All Chapters of Broken by My Family, Reclaimed by the Alpha King: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Murielle’s POVNeither of them said anything right away.“Leave.” Callum repeated the word as if he needed to hear it out loud before he could believe I’d said it. “Where do you even think you’re going?”“I don’t know yet. But I don’t want to stay where I’m not wanted anymore.”“After everything?” His voice was already rising. “After this pack nearly lost everything three years ago because of what you let happen? After you made us lose our parents right when they’d finally gotten their real daughter back, after eighteen years apart? After I gave you a home when I didn’t have to?”He stopped for a breath, but it didn’t calm him down.“After what just happened to you in that yard, you’re going to stand there and tell me you’re leaving?”“And my brother.” Dorian hadn’t raised his voice once, and that was worse than if he had. “He doesn’t get a say in any of this because he’s dead, and you’re the reason he doesn’t get to be here arguing for himself. Don’t you dare stand there and forget t

Colette's POVTamsin found me in the garden two days after Murielle's beating, out of breath like she'd run the whole way just to be the one who told me first."Dorian's still asking questions," she said. "About three years ago. About what really happened. He's saying if Elle didn't do it, he wants to know who did, and why she's the one who's been made to pay for it instead. You should have seen it. He was practically shouting. He put it right to Callum this morning, in front of two of the guards."I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep my face from giving anything away.That wasn't supposed to happen. Dorian's questions were supposed to stay on Elle, the same as everything else in this house did. Never about the truth of what happened three years ago."What did Callum say?""Nothing useful. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world." Tamsin lowered her voice further, delighted by her own information the way she always was. "People are starting to notice, my lady

Murielle’s POV Ten days since the beating, and I still wasn’t back to full strength.Alizeh had moved me out of the infirmary and back into my own room three days before, insisting a familiar bed would do more for me than four more walls that smelled like sickness.Alizeh came by early, before the house was fully awake, and unwound the bandages around my ribs with the same care she always used.“Better,” she said, pressing careful fingers along one side. “Not fully healed, but better.”“How much longer?”“As long as it takes. You’re not going anywhere near heavy work until I say so, and I mean that this time.” She caught the look on my face before I could hide it. “I know you. You’ll be back out at that well or doing some hard labor the second nobody’s looking, telling yourself you’re fine because being useless scares you more than pain does.”She wasn’t wrong, which was worse than if she’d been wrong.“I’ll talk to Alpha Callum myself,” she said, packing her things. “Get you somethi

Murielle’s POVRook stood.He didn't hurry into it, didn't raise his voice to be heard over the murmur. He simply stood, whitewash still dripping down one side of his face, his eyes catching the lantern light wrong for a second, brighter than amber had any right to be. The lawn went quiet around him before he said a single word, a quiet that only settles around someone used to being obeyed without needing to ask twice."She tripped." His voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. "I caught her arm and knocked over a bucket of paint doing it. That's the whole incident, and I'll say it as many times as anyone here needs to hear it before they believe it."Nobody laughed at how he looked. Nobody moved either.I stood there with my mouth slightly open, too stunned to close it. I had never once, in three years, watched anyone speak to Colette like that, calm and certain, like her name carried no weight at all.A small, vicious part of me wanted to cheer. Wanted to watch her flounder in fro

Dorian’s POV I opened my mouth to give it to him.My hand found the inside of my coat instead, some old habit reaching for a button that wasn't there, and closed around something small and carved, worn smooth from three years of my own thumb running over it without meaning to.I hadn't touched it on purpose since the trial.A wooden bird. Two notches for wings, a beak that was little more than a nick gone crooked.She carved it the summer before everything happened, the same week one of the boys she trained gave up twice in one afternoon trying to learn whittling from his father. He was ready to hand the knife back and call himself hopeless at it.She took the wood from him instead and made this, badly, right in front of him."See," she told him, holding it up. "Worse than yours. Keep going anyway."Then she turned around and pressed it into my palm instead of his, laughing, and told me it was the worst bird anyone had ever made and I wasn't allowed to laugh at it.I hadn't laughed.