AUCTIONED TO THE LYCAN KING のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 31 - チャプター 40

MAYAThe arena was bigger than I expected.It sat at the heart of the kingdom. A massive circular pit carved from dark stone with tiered seating rising up on all sides like the jaws of a beast waiting to swallow me whole. Hundreds of Lycans filled the seats. Nobles. Soldiers. Servants. All of them staring down at me with the same expression.Show us what you are made of wolf girl.I stood in the center of the pit wearing my training uniform with the curved blade strapped to my side. The morning sun cut through the clouds and bathed the arena in cold white light. My breath came out in short clouds. My hands were steady but my heart was not.One week of preparation. Seven days of Asher training me every night after Rhea broke me down every morning. Seven days of bruises and corrections and touches that lingered too long and meant too much.It all came down to this.The council sat in a raised section overlooking the pit. Kael was in the center. His pale eyes found mine the moment I look

MAYATraining with Asher was becoming the most confusing part of my day.Every evening after Rhea finished destroying me in the morning session I would drag myself to the training grounds and he would be there. Waiting. Sleeves rolled up. Silver eyes sharp. Ready to push me harder than anyone else in this kingdom.He was brutal. Efficient. Relentless. He never went easy on me and I never asked him to. But somewhere between the strikes and the corrections something had shifted. The silence between us was no longer cold. It was charged. Full of things neither of us was saying.Tonight's session ended later than usual. We had been working on defensive counters and I finally managed to redirect one of his strikes without losing my balance. He did not praise me. He never did. But he paused for half a second before resetting and that pause told me everything."Come to my study" he said as we left the yard. "I have new intelligence on Damien's movements."I followed him through the palace co

MAYAThe knock came after midnight. Two quick taps followed by a pause and then one more. Lena's signal.I was already awake. Sleep had become a luxury I could rarely afford. My mind was always running. Always calculating. Always replaying conversations and analyzing faces and trying to figure out who in this palace wanted me gone badly enough to act on it.The answer was most of them. But some were more dangerous than others.I opened the door and Lena slipped inside like a shadow. She was shaking. Not the nervous tremble I had seen from her before. This was different. This was fear that had sunk all the way to the bone.Her eyes were red and swollen. She had been crying for a while before coming to me."What happened?" I asked closing the door behind her.She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Her hands twisted the hem of her servant's uniform so tightly I thought the fabric would tear.I guided her to the chair beside my bed and sat her down. Then I knelt in front of her and to

ETHANI did not trust the wolf girl.Not when she climbed into the King's car and refused to leave. Not when she proposed marriage to a man she had known for less than an hour. Not when she signed the contract and moved into the palace like she belonged there.I had served Asher since we were boys. I knew him better than anyone alive. I knew what he needed and more importantly I knew what could destroy him. A wolf with hazel eyes and a desperate story was exactly the kind of threat I was trained to eliminate.So I watched her.Every day for the past five weeks I watched her. Waiting for the mask to slip. Waiting for the manipulation to begin. Waiting for the moment she would reveal what she truly wanted and prove that she was no different from every other person who had ever tried to use the King for their own gain.That moment never came.Instead I watched her get knocked into the dirt by Commander Rhea every single morning and get back up every single time. I watched her eat alone i

MAYAThe war room was tense as usual.Maps covered the table. Reports were stacked in neat piles. Ethan stood to Asher's right reviewing a list of border patrol updates. Two military advisors sat at the far end marking positions on a terrain map.I sat across from Asher trying very hard to focus on the intelligence report in front of me and not on the way his forearms looked in that rolled up black shirt.It was becoming a problem. A serious one.Ever since the training session where he caught me and held me against his chest something had shifted inside me that I could not shift back. Every time I was near him my body betrayed me in small humiliating ways. My pulse quickened. My skin warmed. My eyes drifted to places they had no business drifting.Like his hands. Large and scarred and capable of breaking a man in half. Those same hands had wrapped around my waist and held me like I was something worth catching.I blinked and forced my eyes back to the report.Focus Maya. Damien is bu