The Royal Alphas’ Captive Maid의 모든 챕터: 챕터 21 - 챕터 30

POV: AlaricEdmund opened the door before they knocked.He was already standing there when they came up the path....all three of them, Archer still pulling his jacket on, Aiden with his hands in his pockets....and he looked at them the way he always looked at them. Like he'd been expecting them for considerably longer than just this morning."You're early," he said."You said first thing," Alaric said."I did." Edmund stepped back from the door. "Come in."The house was the same as it always was.Books on every surface. A fire going despite the season. The smell of old wood and tea and something underneath that Alaric had never been able to name but had associated with this place his entire life. Edmund moved through it ahead of them toward the sitting room and they followed in the particular way they'd followed him since they were children....single file, quiet, aware that they were about to be told something significant.Edmund sat in his chair.They sat across from him.He looked at

POV: MelinaIt was waiting on her bed when she got back from her shift.A white envelope with the hospital's name printed in the top left corner. Someone from admin must have slipped it under her door while she was working. She stood in the doorway and looked at it for a moment before she went inside and closed the door and picked it up.She didn't open it immediately.She sat on the edge of the bed with it in her hands and looked at her mother's file number printed across the front and just held it. The envelope was thin. Single page inside, maybe two. She'd gotten enough of these to know that the thin ones were never good news. Good news came in thick envelopes....treatment plans, recovery schedules, follow-up appointments. Things that required pages.This was thin.She opened it.She read it twice.The first time the words moved through her without landing properly. Medical language doing what medical language did....building distance between the information and the person receivin

Her face went warm.Archer said something else....she wasn't even listening to the words anymore, just the rhythm of them....and she felt the smile happening before she could decide not to let it and she looked away from all of them and fixed her eyes on the fire.The fire was very unhelpful.It was very warm and very orange and it was making everything feel softer than it should.She took another sip of wine.She didn't notice Archer's chair moving.That was the thing about him. He never did anything suddenly. Everything was gradual, incremental, happening in the space between one moment and the next so that by the time she registered it it had already been happening for a while.His knee was touching hers under the table.She looked down at the tablecloth. Then back up. He was talking to Alaric about something, his face turned away from her, completely unbothered. Like his knee was doing something entirely independent of the rest of him.She should move her leg.She thought about mo

POV: MelinaShe woke up slowly.Not all at once. In pieces. Awareness coming back layer by layer the way it did when sleep had been particularly deep....first the ceiling, then the light coming through the curtains, then the specific smell of her own room.She was in her room.She was in her room and she was in her bed and she was fully dressed except for her shoes which were sitting neatly side by side at the foot of the bed like someone had placed them there carefully.She stared at the ceiling.Her head was heavy. Not painfully....just weighted, thick, the particular density of a head that had processed a significant amount of expensive wine the night before. Her mouth was dry. Her body felt.....She closed her eyes.Her body felt like how it felt when she woke up from the dream.That same specific warmth. That same oversensitivity. That low deep ache that started in her thighs and radiated outward and had nothing to do with any nightmare and everything to do with.....She pressed

POV: MelinaShe knocked twice."Come in."She pushed the door open.He was standing at the window.Not sitting at his desk the way he'd been last time. Just standing there with his back to her, hands in his pockets, looking out at the estate grounds."Close the door," he said.She closed it.She stood just inside the room and waited and told her heart to stop doing what it was doing.Then he turned.Those silver eyes found her immediately and she felt it the way she always felt it....that specific pressure, that particular quality of attention that made her feel like the only thing in a very large room. Except today there was something underneath it. Something that hadn't been there in his office before. Something that made the air feel different.She kept her face blank.He looked at her for a moment."How are you feeling this morning," he said."Fine," she said. "Your Majesty."Something moved through his expression. Quick and there and gone."Is that so," he said."Yes Your Majesty