Captured by the Alpha King のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

My sister is dead.I take a sip from my mug and gaze across the kitchen.It’s after midnight. The last of the thralls that work down here have left for the night. No one is around.No one except Xiao, stands patiently by the door while I sitter my mug of tea in silence.I’m sure she prefers the silence to the crying I sometimes do.It’s been a week since the full moon. Since I killed my sister.The most difficult part of grieving Clare is the proficiency that she knew someone would kill her. She was willing to sacrifice my life for her mate’s ambition. Or his revenge.Would she have grieved me? Would she have felt this same guilt?Xiao says something that, but it’s into the communication device on her wrist.She keeps her voice low, and I can’t hear what’s going on. It could be that Owen is looking for me; he’s been bossy and clingy since finding out about my pregnancy.Of course, when I wanted him to give a damn about me, he was foreign. Now, when all I need is space, he’s constantly

“It’s about breeding.”I blink in horror at the Hierophant’s words. The last thing I want a room of strangers thinking about is that. On the other hand, at least two people in the room saw it in progress at our mating ritual.My face gets hot.We’re in the council chamber, but thankfully, there’s no audience and only two members of the council. They’re both tall, dignified-looking gentlemen with transparent white hair and liver-spot Caucasian skin. The Skin, a subcommittee that handles thrall-werewolf relations, a thing I didn’t realize existed. I just inferred we all got along like one big, happy symbiote.The hierophant being here is surreal. I’ve never met him one-on-one, even now that I’m queen, and I’ve never seen him washing away just regular clothes and not his ceremonial garb. He wears glasses, too, with thick, red rims. They add an extra, wholly superfluous, air of authority to him.“Pardon me?” Owen asks, leaning slightly forward. We’re all seated around a large, round tab

It’s surreal to be back in London. Though I’ve only been gone a few months, it seems like a foreign place to me, despite having been my home for five years.Of course, the area we’re in isn’t exactly where I used to hang out. I hadn’t exactly been working with 18th-century-palace money.“Is it this abandoned down here all the time?” I ask as we turn down a practically empty street.Owen looks up from his phone, which has been pinging like crazy ever since we landed. “Hmm?”“The area… seems kinda… dead.” This is fitting because the buildings we pass look like mausoleums.“I’m not sure. I’ve never been to the royal residence. I know it’s fairly close to the human royal home, though,” he says. “Where did you stay while you were here?”“Not anywhere you’d be familiar with.” I leave it at that because we pull up to the curb of a not-super-impressive-looking house. It’s a bit dingy, compared to the other facades on the street, but it’s nearly four times as wide as the townhouses around it.

Our arrival in London hasn’t gone unnoticed. I’m barely done with my oatmeal before my day is planned out for me. The largest chunk of my time today will be taken up by a royal audience to receive members of the pack and introduce them to their new queen.I don’t have Hannah or Tara with me. Technically, Hannah’s job isn’t to be my stylist, but she does help me pick things out. And Tara understands all the flaws I’m self-conscious about because they were put there by our mother. She’s never going to let me go out in something that makes my hips look big or my neck looks short.Instead, I have a thrall who comes and tuts and frowns and tilts her head this way and that before eventually giving up, I guess, and putting me in a mauve silk gown with an empire waist and a gauzy split overlay skirt. She gives me white elbow-length gloves that I have to politely explain will look goofy as heck on someone with no hand. In the end, she works a little magic with a curling iron so my hair falls

Jonah takes us to a back office that leads to another back office that opens up to a storage room with a very scary catwalk staircase up to the moment floor. I’m pretty sure we’re about to be killed when Jonah ushers us up it and through a beaded curtain, into a room lit up with black light.The floor is painted black, with sigils and symbols in glowing phosphorescent colors. There are bean bag chairs scattered around the perimeter of the room and an impressively tall hookah in one corner. Shelves hold jars of herbs and dirt and murky liquids I want nothing to do with.“So, where do we…” I look around. The bean bags are one disgusting option, judging from the very unflattering smears and spatter the black lights are revealing.Jonah’s teeth glow comically blue in the light. “Hey, that’s up to you. Just not on the worktable.”He’s talking about the huge workbench tucked into an L-shaped corner. He opens a laptop and types something in.“No spell books? Dusty scrolls?” Owen quips.“Magi