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All Chapters of CLAIMED BY THE RUTHLESS ALPHA KING : Chapter 31 - Chapter 38

38 Chapters

chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-OneI woke to Greta already moving around the room, laying out a dress I hadn't seen before, deep silver with threads of gold worked through the bodice, nothing like the plain dresses she'd handed me my first weeks here."Damian had it commissioned weeks ago," she said, catching me staring at it. "Before any of this trouble started. Wanted you to have something that felt made just for you, not pulled from whatever the household already had lying around."I sat up slow, the twins making their presence known with a heaviness I hadn't quite gotten used to yet. "Is he awake?""Been awake for hours. Kael's got him going over the guard positions one more time, though at this point I suspect it's more nerves than necessity." Greta smoothed the dress over the back of a chair. "You should eat something before Fenna comes to check on you. Today of all days she won't forgive either of us if you skip breakfast."I let her fuss over me the way she'd been fussing since the night we

Last Updated : 2026-08-27

chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two: The ClaimingChairs everywhere. People from every corner of the region, all dressed up, all watching. Banners strung along the courtyard walls I'd watched go up over the last two days. A dais at the far end, built for a King to stand on and finally say the words he'd been carrying around for weeks.I stood behind a curtain of flowers Greta had rigged up as a makeshift entrance, my mother beside me fixing my dress one more time, my father a few steps back looking more nervous than I'd ever seen him."You look beautiful," my mother said, voice thick. "Your grandmother would have loved this."I touched the necklace at my throat. It had made it through every twist of the last few months right along with me. My chest eased a little, fear or no fear.Kael showed up briefly, quick and quiet. "Everything's clear. Guests checked, wine tested twice, guards in position. As ready as we're going to be.""Thank you," I said, and meant it more than two words could carry.He nodde

Last Updated : 2026-08-29

chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three: Under AttackPeople were screaming. Chairs tipping over. Guards ran for the wall, swords out.Damian pulled me down behind the dais, put himself between me and the courtyard. "Stay low. Don't move from this spot.""Where's my mother? My father?""Kael's got men pulling guests to safety. Trust him."I couldn't see much back there, just legs running past, a flash of steel, shouting everywhere at once. My heart was slamming so hard I felt it in my throat. Both hands went to my stomach without me deciding to put them there.Kael showed up at the edge of the dais, breathing hard, blood on his sleeve that wasn't his. "Six came over the east wall. Maybe more coming. We're pushing them back, but it's ugly out there.""Vex," Damian said. "Is he here?""Haven't seen him. Could be watching from the trees. Could be one of the six." Kael's eyes cut to me. "She needs to get inside. Now.""I'm not leaving him," I said."Elara." Damian's voice went hard, harder than I'd heard f

Last Updated : 2026-08-29

chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-FourThe feast still happened, quieter than planned, half the guests too shaken to eat much, but Damian insisted. Canceling it outright would tell Vex his attack had worked exactly the way he wanted. So we sat at the head table, blood scrubbed off Damian's arm and hidden under a clean sleeve, and smiled through a meal neither of us tasted."You're doing well," my mother murmured, leaning close. "I know this isn't easy.""None of today's been easy." I kept my voice low too. "But we're still here. That's something."Sable found me between courses, moving slow but steady on her own now, and sat beside me without asking. "I heard what happened. Are you all right?""Shaken. Otherwise fine." I looked at her properly. "You shouldn't be out of bed yet.""I wanted to see you were safe with my own eyes." She glanced toward Damian, deep in quiet conversation with Kael a few seats down. "Any word on the ones they caught?""Not yet. I think that's happening after the feast."It was

Last Updated : 2026-09-02

chapter 35

# Chapter Thirty-Five: JudgmentThree days after the ceremony, the council finally convened to decide what happened to Ashby.I sat beside Damian in the formal chamber, a room I hadn't seen before, dark wood and old banners, a half circle of chairs for the handful of lords and advisors who made up the Black Moon Empire's ruling council. Kael stood near the door. Greta sat a few rows back, close enough to watch but not close enough to be seen as taking sides.They brought Ashby in chained, thinner than I remembered him, three days in a cell having stripped away whatever composure he'd worn like armor since I first met him at court. He didn't look at me walking in. He looked at Damian instead, and something in his face had gone past fear into something closer to resignation."Lord Renard Ashby," the eldest council member said, an old wolf named Ferris who'd apparently served two Kings before Damian. "You stand accused of conspiring with Nightshade against this Empire, and of surrenderin

Last Updated : 2026-09-02

chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Map RoomKael called us to the war room two days after Ashby's judgment, a stack of new reports spread across the table, his face tight in a way that told me before he spoke that whatever he'd found wasn't going to make anyone feel better."The prisoner talked more," he said. "Not much, but enough. We pressed him on locations again, and he gave us something this time. A supply route Nightshade's been using, further west than we'd been searching."Damian leaned over the map, tracing the route with one finger. "West. That's not toward their old territory at all.""No. It's toward the Hollow Vale settlements. Small villages, mostly unaffiliated with any pack, easy to move through without drawing much notice." Kael tapped a cluster of marks along the route. "If Vex is operating out there, it explains why we've never found him. Nobody's looking in a place with no pack to report anything unusual."I studied the map, something uneasy sitting in my chest. "Those villa

Last Updated : 2026-09-06

chapter 37

Chapter Thirty-SevenThe scout came back six days later, thinner than he'd left, dust and road grime still clinging to him when Kael brought him straight to the war room without letting him rest first."Report," Damian said, the second the door closed."Hollow Vale's not just a supply route." The scout's voice was rough from days of talking to no one. "Vex has men stationed there. Not many, maybe a dozen, but enough to control the villages through fear. They collect what they call a protection tax. Anyone who refuses to pay, or who talks too openly to strangers, disappears."My stomach turned. "Disappears how?""Nobody says out loud. But everyone knows what it means." The scout's jaw tightened. "I spent three days pretending to be a trader passing through before anyone trusted me enough to talk quietly, and even then, most of what I got was fear, not facts. One woman told me Vex himself came through about two months ago. Stayed a week in a house at the edge of the northernmost village

Last Updated : 2026-09-06

chapter 38

Chapter Thirty-EightFour days felt longer than any stretch of time since I'd arrived at the Black Moon Empire.I tried to keep busy, sitting through fittings for clothes that would fit as my stomach grew, meeting with Fenna twice that week instead of once because the twins had started kicking hard enough to worry me, sitting with Sable in the afternoons as she finished healing and slowly returned to something like her old self. None of it fully distracted me from the knot of worry sitting under my ribs, thinking about Greta somewhere out past the western border, walking calmly into villages controlled by fear and a man who'd spent twenty years learning exactly how to use it.Damian was worse than I was, though he tried not to show it. I caught him standing at windows more often than usual, jaw tight, eyes distant. Kael kept him busy with council matters and guard rotations, but I could tell it was only partly working."She'll be fine," I told him, the third night, finding him on the

Last Updated : 2026-09-10

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