All Chapters of Claimed and Sold at the Lycan King's Ball: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

97 Chapters

What Fell Between us

CHAPTER 31AVA'S POV“You think I enjoy this?” he murmured, voice rough. “Watching you push yourself when your body is still healing? Feeling every ache through the bond like it’s my own?”“Then stop watching,” I whispered, even as my hands came up to rest against his chest. I told myself it was to push him away. My body didn’t listen.“I can’t.” His forehead dropped to mine, breath mingling. “Not every time I look away, I remember how close I came to losing you in that forest. Not when Kael keeps finding excuses to be near you.”The jealousy was there— raw, barely leashed. I felt it through the bond like a live wire. But he didn’t explode. He just held me there, breathing me in, fighting his own instincts.“I’m not his,” I whispered. “I’m not yours either. Not yet.”The word “yet” slipped out before I could stop it. Draken’s grip on my waist tightened for a heartbeat, then relaxed. A low, almost pained sound rumbled in his chest.“You test every limit I have, little wolf.” He stayed

A Luna's training (poison and politics)

CHAPTER 32AVA'S POVThe heavy oak doors of the royal suite hadn’t just been closed; they had been fortified. Four towering vanguard guards stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the corridor, their heavy breathing audible even through the thick wood. Draken had officially turned my quarters into a gold-plated cage with locks.“If the King finds out, he'll have my head,” Maya whispered, her hands shaking as she adjusted the heavy curtain over the servant’s passage in the dressing room. She kept looking over her shoulder toward the main doors, jumping at the sound of the wind rattling the glass.“Good thing we're not telling him,” I muttered, tugging a dark velvet cloak over my shoulders and pulling the hood low. My ankle still twinged from my library mishap the night before, but the adrenaline overrode the ache. I wasn’t going to sit here like a decorative doll while Draken hunted a ghost.Maya squeezed through the narrow stone gap behind the wardrobe first, immediately pressing her back again

Under Lock and Key

CHAPTER 33AVA'S POVThe moment we reached the royal suite, the guards scrambled out of the way to open the doors for their king who had carried his luna on his shoulders. Draken kicked them shut behind us, walked over to the velvet chaise by the hearth, and dropped me onto the cushions.He didn't do it roughly enough to hurt me, but there was just enough force to make me bounce, sending my hair tumbling over my face.“You're impossible!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet, my chest heaving as I glared up at him. “You locked me in! You can't just carry me through the palace like a piece of stolen property while everyone watches.”“You're alive,” Draken roared back, his eyes flashing as he stepped into my space, towering over me until his shadow completely enveloped me. “That is my only priority today. You broke out through a servant's passage just a few days after someone tried to dissolve your lungs from the inside out.”“I am not a prisoner, Draken!” I threw my hands up in the air.“Fu

Scent of a Traitor

CHAPTER 34AVA'S POVLess than eight hours after promising Draken I wouldn’t leave the royal floor without him, I was already slipping my boots on. I wouldn’t just sit around wearing silk while a killer left blood-stained notes under my teacups,They've pushed me to the wall and I wasn’t going to let them have it. If I was going to be the Luna of the Northern Kingdom, I needed answers. And more importantly, I needed to know how to find them myself.Tucking Madame Lira’s rune stone into the hidden pocket of my gown, I slipped past the changing guard rotation in the service corridor. Ash was restless beneath my skin, the southern wolf had extented her claws scratching at the back of my mind. She wanted answers just as badly as I did.The air grew colder as I walked down the palace lowest level with every step I took, the air turned heavy with the scent of old stone and ancient parchment. When I finally reached the massive, iron passage of the Blood Vault, two royal guards crossed their w

The Storm Beneath the Crown

CHAPTER 35AVA'S POVThe damp chill of the vaults stayed with me, settling deep into my bones as the heavy iron doors groaned shut behind us. I hurried down the corridor, my boots clicking against the stone to keep pace with Thorne’s long, unyielding strides. Kael walked just a step behind, his usual easy posture tense.“Beta Thorne, wait,” I said, reaching out to catch the edge of his leather sleeve. He didn't stop, forcing me to snap my wrist back. “Who were they? If House Blackthorne was a noble northern lineage, how does an entire family just disappear without anyone talking about it?”Thorne kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. The hard line of his jaw didn't even flinch. “Another day, Ava.”“You allowed me down there because you wanted me to learn the bloodlines so I can help lead this pack,” I argued, stepping in front of him to force a halt. “Why skip that one? I'm not asking for a history lesson, Thorne. I’m asking why everyone in this palace acts like the name itself is a cur

The Scar

CHAPTER 36AVA'S POVMy fingers froze, hovering just above his skin, my eyes pinned to the puckered, raised flesh at the base of his neck.A curved, broken crescent intersecting an iron crown.I had looked at that exact configuration of lines less than two hours ago on a scroll bound in heavy iron chains.Draken didn’t flinch away from my hand, but I felt the sudden tightening of his muscles. The bond didn't flare with heat; it was cold, like ice water flooding my veins. His head tilted back, eyes tracking my frozen posture in the reflection of the glass window.“Ask,” he said, completely devoid of the Alpha authority he usually wrapped around himself like armor.I swallowed the lump in my throat, my heart hammering against my ribs. I dropped my hand, stepping back a single pace to give him space, though my eyes never left the mark. “Why do you have the Blackthorne crest burned into your skin?”The silence returned, heavy and suffocating. Draken pulled the collar of his dark wool tun

The Scar 2

CHAPTER 37AVA'S POVThe realization hit me like a physical blow to the chest, leaving me breathless.For weeks, I had viewed Draken as this omnipotent, terrifying force who held everyone's life in the palm of his hand. I thought his possessiveness was born entirely from an arrogant need to control his environment. But looking at him now, sitting on the edge of the chaise with the firelight washing over his face, the truth lay bare.He wasn't powerless back then because he lacked a wolf. He was powerless because he was young, bound by a tyrant king's law.Beneath the layer of fierce Alpha protective instinct, there wasn't anger. There was an ocean of unresolved, ancient guilt. A king who could command armies, yet spent every single day carrying the weight of the people he couldn't save when he was small.“I couldn't save them,” he quietly admitted, his voice cracking a bit on the final word. He looked down at his hands, his broad shoulders dropping as the memory crushed him. “I watche

The First Heat

CHAPTER 38AVA'S POVThe air inside the Blackthorne crypt was dense with centuries of dust.Water dripped somewhere in the dark echoing off the ceiling. Every surface was carved from deep obsidian rock, etched with ancient wolf figures and the repeating shape of the Blackthorne crest—the curved crescent and the iron crown. It was cold, the kind of damp chill that seeped past my clothes and settled straight into my bones, thick with the heavy scent of old magic.“The perimeter seals were shattered from the outside,” Thorne said. His voice was too quiet and controlled.I stood just behind Draken, my arms wrapped across my chest as I watched the High Commander. Several royal guards stood near the entrance, torches held high, casting long, dancing shadows across the broken stone entrance.Nothing had been smashed. No tombs had been defaced. The intruder hadn’t been looking for gold or common treasures. They had bypassed the outer wards, knowing exactly where to go.“They didn't touch the

Temptation

CHAPTER 39AVA'S POV“The bond has entered its first heat.”Thorne’s words hung in the damp air of the crypt like a death sentence.Nobody spoke. The silence that followed was suffocating, enough to drown out the dripping sound of water in the dark corners of the tomb. I clamped my teeth together, my hands pressing against my own ribs to keep my chest from heaving. Don't panic, I told myself, even as my vision swam with a sudden, dizzying rush of heat. Do not panic.Draken’s hands were still around my waist, his grip so tight it bordered on pain, yet I could feel the tremor in his large, calloused fingers. He was tearing himself apart trying not to pull me too close. His golden eyes blazed in the dim torchlight, the pupils dilated so wide the gold was nearly swallowed by black.Thorne didn't waste another second. The High Commander's practical, military instincts snapped into place before the magic could completely paralyze us.“Out,” Thorne barked, turning a sharp glare onto the roya

Temptation 2

CHAPTER 40AVA'S POV“I didn't break into the crypt, Draken!”“You walked directly into a compromised tomb without a weapon!” he roared, his voice dropping an octave as he rounded the desk. His strides were heavy, closing the distance between us before I could even think to retreat. “You have wolf venom still clearing from your system, an anonymous killer targeting you in my own court, and you are standing in a dark crypt pointing out broken runes like you are untouchable!”“Because nobody else was looking!” I yelled back, stepping forward instead of away, my Southern stubbornness refusing to let him intimidate me. “I am trying to stay alive! I am trying to figure out who is doing this to us!”Our breath was mingling now. The argument had brought us so close our chests were practically brushing each other with every sharp inhale.“You don't have to figure it out alone,” Draken said, his voice suddenly dropping into a low, tone that made my knees instantly weaken. The anger in his eyes

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