All Chapters of Mated to the Alpha King : Chapter 31 - Chapter 38

ArdonThe report sits on my desk like a folded thing that won’t lie. The wax is stamped with the guard captain’s signet and the words inside are clumsy, defensive even. They name times wrong and pin the wrong steps to the wrong people. I read it twice, then once more for habit, looking for the tremor in the ink that tells me who leaned on the pen.Someone wrote it for them, of that I’m sure. I stand and fold the paper along its crease until the fibers complain. The hearth throws a small orange across the floor and I drop the note into the brazier and watch it blacken. The heat eats the paper, the curl of smoke moves up the chimney and leaves the room cleaner for a moment.'They lie,' Korrath says. 'The scent of a hand not your own.''I know,' I answer. 'Find the path. Circle the exits.'I grab my cloak. Darian is already in the corridor, waiting with his hand braced on the stair rail. He doesn’t ask why I move, he only falls into step beside me and his boots are soft on the stone. We

ArdonSmall orders reveal more than grand ones, so I start there.“Deliver this ledger to Maelis,” I tell Esme at first bell the next day, handing her a slim book with the new patrol rosters. “Use the eastern stairs. Do not speak to anyone on the landing.”She answers with one word. “Yes.” I watch the clock on the mantel and the corridor beyond my door. Seven minutes later, she returns, the ledger is gone and a strip of parchment rests in her palm.“Maelis asked for your mark on the addendum,” she says. “She didn’t argue the route. She argued about the timing.”“She would.” I cut my initials where Maelis likes them. “Return it.” She goes and comes back again without excess steps and without the scent of panic that clings to people who run without plan. She breathes steadily when Darian tries to stop her at the landing with a routine check, she says, “The King sent me. I have to make his time,” and waits until he lets her pass. He does and he tells me she held his stare without shaki

Esme The court changes shape around me. It isn’t sudden, it’s slow, like heat rising from ovens, silent until you notice the sweat on your skin. Faces I don’t know begin turning when I enter a room, a servant that shouldn’t draw attention. A kitchen gir thatl shouldn’t have a name carried ahead of her like a rumor.But they know it now. Esme. No one says it aloud. They don’t have to because it hangs in the air between glances and the turn of shoulders.I carry the morning tray into the council corridor. The dishes rattle against the silver plates, the scent of roasted meat mixes with strong tea and the hall smells of wax, stone, and perfume. Two maids pass and slow just enough to look at me, their eyes flick over my uniform, over the tray, over the space behind me, as if they expect someone to follow.Marla appears at my elbow. She has flour under her nails and a curl stuck to her cheek. She bumps my hip lightly.“Careful,” she mutters. “You’re making the peacocks restless.”“Peacock

Esme P.O.V.Selene stops me just short of the dais, close enough that her perfume reaches me before her words do, light and floral and expensive in a way the kitchens never smell. She holds a ribbon between two fingers, pale silk looped once, the ends hanging loose, her posture relaxed as if this is casual and not exactly what she planned.“For neatness,” she says, her voice smooth, warm, pitched to carry without sounding like it’s meant to.The space around us tightens. I feel it before I hear it, the subtle shift of attention, the way conversations slow and then thin out, leaving a pocket of silence where every sound suddenly matters. Marek’s rule sits heavy in my mind, clear as it has always been, no gifts, no adornments, no exceptions, not even from the court. Especially not from the court.My hands stay at my sides. I don’t reach for the ribbon but I don’t step back either. My fingers curl once and then still, nails pressing lightly into my palm, grounding me in the feel of my ow