All Chapters of Sold To The Alpha Kings: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

I don’t go back to my chambers after the arena.I can’t. Draevor will be waiting, or his guards will be, or one of the priestesses with another white dress for Mira. Three days isn’t safety. It’s just a longer fuse.So I go to the only place in this castle that Draevor can’t walk into uninvited: Silas’s tower.The Witch King doesn’t use doors either. His tower is open to the sky, a broken ruin held together by spellwork and spite. Vines grow through the cracks in the stone, and the air tastes like copper and lightning.Silas is sprawled on a pile of velvet cushions when I walk in, flipping a dagger between his fingers. He doesn’t look surprised to see me.“Little Luna,” he drawls. “Come to collect on that loophole I promised?”“I need to get my sister out,” I say without preamble. “Tonight. Before Draevor decides three days is too long to wait.”Silas sits up, and the lazy amusement drops off his face. “You think I can just walk her out the front gate? The wards on this castle are blo

The cells are under the arena.I know because I can smell them — blood and rust and old fear baked into stone. Two guards stand at the entrance. Both wear Draevor’s mark. Both lower their spears when they see me.“Luna,” one says, not respectful. Wary. “Alpha’s orders. No one goes in.”“Alpha’s orders were sunset,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake. I’m too angry to be scared. “It’s not sunset yet. And I’m here under the Fifth Law. I have right of access to my consorts before Claiming.”That’s not actually in the Law. But they don’t know that. Most guards can’t read.They look at each other. The older one spits on the ground. “He said you’d try this. Said to tell you the Necro-wolf’s already half-dead. You go in there, you’ll just watch him bleed out faster.”Good. If Rook’s half-dead, he’s angry. And angry Rook is useful Rook.“Open it,” I say.They don’t.So I pull Theo’s wooden wolf from my pocket and hold it up. “The Blind Prophet gave me this. For my sister. He said the future wh

I wake up to the sound of a war council arguing in my chambers.Not my old chambers, the small ones with the locked door and the window I couldn’t open. These are Draevor’s. His bed, his furs, his maps still bleeding red ink onto the table, and his crown — a twisted band of black iron — sitting on the pillow next to me like someone wasn’t sure what to do with it yet.Mira is curled against my side, still asleep, her face buried in my neck and her small hand fisted in my shirt like she’s afraid I’ll disappear if she lets go. The tether between us is quiet now, a warm thread in my chest that rises and falls with her breathing, and for the first time in six days I don’t feel like I’m about to lose her.The arguing gets louder.“She can’t just take his pack,” someone snaps, and I recognize the voice of Elder Harkon, one of Draevor’s betas. “Trial by combat or not, she’s unranked, she’s female, and she’s—”“Alive,” Rook interrupts, his voice lazy but with that edge that says he’s picturing

The Council doesn’t wait until midday.They arrive two hours after Mavera leaves, twelve priests in black robes and twenty guards in gold armor, and they don’t stop at the gates like she asked. They march straight through the courtyard like they own it, and in a way, they do. The Fifth Law says the High Council speaks for all packs, and until yesterday, no one had ever told them no.I meet them in the throne room. Not Draevor’s throne room with the wolf skulls and the iron chains bolted to the floor. The old one, the one the castle doesn’t use anymore because it has too many windows and not enough walls to hide behind. If I’m going to negotiate, I want light. I want witnesses.The Kings stand with me. Rook at my right shoulder, because he refuses to be anywhere else when there are threats in the room. Silas lounging against a pillar, twirling his staff and looking like this is all a game he hasn’t decided if he’s bored of yet. Theo silent at my left, his head tilted toward the sound o

The arena bell does not stop ringing, and that is how I know we are already too late.It has not rung in twenty years, not since the last war between packs, and every wolf in the city knows what it means when it does. It means the packs are gathering, it means blood is about to spill, and it means someone broke the truce we bled to get this morning."The courtyard," Rook says, and he is already pulling me toward the chapel doors, his claws out and his eyes black with the kind of rage that has kept him alive for centuries. "Harkon—"The doors burst open before he can finish, and Harkon staggers in with blood on his face and a wound down his arm that should be closing faster than it is."South gate," he gasps, pressing his hand to the gash. "Three banners, Stoneclaw, Red River, and Ashen. They came through before we could lock down, and they are not here to talk."Three packs, sixty wolves at least, maybe more, and they are here because Draevor is dead and the city is without an Alpha a