All Chapters of Claimed By The Wolf Kings: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

71 Chapters

52 - Useful alive

KAZIMIR "You don't have a choice." He laughed, a sharp, hollow sound. "You think you can threaten me? In my city? On my turf?" "I think you're standing in a warehouse with no cameras, no witnesses, and no one to hear you scream." I stepped out of the shadows. "I think you've been spying on me. Planting bugs in my house. Turning my..." I stopped myself. My mate. I wasn't ready to say that out loud. "Turning my guest against me." "Your prisoner, you mean." "Same thing." I threw the bug at his feet. It skittered across the concrete, small and black and damning. Viktor looked down at it. Didn't flinch. "I don't know what you're talking about." "Liar." "I'm a businessman. I don't get involved in..." I moved. One of his guards reached for his belt. I broke his wrist before he could draw. The other guard swung at my head. I ducked, drove my shoulder into his chest, and slammed him against a support beam. He crumpled. Viktor was backing away, reaching for his own we

53 - Broken

ARIEL She was crying now, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. "Mama, I didn't mean to, I tripped, I was trying to see what you were looking at outside...." "Just stay back!!" My voice was too loud. Too sharp. Evie flinched. I dropped to my knees in the glass. The liquid was already soaking into the wood, impossible to salvage. I tried to scoop it up with my hands, but it just slipped through my fingers. "Please," I whispered. "Please, please, please..." The glass cut my palms. My knees. My feet. Blood mixed with the pale blue liquid, turning it pink. Nothing worked. Nothing helped. The vials were gone. I sat back on my heels, my hands bleeding, my chest heaving, and stared at the mess on the floor. Two vials. Gone. All because of me. My own idiocy. "Mama." Evie's voice was small. Terrified. "Mama, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Please don't be mad." I looked at her. She was just a child. She had stumbled over the suitcase because I'd left it open on t

54- The guest

ARIEL Not the kind of bloodied that came from a paper cut or a shaving nick. This was dark, this wasn't his own blood. It was the kind of blood one got when they fought with someone else. My heart lurched as I wondered if he was hurt. He heard me. Stopped. Turned. His face was pale. His jaw was tight. His eyes, those, impossible eyes, found mine in the darkness. "You should see the other guy," he said. His voice was flat. Almost bored. Like he'd come home with blood on his shirt every night. Then he turned and walked into his room. The door closed behind him. I stood in the hallway, my hands hanging at my sides, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. What happened to him? Who did he meet? Who did he fight? I wanted to follow him. Wanted to demand answers. Wanted to press my hands against his chest and feel if his heart was still beating. But I didn't. I couldn't. He wasn't mine to worry about. I went back to my room and closed the door.

55 - Play Along

ARIEL I didn't respond. She held out her coat and shoved it towards me. "Be a dear." The coat dangled between us. Cream wool. Expensive. Waiting for me to take it. I looked at it. Looked at her. Looked at the coat again. Then I let it drop to the floor. "I'm not a staff," I said. Her smile flickered. "I'm sorry. I assumed..." "You assumed wrong." She laughed. A light, musical sound that didn't reach her eyes. "Well. Someone's feeling insolent today. Can you at least pick up my coat? It's expensive." "I mean it's yours. You should pick it up." The woman tilted her head, studying me. She wasn't angry, that was the worst part. She looked amused. Like I was a child throwing a tantrum, and she was too gracious to take offense. "You must be that Blondeau girl," she said. "I've heard about you." "Congratulations." "Katherine Hughes." She extended a hand. "I'm here to see Kazimir. We have important things to talk about." I didn't take her hand. "You can wait

56 - Cost of the truth

KAZIMIR "Play along how?" "We'll do regular dinner dates. Public appearances. Little things to placate them. You'll report back to them that we're getting along." Katherine was quiet for a moment. "You want me to lie." "I want you to give them what they want to hear." "And what about what I want?" I turned to face her. "What do you want?" She stood, walking toward me slowly. Her heels clicked against the hardwood. She stopped a few feet away, close enough that I could smell her perfume, floral, expensive, completely unlike Ariel's scent that haunted my dreams. "I want to know if there's a chance," she said. "For us. For something real. I'm not interested in being a prop, Kazimir. I'm not interested in being your trophy wife while you pine for someone else." "I'm not pining." "Aren't you?" I didn't answer. She nodded slowly, like she'd expected that. "So dinners. Public appearances. And then what? Eventually, they'll want more. An announcement that we will be be

57 - The whole truth

KAZIMIR Ariel turned. Her face was pale. "What?" "You heard me." "That's.. that's not..." She shook her head. "You're lying." "I'm not." "You killed my father. I saw..." "I killed your father. Yes. I'm not denying that. He killed my family. He deserved to die." I stepped closer. "But your brothers? Your mother? Someone else got to them first. I don't know who. I don't know why. But I didn't do it." Ariel stared at me. Her hands were shaking. "I don't believe you," she whispered. "You can believe whatever you want. It's the truth." "You're lying." "I'm not." "Then who..." Her voice cracked. "Who killed them?" "I don't know." "You don't know." She laughed, a hollow, broken sound. "You expect me to believe that you just happened to show up after someone else murdered my family? That you had nothing to do with it?" "I expect you to believe the truth." "The truth." She shook her head. "You've done nothing but lie to me since I arrived." "I've never lied to

58 - Belief

ARIEL Nikolai arrived in the afternoon just like Kazimir had said. I heard the car before I saw it, the low rumble of an engine, the crunch of tires on gravel. Evie heard it too. She dropped her crayons and ran to the window, pressing her nose against the glass. "Uncle Nik! Uncle Nik is back!" She was out of the room before I could stop her. I followed at a slower pace, my feet heavy, my mind still tangled in thoughts I couldn't untangle. By the time I reached downstairs, Evie was already in Nikolai's arms, her legs wrapped around his waist, her face buried in his neck. "Missed you," she mumbled. "Missed you too, little one." Nikolai's voice was warm. Genuine. He carried her up. He caught my eye over Evie's shoulder and smiled. "Missed you too, stranger." I almost smiled back. Almost. "She's been asking about you," I said. "Liar. I think Kaz is her favourite. I heard she drew him pictures.” "No, it’s you. Kazi doesn't give her piggyback rides." "No. Kazi doesn

59 - Blackwood Estate

ARIEL The mountains rose out of the darkness like teeth. I'd been watching them for hours, pressing my forehead against the cold window of the SUV, watching the forest give way to rock, the rock give way to cliffs, the cliffs give way to something ancient and forbidding. The road wound higher and higher, switchbacks that made my stomach lurch, until the trees fell away entirely and there was nothing but sky and stone and the distant lights of a building that looked less like an estate and more like a fortress. Blackwood Estate. Kazimir hadn't spoken in over an hour. Neither had I. The silence between us was thick, heavy, full of everything we weren't saying. The argument in my room. The truth about my family. The way he'd looked at me when he said ask Dimitri, like he was handing me a knife and waiting to see if I'd use it. I hadn't asked Dimitri. I hadn't asked anyone. I'd just packed my bags and climbed into this car and let myself be driven into the unknown like a lamb to

60 - Weak

KAZIMIR The hallway was empty. I stood outside our room for a long moment, listening to the silence on the other side of the door. Ariel's breathing was soft, even, asleep, finally. She'd tossed and turned for hours, haunted by whatever dreams plagued her, and I'd sat in the chair by the window, watching the fire burn down to embers, pretending I wasn't watching her. But now the house was quiet. And I had somewhere else to be. I slipped out of the room without a sound, pulling the door closed behind me. The lock clicked into place. She was safe. For now. The corridors of Blackwood Estate were labyrinthine, stone walls, torch sconces, portraits of Alphas long dead staring down at me as I passed. I'd walked these halls before, years ago, when my father was still alive and I was just an heir learning the ropes. I had attended every meeting with him. And now, I was attending instead of him. The estate hadn't changed. The politics hadn't changed. The wolves in charge hadn't chang

61 - Ready for it?

KAZIMIR My jaw tightened. "I am not weak.""No. You're not." Marcus walked toward me, his footsteps soft on the stone. "But you soon will be. We've heard you've been digging into a lot of things. Your skirmishes with Viktor wasn't as private as you thought it was, everyone has heard of it by now. And there are rumours you openly declared to kill Malhorn at a business dinner. You have become sloppy."I said nothing, because they were right. It was a little out of character for me to act so unhinged. "The other Alphas are worried. We are the Inner Circle and you know we don't like to draw too much attention to ourselves," Marcus continued. "I look at you and see a young promising Alpha, the youngest in our circle with a questionable mate, and I wonder if you're still fit to lead. If you're still fit to sit at this table.""You can keep wondering. But you know the truth.""We will. And we will act on our conclusions." He stopped inches from me. "I am not your enemy, Kazimir. I've know

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