All Chapters of Claimed by the Triplet Alphas: Breeder for the Lycan King: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

KiaHe came in the morning without announcement, which was typical, but without the usual energy of command in his posture.Ryder set a tray on the table near the window by himself with the slightly careful movements of someone who didn't do this often and was aware of that.I watched him from the bed."Dorla was busy," he said, without looking at me."Dorla is never that busy," I replied.He pulled the chair from the desk and sat down, which was also unusual. Normally Ryder stood. Standing was a posture of control. Sitting across from someone at the same level was something else entirely."You should eat," he said."You keep saying that," I said. "It doesn't get more interesting the third time."The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. The ghost of one, maybe something that had considered becoming a smile and then thought better of it.I sat up slowly and reached for the tray. Bread, fruit, something hot in a small clay cup. I wrapped my hands around the cup and felt the war

KiaHe brought me ginger tea the next morning.He came in while I was still sitting at the window watching the mountain fog settle into the valley below, set the cup on the table beside me, and sat in the chair across from mine like he planned to stay."Ginger," I said, looking at the cup."For the nausea," he said."Dorla will notice," I said."I told her you had a headache," he said.I picked up the cup. It was the right temperature, which meant he had timed the walk from the kitchen carefully. "You've thought about this.""I think about most things," he said. "It's a problem."I looked at him over the rim of the cup. "Liam. We need to talk about what this actually means.""Yes," he said."Ryder can't know.""Not yet," he said, for the third time in as many conversations, and this time I caught the full weight of what that phrase was doing. It wasn't a delay. It was a structure he was building around me, quietly and without asking permission, because he had decided it needed to exis

KiaAnastasia decided on the second evening of Xander's visit, that dinner would be formal.Which meant I would serve.She delivered this information through Dorla, which was how she delivered things she knew I would object to. A buffer. Plausible distance between herself and the cruelty of the instruction."She wants me to serve the table," I said to Dorla. "While they eat.""Yes," Dorla said."While the Lycan King eats.""Yes."I stood at the window for a moment, my back to her, looking at the mountain dark outside."Fine," I said.The dining room was fuller than the previous night. Elder Voss had been joined by two pack officials whose names I didn't know, men in formal grey who sat very straight and spoke very little. Anastasia was at the head of the table in deep burgundy, looking like a woman who had arranged everything in this room to her precise satisfaction.She had.I came in from the kitchen side, carrying the first wine service. I moved along the table without looking at f

KiaI found it by accident, the way I found most things that mattered.The council had been meeting in the lower study since mid-morning. I had walked past the door twice without thinking about it. The third time, I was carrying a stack of linens that Dorla had asked me to deliver to the east linen press, and the door was not fully closed.I should have kept walking.I stopped."the decree as it stands only covers the current generation," Elder Voss was saying. His voice was dry and precise, the kind that had spent decades delivering information that other people found uncomfortable. "The expansion would extend the anchor obligation to any female-line descendants."Another voice, one of the pack officials from dinner. "The bloodline models support this. The anchor ability is hereditary. If the current anchor produces offspring with sufficient Alpha compatibility.""The compatibility isn't hypothetical," Voss said. "It's documented. The maternal line has demonstrated stable anchor capa

The knock came at midnight.Three soft raps, a pause, two more. Not a pattern anyone in this house used.I was already awake, sitting at the window with the paper Pam had given me open in my hands, reading it for the fourth time like the words might change. Tomorrow. One day.I crossed to the door. "Who is it."A pause.Then, low and quiet: "Someone who owes you an honest conversation."My hand stilled on the door handle.I opened it.Xander stood in the corridor in dark clothes, no guards, no formal posture. Just him, leaning slightly against the opposite wall with his arms crossed, looking at me with an expression that had none of the dinner-table performance in it."You shouldn't be here," I said."No," he agreed. "Are you going to let me in anyway?"I stepped back.He came in and I closed the door and we stood in the candlelit room looking at each other, and the careful public distance of the last several days simply wasn't there anymore. Without the dining table and the formal se