บททั้งหมดของ My Alpha Lost Me To The Lycan King : บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

**King Alaric**Steel flashed beyond the gate.I didn't have time to shout a warning. I didn't have time for anything except closing the last few yards between myself and Corwin's retreating back, my wolf surging up through my skin so fast the world blurred at the edges.Corwin's hand was already on the latch.I hit him before he could pull it open, my shoulder slamming into his spine, both of us crashing into the wet grass in a tangle of limbs. He grunted, twisting hard, and for a man his age he fought with a desperation that startled me—not the strength of a young Alpha, but the terrible, single-minded strength of someone with nothing left to lose."Give her to me," I snarled, wrestling for the bundle in his arms."You don't understand!" Corwin's voice cracked, raw and broken. "They said they could save her! My Lyra, my granddaughter—she's dying, Alaric, she's *dying* and no healer in this kingdom could stop it, but they said—they *promised*—""They lied to you." I wrenched the infa

**King Alaric**For one suspended, impossible heartbeat, I believed Elliott had betrayed me.Then I saw his face.He wasn't standing with the Shadow Fang soldiers. He was standing *against* them, sword raised, blood already soaking through the shoulder of his shirt, his body positioned squarely between the invading line and the shattered gate behind him—as though he'd been fighting his way *toward* the breach rather than through it."Draven!" I barked, sword raised, unwilling to trust the sight in front of me even as instinct screamed it at me."They're not with me!" Elliott shouted back, parrying a blade aimed at his ribs, shoving the attacker back with a snarl that carried more fury than I'd ever heard from him. "I came to warn you—Ashgrave moved faster than Tyler's message could reach you, and I ran into his advance party at your own damned gate!"I didn't have the luxury of trusting him. I didn't have the luxury of doubting him either, not with a dozen Shadow Fang soldiers pouring

**King Alaric**"Bring her to them directly." The words sat in my chest like a blade still lodged too deep to pull free.Elise had gone very still beside me, one hand curled protectively over her stomach, the other clutching the parchment's edge though I hadn't let go of it. "Bring me where, Alaric? To the gate? To Ashgrave himself?""I don't know." I forced myself to think past the roaring in my ears. "But if someone inside these walls means to hand you over, they'll need you moving. Alone, if they can manage it. Somewhere the guards won't follow."Reyes was already speaking, urgent and low. "Your Majesty, we should move her to the vault beneath the chapel. Stone on every side, one entrance, easily defended—""No." Elise's voice cut through him, steadier than I expected given the parchment shaking faintly between my fingers. "If I disappear into some hole in the ground, whoever this traitor is will simply wait until I have to come out. We need to know who it is *now*, not hide from t

**King Alaric**The horn's echo hadn't even faded before Elise was moving, and I caught her wrist before she could round the corridor's bend."Wait." My voice came out harder than I intended, fear sharpening it into something close to command. "We don't know what that means yet.""I know exactly what it means." She didn't pull away, but her whole body strained toward the sound, toward whatever it promised. "That's Frost Moon's rally call, Alaric. Elliott only sounds it when his own men are under direct attack."Reyes had gone very still beside us, his earlier confession momentarily forgotten in the face of a threat none of us had accounted for. "Your Majesty, if Draven's forces are engaging inside the grounds—""Then either he's found the chapel postern himself," I said, the pieces slamming together with sickening speed, "or Ashgrave's men have found *him* first, and mistaken Frost Moon colors for another rival to eliminate before the real prize."Elise's breath caught. "You think the

**King Alaric**Everything in me screamed to stop her.Elise walked toward Ashgrave with a steadiness that didn't belong to a woman who'd been running for her life since the moment I'd met her, and I understood, watching her go, that some part of her had already decided this — weighed her own worth against Lucia's life and Corwin's granddaughter's cure and the war still bleeding out along my walls, and found herself the only acceptable currency left to spend.I would not let her spend it."Elise." My voice cracked across the clearing, raw with something I no longer bothered disguising as composure. "Stop."She didn't stop, but she glanced back, just once, and the look in her eyes wasn't resignation. It was calculation.*Trust me,* it said, plain as speech.I didn't understand it yet. But three years of watching her survive impossible men had taught me that Elise Thorne rarely walked into a trap without already mapping three ways out of it.Ashgrave's men parted to admit a woman in dar