All Chapters of AUCTIONED TO THE LYCAN KING: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

ASHERThe council chamber was underground. Deep beneath the palace where the walls were thick enough to contain the kind of arguments that would shake the floors above.I sat at the head of a long stone table with five chairs on each side. Every seat was filled. Ten of the most powerful Lycans in the kingdom sat before me and not a single one of them looked happy.Good. I was not here to make them happy."Let us not waste time" Lord Kael said from the far end of the table. He was the first to speak. He was always the first to speak.Kael was old. Not frail old. Dangerous old. The kind of old that meant he had survived things that killed everyone else around him. His hair was silver white and his eyes were pale grey like storm clouds. He moved slowly and spoke softly but every word that left his mouth carried the weight of a man who had been shaping this kingdom long before I was born.He had been my advisor since I was eight years old. After my mother abandoned me and my father buried

ASHERThe private meeting room was smaller than the council chamber. No windows. One door. A single table with four chairs.This was where the real decisions were made. Not in the grand chamber with its ten seats and formal debates. Here. In the dark. With the three men who had been building the future of this kingdom long before the rest of the council knew what was coming.Lord Kael sat across from me. To his left was Lord Harlen. To his right was General Maddox the head of the kingdom's military forces. These three men plus myself made up the inner circle. The architects of what Kael called The Purge."Phase one is nearly complete" Kael said as he unrolled a map across the table. Red lines marked the borders of every wolf pack territory within a two hundred mile radius of the kingdom. Blue dots marked Lycan outposts we had been quietly establishing along those borders for the past three years."We have outposts along seventy percent of the targeted territories" General Maddox repor

MAYAThree days into my life at the Lycan Kingdom and I had already learned one important lesson. The nobles here did not need claws to tear you apart. They had something far more effective.Words.It started small. A sideways glance during meals. A chair being pulled away just before I sat down. A conversation that went suspiciously quiet the moment I entered a room.By the third day they had stopped being subtle.I walked into the dining hall that morning because I was tired of eating bread rolls alone in my room. The hall was enormous with long wooden tables and high arched ceilings. Dozens of nobles and high ranking Lycans filled the seats eating and talking and laughing like one big happy family.The laughter died the second I stepped through the door.Every head turned. Every eye landed on me. The silence was so thick I could hear the candles flickering on the walls.I took a breath and walked toward the nearest table. There was an empty seat at the end between two women dressed

ASHERI told myself I was inspecting the training grounds.That was the excuse I used when my feet carried me to the east corridor balcony for the third morning in a row. The balcony overlooked the main training yard and from this angle I could see everything without being seen.I leaned against the stone pillar and crossed my arms. Below me Commander Rhea stood in the center of the yard like a statue carved from iron. Across from her stood Maya.She looked terrible.Her face was bruised. A cut above her left eye had scabbed over but a fresh one had opened on her cheekbone. Her knuckles were wrapped in cloth that was already stained red. She was favoring her right leg which meant her left knee was injured again.She had no business being on that field. Any reasonable person would have quit by now. Any sane person would have walked away after the first day.But Maya was not reasonable. And I was starting to suspect she was not entirely sane either.Rhea moved first.It was a simple str

MAYATwo weeks. Fourteen days of being knocked into the dirt so many times I lost count.My body was a map of bruises. Purple and blue and yellow patches covered my arms and legs like paint splattered by an angry artist. My ribs ached when I breathed. My shoulders screamed when I raised my arms. My knees cracked every time I stood up.But I was faster.Not Lycan fast. Not even close. But faster than I was on day one. Faster than the girl who got knocked down before she could even blink.I noticed it first during the middle of the second week. Rhea threw a jab at my left shoulder. The same jab she had been throwing since day one. The same jab that always landed clean.This time I saw it coming. Not just in my mind but in my body. My muscles reacted before my brain gave the order. I twisted right and her fist grazed my shoulder instead of crashing into it.She did not say anything. But her eyes narrowed slightly and I knew she noticed.The next day she increased the speed. The day after