Semua Bab THE ALPHA KING'S MAID: Bab 11 - Bab 20

ALARICThe argument with Rodrigo left me wanting to rip his head off. Five dead. Five wolves under my protection who would never return home, and that idiot had decided he could “handle it internally.” If Damián hadn’t stepped in, I would have slammed him into the wall.I took a deep breath, trying to calm the Lican roaring inside my chest. This wasn’t the time to lose control. I needed information, strategy, clarity. Not blood. At least not yet.“Klaus, I want an updated map with the exact location of each attack,” I ordered. “And double patrols along the coastal perimeter starting tonight.”“Understood,” Klaus replied, leaving the room with his phone already to his ear.Damián remained by the window, watching me with that expression that meant he wanted to say something but was weighing whether I’d take it well.“Spit it out,” I said.“If the demons are being summoned, someone inside the pack is calling them. They didn’t get here on their own.”“I know.”“And Rodrigo has been hiding

EMILIThe crash of a wave against metal was the first thing I registered. Then the movement—violent and uneven—shaking me from side to side as if I were inside a washing machine. Salt water splashed my face and the roar of an engine thundered in my ears.A boat. I was on a boat.I didn’t open my eyes. Instinct—the one I had sharpened over years of surviving dangerous men—screamed at me not to move. Not to breathe differently. To stay dead to whoever had me.I took inventory of my body without moving. My ribs, wrecked. My wrists, raw. My side where the demon had torn into me, burning. But my left arm…Nothing. No pain.That made no sense. The demon’s claw had sliced across my arm from side to side. I remembered blood soaking my sleeve, the searing cut. But now, as I slightly tensed the muscles, I felt no wound. As if it had never existed.How?I tried to remember. The cave. Noa. Her face transforming, black eyes, needle teeth. The altar with those symbols that hurt to look at. The fear

EMILIThe vampire straightened without taking his eyes off me. His mercury-colored gaze traveled over me as if trying to read something written on my skin—something invisible that only he could perceive.He slipped a hand inside his shirt and pulled out a necklace. The chain was made of dark, ancient metal, but what hung from it stole my breath. A ruby the size of a quail egg, set in tarnished silver. And it glowed. It didn’t reflect light—there was barely any in that cabin. It glowed from within, with a steady red pulse, like a beating heart.“No. No, no, no, no.”I didn’t know what that thing was, but every cell in my body screamed at me to get away from it. A primal instinct, older than fear, older than thought.“Please, don’t detect anything. Please. Whatever happened in that cave, whatever I am, don’t let it find it. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be an instrument of whatever they’re planning.”I prayed to the Moon Goddess. I prayed to the universe. I prayed to anything tha

EMILIDarkness.That was the first thing I registered. A darkness so dense I couldn’t tell whether my eyes were open or closed. I blinked several times until I confirmed they were open. There was simply nothing to see.The second thing was the pain. My ankle burned with an intensity that tore an involuntary groan from my throat. I tried to move, and the metallic clink gave me the answer before my brain processed it: chains. My feet were bound to a thick, heavy chain. Silver. The unmistakable sting of the metal against my skin, burning me slowly, preventing any attempt at shifting.Not that I could shift anyway.I tried to orient myself. The floor was cold, damp cement. The air smelled of mold, confinement, old urine. A basement. I was in a basement.How much time had passed since the island? Hours? Days? I had no way of knowing. The last thing I remembered was the young vampire’s face—his yellowish eyes, his lips moving with words I didn’t understand. And then nothing. Another black h

ALARICEmili fell asleep in my arms in that hotel room, and I stayed awake. Not because of the curse, which for now slept just like she did. Not because of the threat of vampires or loose demons or the disaster waiting for me when I returned. I stayed awake because the last time I held a woman like this, she never woke up.Lena.Her name was still a wound I refused to touch. Like a badly set bone that aches when the weather changes. Months could pass without me thinking of her, and then something would bring it all back: a scent, a laugh, a child crying in the street.She had been my mate. My fated one. The Moon Goddess placed her in my path when we were both seventeen, and the bond sealed with the force of lightning splitting my chest open. I didn’t choose to love her. I loved her because it was written in my blood, because every cell in my body recognized every cell in hers, because when I kissed her for the first time I knew I would die for her without hesitation.And in a way, I d