Rejected by my Alpha, Claimed by the King의 모든 챕터: 챕터 31 - 챕터 40

**This chapter was written in Briar's POV for better context. I apologise for any confusions that may cause.The tunnel smells like old grain and colder stone, and I've been crouched in the dark of it for the better part of an hour before I hear footsteps.Soren's somewhere behind me with two guards, moving slower, checking side passages we've already decided are dead ends. I didn't wait for them. I've never been good at waiting for anything, and every minute Corin spends breathing free air is a minute closer to the things we've been avoiding.The footsteps stop.I press flat against the tunnel wall, my own breathing gone shallow and careful, and listen. A scrape of boot against stone. A muttered curse, low, frustrated. Whoever it is has hit something unexpected in the dark.I round the corner before I let myself think too hard about it.Corin's crouched over a locked grate, working at it with a knife that isn't built for the job, a small lantern casting more shadow than light around

The royal archive sits beneath the west tower, a room almost nobody visits unless necessary, and I haven't set foot in it myself in longer than I can remember.Soren holds the lamp while I work through shelves that haven't been disturbed in years, dust thick enough to leave prints where my fingers drag across the spines. Silvermoon's records are easy enough to find. Every pack in the kingdom files births, deaths, and matings with the crown, a tradition older than either of us."Vance," I say, running a finger down a column of names. "The Beta's line. Here."The entry's thin. A marriage recorded two decades back. A single child listed below it, Luna, no complications noted. And beside the mother's name, a line I almost miss entirely because it's written in a different hand than the rest of the page, added later, cramped into the margin like someone wanted it there but didn't want it easy to find.Maren Vance. Origin unconfirmed."Origin unconfirmed," Soren reads over my shoulder. "That

The letter arrives with the evening post, tucked between a supply ledger and a request for more bandages, and I almost miss it entirely.Mira's the one who hands it to me, her face carefully neutral."This came for you," she says. "Silvermoon crest. I didn't open it."I turn it over in my hands, and there it is. The pressed wax stamp I grew up seeing on every official document that ever passed through our house. My father's own seal, not the pack's formal one. He only used this for personal letters. I can count on one hand the number of times I ever received one."Thank you," I say, and Mira leaves without asking the question I can see sitting behind her eyes.I don't open it right away.I carry it to the small window in my room instead and sit with it unopened in my lap for long, turning it over, running my thumb along the wax like that might tell me something about what's written underneath it. Part of me wants to burn it unread. It wasn't going to be any different. I told myself.

Kane's POV,I don't sleep that night.I sit in the chair beside her bed, one leg crossed over the other, and I watch her. The lamp is low. The window is shut. The guards are doubled outside the door, and Soren is somewhere in the corridor, refusing to go to bed because he knows better than to leave me like this.The assassin is in the dungeon. He'll be questioned in the morning. He'll give me names by midday, because I will make him.But none of that matters right now.What matters is the woman asleep in my bed.She's warm.The thought slides into my skull before I can stop it. Not mine. His.Vaelor has been pacing inside my ribs since the moment I carried her out of that room, and he hasn't stopped. He doesn't stop. He never stops, not when it comes to her."Look at her. Look at how small she is. Look at how still. Do you know how long it's been since we've had something worth protecting?""She's not a thing to protect.""She's ours."I don't answer him. There's no point. Arguing with

Luna's POVNeither of us moves.Kane stands in the doorway with his hand still on the frame, and I sit in the middle of his bed with the blankets pulled up to my chest, and the crack in the wall sits between us like a third person in the room.He looks at it again. Then at me."How are you feeling?" he asks.It's such a small question, and he asks it so evenly, that I don't know what to answer. How am I feeling. Like I almost met with death and then something inside me answered a call. Like my entire world has shifted an inch to the left and I'm the only one who noticed."I'm fine," I say.He raises a brow. He looks like he doesn't believe me. "You threw a man twice your size across the room last night," he says. "Without touching him. You damaged the poor wall behind with the force of it. And you're fine?""I said I'm fine.""You're lying."I meet his eyes. The silver in them is dimmer this morning. Not the bright, sharp glint I've seen when he's angry. But it's still there, still r