Lahat ng Kabanata ng Betrayed By My Alpha Mate, Claimed By The Lycan Prince : Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 27

SierraI noticed the first shadow three days after the poisoning, trailing me at a careful distance during my morning walk through the east garden. I noticed the second the following afternoon, stationed just outside the training ring, watching Fenris knock me down with an attentiveness that had nothing to do with admiring the technique. By the fourth day, I'd counted no fewer than three separate guards positioned wherever I happened to be, none of them announcing themselves, all of them pretending to be occupied with something else entirely whenever I looked their way.I found Kairo in his study that evening and didn't bother sitting down first."I want to know why I'm being followed."He didn't look up immediately from the correspondence in front of him, which told me he'd been expecting this conversation and had hoped to delay it a little longer. "You're not being followed. You're being protected.""There's a man stationed outside my window right now pretending to inspect the hed

Kairo"You look troubled," Liriel said, settling into the chair across from my desk without waiting for an invitation, the way she'd done since we were children and formality had never quite applied between us."Council business.""You always say that when it isn't council business." She studied me with the particular patience of someone who'd known me longer than almost anyone left alive. "Is it about the poisoning? Any progress on who's responsible?""Some thread. Nothing certain.""You suspect someone.""I'm not discussing it, Liriel.""Fair enough." She let the silence sit for a moment, then added, almost carelessly, "It's strange, though. Sierra's been oddly private lately, hasn't she? More than usual, I mean.""She's recovering. People withdraw when they're recovering.""Is that what it is." She said it lightly, not quite a question, and I felt something small and unwelcome catch in my chest at the phrasing. "I only mention it because I've noticed her disappearing for stretches

SierraKairo didn't speak to me the next morning. Or the morning after that.It wasn't cruelty, exactly. He was polite when we crossed paths, correct in every outward way a prince was supposed to be correct with his wife. But the warmth was gone, folded away somewhere I couldn't reach, and the silence between us had teeth now in a way it hadn't before the stables came up.I was still turning that over three days later when Varek found me in the corridor outside my chambers, his face carrying the same grim urgency I'd seen the night the Glendale letter came in."Where's the Prince," I asked."Already summoned. You should come as well." He didn't elaborate further, just turned and led the way, and I followed with my pulse climbing, certain whatever this was, it wasn't good.Kairo was already in the war room when we arrived, a map of Glendale's territory spread across the table, one of his scout’s standing rigid beside it."Tell her what you told me," Kairo said, not looking up.The scou

FenrisThree weeks into training her the new way, I still didn't know what Sierra was planning. I'd stopped expecting her to tell me.I watched her cross a stretch of open ground that morning without a sound, low and controlled, timing her movement to the gap between two patrol markers I'd set up the day before. She was getting good. Better than good, for someone who'd started from nothing six months ago, good enough that some part of me had stopped worrying about whether she could do whatever this was, and started worrying about what it actually was instead."Better," I said, when she reached the far tree line. "You're anticipating the gap now instead of reacting to it.""Is that enough?""Enough for training ground conditions, real grounds different. Real patrols don't move on a schedule I set for you." I studied her, sweat-streaked and focused, and asked the question I'd asked a dozen times already, knowing I'd get the same answer. "Still not going to tell me where you're plannin