All Chapters of THE ALPHA KING'S MAID: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

EMILIThe aftermath of the celebration left the mansion in a state of lethargy that Amelia took full advantage of to inventory the damage: twenty-three empty wine bottles, two tables with loose legs, a chandelier someone had ripped from the ceiling during an overly enthusiastic toast, and the dignity of a young eastern alpha who was probably still running.Alaric woke up to meetings. The allied alphas who had come for the celebration wanted to discuss territorial agreements, border reinforcements, and the rise in vampire attacks across the region. The kind of matters that required the King sitting in his new office with a don’t waste my time expression for hours.Which meant that for the first time in weeks, I had a day free from his watchful eye.Silas appeared in the kitchen while I was having breakfast with Sofía and Vera. He poured himself coffee, sat across from me, and opened his notebook like someone opening the morning paper.“I cracked the coordinates,” he said quietly, maske

LYRAWe’d been running for ten minutes when I knew we weren’t going to make it.Not because of Silas—who, in Lycán form, was a blond demon capable of leaving all of us eating dust. Not because of me—despite the wound in my side, I could still keep a decent pace. The problem was Emili. She ran at human speed, which compared to two Lycans was like riding a bicycle behind two fighter jets.Silas picked her up onto his back without anyone having to ask. He crouched in front of her, his ash-blond fur gleaming under the shards of sunlight filtering through the canopy, and Emili climbed on with that clumsiness she was starting to make a habit of. The guardian was leaner than me in Lycán form, but his speed made up for everything else. When Silas ran at full power, not even Alaric could catch him. He was the fastest of all of us, and we all knew it—even if no one said it, because his academic ego didn’t need more fuel.We ran. Silas in front with Emili clinging to his fur. Me flanking on the

**ALARIC**The mark woke me.Not with pain. With emptiness. As if someone had reached into my chest and ripped out something essential, leaving behind a cold hollow that pulsed with every heartbeat. One moment I was in my study reviewing territorial agreements with the northern alphas, and the next I was on my feet, chair overturned, papers flying, eyes red, my Lycan howling a single word inside my skull.*Emili.*I didn’t need more. I didn’t wait for explanations. I didn’t give rational orders. I burst out of the study fast enough to crack the doorframe, took the stairs shifting mid-stride, and tore through the mansion’s front door in full Lycan form, splintering the wood like cardboard.Damián caught up to me before I reached the forest. Enzo and the twins joined seconds later, alerted by the mental link we shared. I didn’t ask who was available. I ran—and those who could keep up did.The mark guided me. Not like a map, but like an emotional compass pulling at my sternum toward the

Soren arrived at the Vampire King’s castle to deliver a report—and they made him wait six hours.Six hours sitting on a black stone bench, in a windowless corridor where the cold seeped into the marrow and blue-flamed torches gave off no warmth. The King’s guards passed by every so often, looked at him the way one looks at an insect that slipped in through a crack in the door, and kept walking.Soren didn’t move. Didn’t complain. Didn’t ask for water, food, or a damn blanket. Because he understood exactly what they were doing: measuring him. A sorcerer who shows up uninvited at the Vampire King’s castle, asking for a direct audience and bypassing a General, has exactly two options. He’s either insane—or he has something worth more than his life. The six hours were meant to determine which.On the seventh hour, the guard with the scar on his jaw returned.“The King will see you now.”They led him through three more corridors, all identical, all designed to disorient. But Soren had memo

EMILISilas looked like a corpse refusing to cooperate with death.Pale, hollow-eyed, moving through the library with the stiffness of an arthritic old man. The warlock’s spell had severed his connection to his wolf, and he hadn’t been able to shift for days. For a Lycan, that was like going deaf: technically you’re still alive, but a fundamental part of you has stopped working.“Before you ask—no, I still can’t shift. Yes, I feel like shit. And no, I don’t want to talk about it,” he said without looking up from the table as he pulled a leather envelope from beneath a book. “Look at this.”Five photographs. He spread them out on the table with fingers that still trembled. Photos of the greenhouse altar, taken on his phone the night everything went to hell. Blurry, poorly lit—but readable.At least for me.I leaned over the table, putting on that focused expression I always used when Silas showed me Dark Language inscriptions. The “how interesting, I don’t understand a thing” face—when