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Home / Paranormal / AUCTIONED TO THE LYCAN KING / Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

All Chapters of AUCTIONED TO THE LYCAN KING: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

104 Chapters

CHAPTER 31

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

CHAPTER 32

DAMIENThe merchant arrived at midnight.He was not really a merchant. His name was Silas and he had been one of my best scouts long before I became Alpha. He was small and forgettable. The kind of man your eyes passed over without registering. That was what made him perfect for this job.I received him in my study with the door locked and the curtains drawn. Bryce stood guard outside. No one else knew about this meeting.Silas sat across from me with his hat in his hands and his eyes on the floor. He smelled like road dust and cheap wine. The scent of a man who had been living under a false identity for weeks."Talk" I said.He cleared his throat. "I entered the Lycan Kingdom twelve days ago posing as a grain merchant from the eastern territories. Security at the border was tight but they do not check merchants as thoroughly as military visitors. I set up a stall in the trade quarter and spent the first week observing.""I do not care about your stall. Tell me about Maya" I said.He

CHAPTER 33

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

CHAPTER 34

KAELThe letter arrived at dawn.It came through the usual channel. A merchant at the eastern trade post who owed me favors he could never repay. He passed it to a servant in my household who placed it on my desk before I finished my morning tea.No name on the envelope. No seal. Just a thin sheet of paper folded three times and tucked inside with the careful precision of someone who knew that one mistake could cost them everything.I unfolded it and read.The handwriting was feminine. Elegant loops and sharp strokes. The hand of a woman who was raised with money and manners. Isabella. Damien's pretty little ornament.She had proven more useful than I expected.The letter contained exactly what I asked for. Troop numbers. Alliance details. Names of every rogue Alpha who had committed forces to Damien's cause. Supply routes. Estimated timeline for mobilization.I read each line twice. Then a third time.Alpha Crane. Iron Fang pack. Three hundred fighters. Positioned along the southern

CHAPTER 35

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

CHAPTER 36

MAYAThe bruise on my hip from this morning's session with Rhea was turning a deep shade of purple. I pressed my fingers against it and winced. It would heal in a couple of days but right now it throbbed with every step I took toward the training grounds.I should have rested. Any sane person would have rested.But the evening sessions with Asher had become something I could not bring myself to skip. Not because of the training. The training was important yes. But it was everything around the training that kept pulling me back.The silence between strikes. The corrections that came with warm hands. The way his voice dropped lower as the night wore on like the darkness gave him permission to be softer.I was in trouble and I knew it.The yard was empty when I arrived. The sun had already dipped below the mountains and the last traces of orange light were fading from the sky. Torches along the perimeter flickered to life casting the training ground in a warm uneven glow.He was already

CHAPTER 37

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

CHAPTER 38

DAMIENThe dream always started the same way.Maya was standing in front of me wearing the white dress she wore the first time I told her I loved her. Her black hair fell past her shoulders. Her hazel eyes were warm and soft and looking at me the way they used to. Like I was the only man alive.She smiled. That smile that made everything inside me go quiet. The one that turned the noise in my head into silence and the chaos in my chest into stillness.I reached for her."Maya."She took a step back."Maya come here."Another step back. The warmth in her eyes began to fade. The softness hardened into something cold and unfamiliar. Her smile disappeared."I Maya Stone reject—""No!" I lunged forward and grabbed her arm. But my fingers passed through her like she was made of smoke. Her body dissolved. Her face blurred. Her voice echoed around me from every direction."—Alpha Damien of the Crescent Moon pack as my mate."The pain hit me like a freight train. My chest ripped open. My bones

CHAPTER 39

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

CHAPTER 40

ASHERCommander Rhea never requested private meetings.In fifteen years of service she had reported through official channels. Written assessments. Formal debriefs. She was military to her core and protocol was her religion.So when she appeared at my study door at ten in the evening and said "We need to talk" I knew something was wrong.I gestured to the chair across from my desk. She did not sit. She never did."Tell me" I said leaning back.Rhea stood with her hands clasped behind her back. Her jaw was tight. Whatever she was about to say had been turning in her head for a while."The wolf girl's progress is abnormal" she said."She is training hard. Progress is expected" I replied."This is not hard work progress. I have trained warriors for fifteen years. I know what dedication looks like. I know what natural talent looks like. What I am seeing in Maya is neither."She paused and I watched her choose her next words carefully. Commander Rhea did not exaggerate. She did not specula

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