Todos los capítulos de Rejected by My Alpha, Claimed by the Lycan King: Capítulo 11 - Capítulo 15

Lyra’s POV"He's here," Darius said, appearing at my door before I'd even finished pinning my hair. "Sooner than expected. Cassian wants you in the receiving hall within the hour.""The High Elder." My stomach dropped, the raven's message Cassian had shown me two days ago suddenly feeling far more real than it had on parchment. "I thought we had more time.""So did Cassian." Darius's mouth was a thin, unhappy line. "Malachar doesn't announce his movements until he's already made them. Keeps everyone reacting instead of preparing."I dressed quickly, choosing the simplest gown I owned despite Mira's insistence the night before that I ought to look "like someone worth taking seriously." I didn't feel like someone worth taking seriously. I felt like a girl about to meet the man responsible for whatever secret had turned Elowen's face to ash.The receiving hall was already crowded by the time Darius escorted me in — courtiers lining the walls, Cassian seated at the head of the room in for

Lyra’s POVElowen didn't speak again until we were well away from the healer's house, moving through quiet corridors and out a narrow side door I hadn't even noticed before, into a small walled garden tucked behind the palace's oldest wing.Moonflowers climbed nearly every surface here, pale and closed against the daylight, waiting for a darkness that wouldn't arrive for hours yet. The air smelled faintly of crushed herbs and old stone, quieter than anywhere else I'd found within these walls."This place is warded," she said, closing the gate behind us with a soft, deliberate click. "No one listens here. No one watches. It's the only place in this entire palace I trust enough for this conversation.""That's not reassuring," I said."It isn't meant to be reassuring. It's meant to be honest." She led me toward a stone bench beneath an old, gnarled tree, silver moonflowers climbing its trunk despite the early hour. "Sit, child. This will take some time, and you'll want to be sitting for

Lyra’s POVI didn't know how long I sat alone in the garden after Elowen left, the locket still clutched tight in my hand, my mother's painted face staring up at me from beneath the tarnished clasp.Long enough that the moonflowers had begun opening around me, pale and silver in the deepening evening light. Long enough that the ache in my chest had settled into something quieter, less like screaming and more like a bruise I kept accidentally pressing."I thought I might find you here."I looked up to find Cassian standing at the garden's narrow entrance, no crown, no formal coat, nothing of the careful, guarded King I'd grown used to seeing in council halls and receiving rooms. Just a tall, tired-looking man in a plain shirt, watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read."Elowen told you," I said. It wasn't a question."She did." He crossed the garden slowly, giving me every opportunity to tell him to leave if I wanted to. I didn't. He settled onto the bench beside me instead,