All Chapters of ALPHA KING DOMINIC'S DARKEST CLAIM: Chapter 51 - Chapter 55

Lyra sat on the edge of her bed, arms wrapped around her middle.Her stomach growled loud enough to echo in the quiet room.She ignored it.Breakfast had started an hour ago, and the dining hall would be full of people by now. Full of him. She couldn't face that. Not after last night. Not after she'd fled from the woods like a coward, leaving Dominic standing alone beneath the moonlight.She'd gone straight back to the palace. Bypassed the festival entirely. Locked herself in her room and pretended the world didn't exist.That had been hours ago.A small, foolish voice at the back of her mind had whispered that he might follow. That he might knock on her door and demand to talk to her. That he might apologize, or explain, or say something, anything, that would make the ache in her chest disappear.He hadn't come.She pressed her palm against her chest, trying to soothe the hollow pain there."Stupid," she muttered to herself. "So stupid."Why would he follow her? Why would he apologiz

Cassandra settled into her chair at the dining table and looked around the empty room.Again.She sighed, picking up her napkin. The late afternoon sun slanted through the tall windows, casting long shadows across the polished floor. The palace always felt too quiet when she dined alone.A servant appeared at her elbow, pouring wine with practiced efficiency.Cassandra paused, her glass halfway to her lips. "Has Lyra not come down since morning?"The servant exchanged a glance with another staff member near the sideboard. "No, my lady. She never came for breakfast. No one has seen her since last night's Moon Festival in the woods."Cassandra set her glass down with a sharp click.

Caelan had driven his old jeep as far as the old logging road would allow, tires crunching over gravel and fallen branches, until the path simply ended. Swallowed by forest.Then they'd walked.Nearly five miles through woods that grew denser with every step, Vivienne's boots sinking into soft earth that smelled of decay and renewal. Her breath came in white clouds in the cold night air, and her thighs burned from climbing over fallen logs and navigating slopes slick with moss. Now they stood in a clearing no larger than a living room, surrounded by trees that seemed to lean in and listen. The coordinates had led them here, to the middle of nowhere, deep in the neutral territories where no pack held claim. The kind of place where people came to conduct business they didn't want witnessed.They had been waiting nearly an hour now with no sign of anybody else coming.Vivienne wrapped her arms around herself, but the chill had settled into her bones long ago. Beside her, Caelan shifted