บททั้งหมดของ The Alpha’s Double Game : บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

They dressed me like a symbol.Layers of dark fabric. No crown. No jewels. Just the mark on my neck, still faint, still debated. I could feel it burning under my skin as I walked.The hall was full when I entered. Every eye turned.No cheers. No bows.Just watching.I felt it then—the truth Derek hadn’t said out loud.They weren’t here to welcome a Queen.They were here to decide if I deserved to breathe among them.Derek walked beside me. Close enough that his presence pressed against my side. Far enough that no one could mistake it for comfort. His face was unreadable. King first. Mate second.Jax wasn’t there.The absence hit harder than I expected. It left my wolf unsettled, pacing under my skin like it had lost its shadow.We stopped at the front.Derek turned to the pack. “This is Raya Montenegro,” he said. “Your Queen.”Silence answered him.Then someone laughed. I followed the sound.Three women stepped forward from the crowd. All strong. All older than me. Their wolves pushed

Jax came for me after midnight.Not with guards. Not with ceremony. Just a knock, light and deliberate, the kind meant for someone who was already awake.I was.I opened the door without speaking. He looked past me down the corridor before stepping inside, his movements quiet, practiced. He wore dark clothes, nothing formal, nothing that marked him as royal.“Put on boots,” he said. “And don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”I didn’t ask questions. Something in his voice told me not to.We left the main estate through a side passage I hadn’t known existed. The air outside was cold and damp, the sky heavy with clouds that blocked the moon. Jax led the way into the trees without slowing, like this path belonged to him.“How far?” I asked.“Far enough that no one hears you fall,” he replied.That should have scared me. But It didn’t.When we stopped, the forest was thick around us. No torches. No light except the moonlight that filtered through the branches. Jax turned to face me.“You

The pack will not break all at once.It will slowly start to crack,quietly, the way ice does when winter is ending and no one notices until it finally makes the cracking sound.I started to feel it in the silences.Conversations stopped when I walked into a hall. Laughter lowered. Eyes slid away from mine, then back again, measuring. Some bowed too quickly, too stiffly. Others did not bow at all, choosing instead to acknowledge Derek first, as if I were only standing beside him by mistake.Authority, I was learning, was not just given. It was tested every day.Derek spent most of his time in council chambers now. Meetings ran long. Voices carried through the stone walls late into the night. Politics, alliances, borders, threats from other packs. All the things a King was meant to handle.All the things that left no space for me.When he came to our rooms, he was distant. Not cruel. Not cold. Just elsewhere. His mind stayed locked on strategy and pressure and control. When I spoke, he

That night Jax took me beyond the borders, the moon was thin and sharp, like it was watching instead of lighting the way.We did not speak as we walked. He led, I followed. That had become our quiet rule. Derek had not asked where I was going. He had not noticed. Or maybe he had noticed and chosen silence. I did not know which hurt more.The forest deepened the farther we went. The air changed. Less pack. More wild.“Stop here,” Jax said at last.I did.The place felt old. Not dangerous, but honest. No walls. No rules written by councils or crowns. Just earth, trees, and the pull inside my chest that had grown stronger since the Trial was announced.“You feel it, don’t you?” he asked.I nodded. “My wolf is restless.”“She should be,” he said. “You’ve been caging her.”I frowned. “I didn’t choose that.”“No,” he agreed. “But you’re paying for it.”He turned to face me fully now. His eyes were darker at night, less amused, more focused. “Tonight isn’t about titles or trials. It’s about

The news did not come from Derek.It never did anymore.I heard it first from the pack.Whispers moved faster than messengers, faster than sealed letters and council summons. They slipped through corridors, clung to the edges of conversations, followed me like a second shadow.By the time it reached my ears clearly, it already carried weight.A name.Tanaia.I had never met her, but I knew her reputation the way one knows the taste of iron before blood reaches the mouth.Female Alpha. Eastern territories. Old bloodline. Ruthless where politics were concerned, polished where violence was required. She ruled her pack without a mate, without apology, and without mercy. Wolves said she had never bowed to anyone, not even the Council.Especially not the Council.“She’s ambitious,” one elder said during a closed meeting, careful with her words. “Strategic. She does not move without reason.”“And she does not lose,” another added.I sat at the edge of the council table, listening, watching f