All Chapters of Broken by My Family, Reclaimed by the Alpha King: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Dorian's POVShe didn't look away first.I held her stare a second longer than it needed, watching her plant her feet the way she used to before a spar, chin up, weight already shifted forward like she still had something to prove. She used to. Not anymore.I still had the bird on me. Three years, and I hadn't managed to leave it behind once.I found the drain grate at the edge of the stable yard without breaking stride and let it go through before I could think better of it. No sound going down. I didn't wait to hear one.There. Done.I turned before she could read one more thing off my face and walked past the stable doors, past two grooms too busy with the delayed wagons to notice I'd been standing there at all. She didn't deserve one more second of my time, so I made sure she didn't get it.There was real work waiting. I'd told her a brand like hers didn't need a real reason, only someone willing to give it one, and I'd already decided that was me.There was still a knife sitting

Dorian's POV "He's alive. Barely. Somebody get a healer, now."He looked around at all of us, chest still heaving, like he couldn't understand why nobody had moved yet. "He's lying out there half dead and you're all just standing here."That broke whatever had been holding the yard still. Half a dozen warriors peeled off toward the tree line before he'd even lowered his arm, one of them already shouting back over his shoulder for a litter.Delegation guards went with them, faster even than our own, boots tearing up ground that had already seen too much this week. For a few minutes nobody in that yard was thinking about wagons or departures at all, just getting him back inside before he stopped being someone they could still save.It was only once they'd gone, once there was nothing left in that yard to do but wait, that the rest of it caught up with everyone still standing there.Callum's jaw started working the same way it had the night Colette spilled wine down the King's shirt, rig

Alpha King Cassian's POV Her blood hit me first, sharp and copper on the air, before my eyes had even found her on that floor.She wasn't moving. One whole side of her face had swollen dark, blood crusted at her mouth, her hands stained purple to the wrist from whatever they'd forced her to do to them. My stomach dropped out from under me before my mind caught up to what I was looking at.Fangs pushed through my gums, sharp enough to split my own lip before I clamped my jaw shut against them, and I held the shift there by force, teeth half lengthened, tasting my own blood mixed with hers on the air.Kill them, my wolf snarled, already fighting to shove past me and take over.My hands closed into fists on their own, claws already breaking through, cutting into my own palms before I felt them start. My jaw locked hard enough to crack. Every vein down both arms stood out like they were trying to climb through my skin, every part of me aimed at the three shapes standing over her and one

Alpha King Cassian's POV Callum's mouth opened, then shut again, whatever he'd meant to say dying somewhere behind his teeth.He didn't try a second time. He stepped aside instead, out of my path, out of the doorway, out of whatever authority he'd been standing on a moment ago. I didn't move yet.Colette was still frozen by the overturned basin, her hands stained violet from the dye spilled across the floor, watching me like she couldn't tell which direction I was about to break in."You will not touch her again." I said it to both of them at once, not raising my voice, because it didn't need raising anymore. "Either of you. Whatever this pack decides to call justice for tonight, that part isn't negotiable."Colette's mouth opened, some defense already in her head. Whatever she saw on my face killed it before a word of it reached me."You stay on these grounds until I decide otherwise. Both of you. I don't care if it's guards standing over you or your own sense keeping you in line, bu

Alpha Callum's POV I'd been sitting at this desk since the hall, and hadn't read a single word of what was in front of me.I told myself it was because there was too much to manage, guards to reassign, a delegation to placate, a King's fury still ringing in the stone of my own house. All of that was true. None of it was the real reason.The real reason was that every time my eyes stopped moving across the page, I saw Dorian's face in that torchlight, one eye swollen shut, dragged there like an animal, and I couldn't make the two versions of him sit still in my head long enough to look at either one properly. The one who'd pushed me harder on Elle's case than anyone else in this house, and made me respect him more for it, not less. And the man who'd burned a family alive and let me stand there defending him to a King who already had it all on tape.I looked down at some point to find both hands pressed flat against the desk, hard enough to ache, though I couldn't have said when that s