All Chapters of The Alpha's Untamed Mate: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

My father waited until we reached the second-story landing before he turned on me. "What the hell did I tell you last night?" His voice cracked through the stairwell loudly enough to carry well beyond the landing. Music still drifted up from the ballroom below, softened by distance and and closed doors, but there was nothing quiet about him. I stopped two steps below the landing and stared at him, anger already pushing aside the lingering warmth Kieran had left beneath my skin. "You dragged me out of the ballroom for this?" "For this?" He came down one step, his face already flushed. "I told you to stay away from Blackstone." "And I told you that wasn't going to be possible while he's staying in our house. There are four members of Blackstone's Leadership upstairs, Kieran is sitting in council sessions downstairs, he's eating meals with us, and he's attending every event we're hosting this week. What exactly do you expect me to do?" "I expect you to do what you're told." The wo

Dinner became business almost immediately. Crawford brought up the emergency-response proposal before the first course had been cleared.“The current draft puts too much of the regional burden on the larger packs,” he said. “We're expected to maintain our own emergency capacity and then supplement everyone else's.”Bellamy shook his head. “You're making it sound as though smaller packs don't maintain anything.”“I'm saying their threshold for requesting support is too low.”“It scales by population.”“And population isn't the only measure of capacity.”Kieran had been cutting into his dinner, but he set his fork down. “What would you use instead?”Crawford turned toward him. “Resources.”“Defined how?”“Warriors. Medical staff. Equipment on hand, to start.”“That gives wealthy packs an incentive to underreport capacity.”Crawford's mouth tightened. “I'm not suggesting anyone falsify numbers.”“No, but you're proposing a system that rewards them for having fewer resources on paper.”Be

I started toward the stairs.By the time I reached the third floor, some of the anger had burned itself down into something heavier. My arm still throbbed beneath the sleeve of my dress, and Lyra remained restless despite having stopped demanding that I shift. I pushed through the double doors into the guest corridor and automatically looked toward Room Thirty.The door was closed.I should have kept walking.My bedroom was less than a minute away, and there was nothing stopping me from going inside, taking off the dress, washing my face and putting the entire day behind me. Kieran didn't need to know what had happened in my father's office. He had already involved himself once today, and the last thing I needed was another confrontation between two Alphas because Marcus had grabbed my arm.I made it past his door.Knock.I kept walking.Clara.No.You want to.That was the problem.I reached the family-wing doors and put my hand on one of them, but instead of opening it, I stood ther

I woke up at six forty-five in the morning and immediately remembered Kieran Blackstone's mouth.My eyes opened to the pale ceiling above my bed, and for several seconds, I didn't move. The heating system hummed quietly through the wall, someone downstairs rolled something heavy enough across the kitchen floor that I could hear the wheels through two stories, and a door closed somewhere farther down the family wing. My room looked exactly as it had when I'd left it the night before. My phone was charging beside the bed. Yesterday's clothes were folded over the chair. The moonstone necklace still rested against my chest because apparently I'd been too tired to take it off before falling asleep.Everything was normal.I knew what Kieran looked like naked.I pulled the blanket over my head.That accomplished nothing except removing the ceiling from my line of sight and giving my memory considerably fewer distractions. Last night came back with humiliating clarity: crossing through the do

When I returned to the conference room, Rachel was standing beside the table with her arms folded. Her gaze went from me to the records-room door and then to the bottle of upholstery cleaner still clutched in my hand.“Before you say anything, I wasn't hiding.”“Of course not.”“I needed something.”Rachel looked toward the records room. “With an upholstery cleaner?”I followed her gaze to the bottle and realized I hadn't planned far enough ahead to survive questioning.She waited.“Fine. Maybe I was hiding a little.”“A little.”“I am having a weird morning.”“That much I've gathered.”Rachel stepped closer and took the towel from my other hand before I could resume attacking the chair. The coffee stain had disappeared several minutes ago, and the fabric was now noticeably lighter where I'd been scrubbing it.“Whatever is happening, could you try not to destroy the furniture while you work through it?”“I make no promises.”“That worries me.”She handed me the folder she'd brought wi