All Chapters of Sold To The Ruthless Lycan King : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

​Lyra's POV​I could barely walk. Every agonizing step pulled brutally at the fresh, raw wounds slicing across my back, sending waves of white-hot nausea straight to my throat.​The guard trailing behind me didn’t slow his pace for a single second. "Move it. The royal healer is waiting."​Waiting. The word sounded fundamentally wrong. In all my years of existence, no one had ever waited for me. No one had ever paused their life to tend to mine.​We finally came to a halt before a pair of beautifully carved oak doors. The guard knocked once with his armored fist before pushing them open, dragging me across the threshold.​Instantly, the scent of the room hit me. It didn’t smell of damp stone or dried blood. Instead, the air was thick with the calming aroma of earth and herbs. Bundles of dried lavender, sage, and mint hung in neat rows from the wooden rafters. Polished shelves lined the stone walls, stacked high with countless glass jars filled with colorful powders, oils, and crushed m

​Lyra's POV​The training grounds slowly emptied.​Warriors returned to their routine drills, the ringing of steel echoing off the black stone walls. Guards rotated their shifts, their heavy armor clinking in the bitter air. The snow continued to fall, dusting my hair and shoulders with a freezing shroud.​But I remained exactly where the Lycan King had left me. Standing paralyzed in front of the iron-bound barrel.​"LIFT IT!"​Cassian's sharp command cracked across the open yard like a whip.​I wrapped my numb, stiffening fingers around the freezing wooden handles once more. The rough, wet wood bit into my raw palms like teeth. I pulled. Every single muscle in my shoulders and back screamed in protest, the fresh whip wounds beneath my gray dress stretching and tearing.​The barrel didn't budge a fraction of an inch.​"Again!" Cassian barked.​I tried. Nothing.​"Again!"​Nothing.​Hours bled together into a haze of white and grey. My breathing became shallow, ragged gasps that burned

​Lyra's POV​The palace bell rang long before the sun could even dream of painting the horizon.​Two guards were already waiting outside my iron door, their heavy keys rattling in the lock. "Get up, slave. Now."​I pushed myself off the freezing, unforgiving stone floor, every single fiber of my being screaming in protest. The fresh, tightly wrapped bandages across my back pulled painfully with my every movement, a sharp reminder of yesterday's agonizing trials.​One guard unlocked the heavy cell door while the other stepped forward, fastening the cold iron chain back to my leather collar with a harsh click.​"His Majesty has changed your duties for the morning," the guard muttered.​I frowned, my throat dry. "...Changed?"​Neither of them offered an answer. Instead, they marched me through a maze of unfamiliar, increasingly grand corridors, heading far away from the brutal, snowy training grounds. Something felt wrong. The air was changing, growing warmer, and a deep instinct in my c

​Lyra's POV​Silence.​The entire training ground had fallen under a dead, suffocating quiet.​The heavy wooden sword slipped from my numb, slick fingers, landing with a soft, hollow thud in the fresh powder. My heart violently lurched into my throat, thrashing like a trapped bird.​What had I done?​I had struck the Blood King. Even if it had been barely enough to brush the dark leather of his sleeve... I had dared to lay a weapon against his person.​The remaining color drained entirely from my face, leaving me cold. "I-I'm sorry, Your Majesty," I choked out, my voice cracking in the bitter air.​No one moved. No one dared to draw a single breath. Cassian’s hand instinctively drifted down toward the heavy hilt of the broadsword resting at his hip. Several seasoned warriors exchanged panicked, wide-eyed glances in the background.​One of them whispered beneath his breath, "...She's a corpse."​Kael slowly looked down at his leather vambrace, tracking the faint, damp mark where the wo

​Lyra's POV​The slow, echoing applause finally died away.​The vast training grounds returned to that familiar, suffocating silence. I tightened my bleeding, trembling fingers around the rough hilt of the wooden sword, pouring every ounce of my remaining focus into stopping my hands from shaking.​Every single breath felt like a knife twisting between my ribs. The flesh across my back throbbed beneath the layers of linen, and a hot, steady trickle of blood continued to run down from the cut above my eyebrow, painting the side of my face crimson.​Kael stood only a few feet away, his towering frame cutting an imposing figure against the gray winter sky. His piercing crimson eyes swept over my broken posture, tracking the violent purple blooming across my skin.​"You can barely stand," he observed, his voice completely flat.​"I am standing," I whispered.​The defiant words slipped past my bloody lips before my conscious mind could even think to stop them.​Several of the nearby recrui