All Chapters of The Human Slave Mated To The Alpha king : Chapter 71 - Chapter 79

The lamp on the side table had burned down to a dull orange glow. Shadows stretched long across the floor and up the walls. Outside, the palace had gone quiet the way it only did in the deepest hours of the night.I sat forward in the chair, elbows on my knees, and watched the slow rise and fall of her chest. In. Out. Steady. Too steady. She hadn’t moved since I laid her down. Not a shift of her fingers. Not a turn of her head. Nessa slept in the corner with her chin tucked to her chest, one hand still resting on the arm of the chair as if she had meant to stay awake and failed.My jaw hurt from how hard I’d been clenching it.*You’re going to crack a tooth,* Leo said.I didn’t bother answering. My eyes stayed on Kiara’s face. The bond sat wrong between us present, but distant, like she was standing on the other side of thick glass. I could feel her, but I couldn’t reach her.*She’s alive. You’ve checked enough times.*“That doesn’t explain what I saw.”*The gold, it happened again.*

The room was dim. A lamp still burned somewhere to the side. My head throbbed in a slow, heavy way that made me not want to move. My mouth felt dry. For a second I just lay there, trying to remember why I was in bed. Nothing came. Only the ache and the quiet.Then I saw him.Zayn was in the chair beside the bed, head bowed, face resting against his hand. He looked like he had been there a long time. His shoulders were tight even in that position, like he was scared to even fall asleep, and for a second my heart tugged at me.I shifted a little under the blanket.His head snapped up so fast the chair creaked. He stared at me for a split second like he wasn’t sure he was seeing right, then the tension in his face broke.“Goddess sake,” he said, voice rough. “You’re finally awake.”He was out of the chair and leaning over me before I could answer. One hand braced on the mattress near my shoulder. His eyes moved over my face, checking, searching.“How do you feel? Does your head still hur

Zayn Pov“There’s something else,” Tristan said as we moved through the inner walls toward the gate. His boots struck the stone hard. Torches along the corridor threw long shadows ahead of us. “I didn’t want to say it in front of her.”I kept walking. “What is it? Did you find anything on the golden eyes?”“Nothing on that yet.” He hesitated, jaw working once. “But the vampires and the witches. They’re demanding her. Your mate.”I stopped so hard the guards behind us nearly walked into my back.“What?”“They say if you want to save the kingdom, you hand her over.” Tristan’s voice stayed level, but his eyes weren’t. “That’s the price they’re naming out there. Her, or they keep tearing at the barrier until nothing’s left. They’re not even pretending it’s about territory anymore.”Anger hit so fast Leo surged under my skin, claws scraping the inside of my mind. The bond pulled tight toward the rooms we’d just left. Tristan was lucky he was only carrying the message.“I am never giving he

Kiara Pov What’s actually going on here? I thought, still standing.He pulled away from the hug and looked at me. Up close, the blood on his skin looked darker. There were cuts along his side that hadn’t closed the way werewolf wounds usually did. His eyes were still too bright, like the fight hadn’t fully left him. For a second neither of us spoke. The room felt smaller with him in it.“I’m so sorry,” he said, voice rough. Then he turned and went into the bathroom without waiting for an answer.The door shut. Water started running.A few minutes ago I’d been sitting with Nessa on this same bed, trying to make sense of why witches and vampires were asking for me by name. What my part in any of this was supposed to be. She’d looked scared when she said it *you* like the word itself might summon something through the walls. Now the king of the palace had come through the door as a wolf first, then as a man covered in someone else’s blood or his own and he’d held me like the floor might