profile in red."House Everden carried something in its blood. One woman in every generation could bear the soul-force of both humans and wolves without breaking. That's why the treaty held. Not paper. Blood."He paused. "That bloodline—joined with an Alpha—produces an heir u

  • Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Crown   Chapter 5

    I didn't know how long I'd been out.When I opened my eyes, there was only rough rock overhead. The smell of a fire. Something herbal and bitter. My wrists—where the silver chain had burned me—had been wrapped in clean cloth.I tried to push myself up. A hand pressed gently against my shoulder."Don't move."The cloaked wolf sat by the fire, hood down. The flames lit his face—young, younger than I'd expected. Deep brow. Dark gold eyes, like frozen amber."You're human."Flat. Just stating a fact."You have no wolf spirit—not because it sleeps. Because you never had one. You're human. Born that way."I stared at him."That dagger only severs human blood-oaths. If you were a wolf, the Moon Goddess's bond wouldn't have broken to old iron. It would've snapped back. But it didn't."He laid the dagger on the ground between us. My blood still stained the blade, dried brown."What you cut was the part of the bond forced onto your human side."I wrapped my arms around my knees. The fire pressed

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