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chapter 18
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Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 19
“He is the king!” she rages. “It doesn’t matter how he signed it. You should think of him, speak of him, as if he’s your king. And he should think of you as just another subject. He clearly does not.”She goes to my closet and throws open the doors, disappearing inside as she mutters about needing to buy me an appropriate wardrobe. I hear her pawing through my clothes in annoyance before she emerges with a black crepe top with pleated white sleeve cuffs and a prim peter-pan neckline. She jerks a pair of black tie-waist trousers off their hanger and throws the clothes onto the bed in disgust. “Get dressed. Your Father is waiting to speak to you downstairs.”She leaves and slams the door, and I immediately reach for my phone to check the time. It’s ten o’clock, much later than I’m usually allowed to sleep, and the Daniels will be over for brunch at noon. I put as much hustle into getting ready as I reasonably can and still leave less time between then and now for Father to lecture me.M
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 20
The night of the ball, every light in Aconitum Hall was lit. Tonight, it’s mostly dark. It’s not as inviting; the towers loom sinister and medieval over the city, blotting out the sky rather than polluting it with added light.I take a deep breath as I step out of my car. Mother and Father refused to let me take the driver and I’m not sure where one parks at a royal palace. My shoes crunch on the gravel of the small parking area beyond the front porte cochere. I head in that direction, my heart beating in an unfamiliar and worrying pattern. The door opens at the top of the steps, and I expect to see a thrall butler there. But it’s Nathan.Nathan just opened his front door. Like he’s a person and not a king. I freeze in place. He does, too. It’s a strange moment; before, the undeniable attraction between us was insulated by the presence of others and the etiquette demanded by our society. It felt like if only we were alone, nothing would hold him back. Now, it appears we are alone, and
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 21
“That must have been traumatic.” He comes over and hands me a glass, but he doesn’t sit beside me. Instead, he takes an armchair, leaning back comfortably with a highball glass of something amber-colored.I’m not sure if I should downplay what the experience was like. It was definitely traumatic. After sitting in a bare office room, shivering in my ceremonial robe while Mother and Father screamed at me, I was whisked away home to collect as much as I could stuff into my luggage in thirty minutes. A change of clothes and I was on a private plane to an uncertain future.Not even my sisters knew what happened to me. Not even my best friends.Yet, I can blurt it all out to this stranger. “When I arrived in London, I didn’t even have a place to stay. I went to a hotel and used the credit card Father gave me. A few days later, he wired me money and a promise that I would be taken care of, but at seventeen, with nothing but my passport and someone else’s money, it was difficult to get an apa
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 22
He follows that bombshell with, “I hope you like venison.”I stumble into the dining room, where a large table is set for two at one end.“It’s very fresh,” he goes on. “I hunted it myself during the full moon.”I can’t get past his earlier statement. “You did it?”“Well, you know. The only things to do during the full moon are fuck, fight, or hunt.” He pulls a chair out for me and I sit obediently, out of habit.“I’m not talking about the deer!” I lean toward him as he sits and for some reason, I lower my voice like we’re in danger of being overheard. “You invoked the Right of Accord? Your pack has a Right of Accord?”He nods and lifts his hand to signal the staff for the first course. As the thralls place bowls of pale cream soup in front of us, Nathan elaborates. “All packs operate under the same law, given to us by Lycaon the Younger. Didn’t they teach that in school?”I shake my head. “I assumed pack law was just the law of our individual pack.”“Hmm.” He considers for a moment.
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 23
“I am engaged!” I cough out.“And we’ve established that you don’t want to be, so that’s one challenge overcome.”And once again, I’m being steamrolled by a man who thinks he can just have me.Meanwhile, my body is still shouting, he can have you any time he wants! But the chemistry between Nathan and I isn’t enough for me to walk from one cage into another.“Changes need to be made here if this pack is going to survive,” Nathan tells me. “You and I are the only werewolves in the allied packs to invoke the right in a hundred years. Imagine what we could do together.”I have imagined what we could do together. Just not in the way he’s proposing.“That way, too.”Is he reading my mind?He must see my panic, because he explains, “Your scent. Let’s drop the pretense. I know you want me. And I want you.”What’s it called when everything swells up and you can’t breathe? Anaphylaxis?That, but for my pussy.“Think about what I’ve said.” He switches smoothly back into what sounds like a busin
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 24
"I try to hold the top closed over my cleavage. “Maybe we need to put a button or—”“A button? On a ceremonial robe?” She shakes her head. “Let’s not lead a fashion rebellion.”“I know we’ve done things a certain way for a long time, but it’s not like buttons are a fad. We could probably adopt them and not risk the downfall of the pack,” I say with a derisive snort I can’t hold back.“Your mate has to be able to take it off of you,” she says.It’s all in a day’s work for her, but talking about the actual act of mating as part of the ceremony makes me profoundly uncomfortable, especially since we’re talking about Ashton being the guy doing the undressing. I try to laugh it off. “Look, I’m not going to claim my fiancé is the smartest guy ever, but I think he can handle buttons.”Melissa’s expression falls, and suddenly I’m not sure we’re having the same conversation. Her eyes dart toward the curtain, hardly a soundproof barrier between us and the women beyond it, and she lowers her voic
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 25
Tara can’t look me in the eye now. “Not like at the festival. It’s a real whip, and it really, really hurts. I felt so bad for Josh because he kept saying ‘sorry’ after every lash.”“No way.” I push myself up from the bed and bolt across the room, as if I can escape the ceremony by getting further from my sister’s description of it.“Do you want me to keep talking, or have you heard enough?” Tara asks, genuine concern behind her words.I don’t want to hear anymore, but not knowing will only make whatever I imagine after worse than it probably actually is. “Fine.”She hesitates, but continues when I shoot her an icy glare. “After the whipping, he transforms and the two of you…mate.”“While he’s a werewolf?” Maybe I’ve been around humans too long, but that sounds so disgusting to me. Plus, everyone else in there is doing it, too? “Do the acolytes like, watch or something? This is so gross!”“Nobody watches. That I know of,” she quickly revises. “But trust me, it’s not as mortifying as i
Betrothed To The Alpha King chapter 26
He pours himself some scotch, barely looking at me as he asks, “Is it what you want?”“I want the mating pact between Ashton Daniels and I dissolved. I want it dissolved or else—” Or else, what? I’ll leave the pack forever? They can’t force me to stay, but the thought of trying to live in the human world on my own, without my father’s financial support, terrifies me.“Never resort to ultimatums, Bailey,” he says calmly. “It puts you in a weak position and ends a negotiation.”“It’s not a negotiation. It’s just…I can’t be with him. The thought of the mating ceremony alone disgusts me.” My face gets hot talking about it in front of him. I quickly add, “And I don’t want to have to live with him and be the mate he wants me to be.”Tears roll down my cheeks and I swipe them away, but the words I don’t want to say, the ones I haven’t dared myself to even think, force their way out, pushed by my panic. “I’m afraid.”Now that I’ve acknowledged my fear, the full force of it grips me. Sheer ter
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