All Chapters of MARRIED TO AN ALPHA, CLAIMED BY THE LYCAN KING : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Bella's POVThree days passed in a blur of small careful movements.I went about things normally. Ate meals at the right times, moved through the packhouse at the right pace, gave Andrew nothing to look at that was interesting enough to hold his attention. He was watching me, I could feel it, that particular quality of being observed by someone who was waiting for you to do something they could use, and I moved through his watch like a woman who had nothing worth watching.At night I lay in bed and thought about Ethan's fingers and made myself stop and thought about Blackthron instead.Last night I had been moving through the corridor past Andrew's study when I heard Cordell's voice through the door… low and quick, the specific register of a report being delivered, something about patrol, something about the border, and then Andrew's voice underneath it, lower still, and I had slowed my steps and tried to catch the shape of what they were saying without stopping long enough to be noti

Bella’s POV Andrew's shoulders tightened. "Your Majesty, I assure you... " Ethan held up one hand and Andrew stopped mid-sentence. "You had time to impregnate a woman you are not married to," Ethan continued, and his voice had not changed, still flat, still controlled, still giving absolutely nothing away, "but your people are hungry. The widows have gone unpaid. There is a school on the eastern side of your territory that has been damaged for eight months and you have not repaired it." I kept my face still and watched Andrew process the fact that the King knew about the eastern school, about the widows, about everything I had been documenting for weeks. Andrew's mouth opened and closed. "Your Majesty," he said, and his voice had shifted into a more careful register, "I have been... the Luna has been... Bella has been handling those matters personally. She has visited the east side. She has seen to the people's needs. I was not aware there were... I was not fully informed of the

Ethan's POV I kept my hands on the armrests of the throne because if I moved them, I would have killed someone. And that someone would have been Andrew. He sat there in his chair with his hands gripping his knees and his jaw tight and his eyes darting between me and her like he was trying to read a room he had already lost control of. He sat in my throne room and called my mate a whore and he had no idea that the man he was accusing her of sleeping with was sitting directly in front of him. He had not used those exact words. But I had been listening to men twist their meaning into acceptable shapes for long enough that I heard what was underneath every syllable he spoke. She leaves the packhouse at night. She comes home smelling of another man. She is not setting a good example. He had wrapped contempt in the language of concern and presented it to me like evidence. Slade growled low in my chest. I felt it vibrate through my ribs, a deep and constant sound that I pushed down with

Bella's POV It was not surprising seeing Andrew already planning the wedding even though I had said it could only take place when the baby bump becomes visible. He had been moving through the packhouse all week with that specific energy of a man who believed he had won something, his shoulders looser, his jaw softer, the particular quality of relief that came from thinking the hard part was over. He did not know that the hard part had not even started. It had been a week. Seven days of watching Hailey perform pregnancy with increasing confidence, her hand resting on her stomach at every meal, her back arched just slightly when she walked, her voice softening when she talked about the baby that did not exist. Seven days of watching Andrew believe every single second of it. And today I was going to see the king for another blood therapy session. I stood in front of my mirror while Julie moved around me, her hands efficient and careful as she adjusted the fabric of my dress. The sil

Bella's POV Ethan was completely still. My eyes were closed and I just kept kissing him because I had already started, pulling away now would mean admitting I had made a mistake, and the warmth of his lips against mine was the only thing I could feel and I did not want to lose it. I explored his mouth the way I had been wanting to explore it for weeks. Slow and careful. Tasting him. Feeling the shape of his lips under mine, the slight roughness of his lower lip where he had bitten it at some point, the warmth of his breath mixing with mine. My tongue traced the seam of his lips and I felt the faint tremor that ran through him, barely there, almost imperceptible. But he was not responding. He was not kissing me back. He was just sitting there, completely still, letting me kiss him like he was waiting for me to realize something, like he was giving me the space to make my own mistake so he would not have to be the one to stop me. Uncertainty started running through me like cold wa