The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 135

1.3K

<When I woke

+25 Points

When I woke

(Isla)

I woke up warm.

That was the first thing. The particular deep warmth that wasn’t about the room or the covers but about the bond sitting between us the way it hadn’t sat all day. Quiet. Present. Not pulling. Just there.

I lay still and let myself take stock before I opened my eyes. My body felt different. Not wrong. The opposite of wrong. Like something that had been wound too tight had finally

been allowed to release.

I opened my eyes.

Caius was watching me.

Not with concern. Not with the careful attention he used when he was assessing something. Just watching the way he watched things that mattered to him, present and unhurried, giving me time to arrive fully before he said anything.

“How long?” I said.

“Two hours,” he said.

I looked at the window. The light had changed. Later in the afternoon than when I’d last been conscious. I lay there for a moment and let that settle.

“Did it work?” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

I knew it had. I could feel the difference without needing him to confirm it. The bond was still there between us, warm and present, but the pressure that had been building all day was gone. Vorak was quiet. Vaela was settled inside me in the particular way she settled when something had been resolved rather than managed.

I looked at my wrist.

Then my collarbone.

His scent was on my skin. I could feel it more than smell it, the particular quality of something that had been transferred rather than simply absorbed through proximity. I understood what that meant. What it looked like to another wolf. What it said without either

When I woke

of us having to say it.

I looked at him. “You’re marked too,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

+25 Points

I held that for a moment. Not with discomfort. With the particular clarity of someone understanding something properly for the first time. Every wolf who came near either of us would know. There was nothing ambiguous about what scent marking meant to a wolf. It was as close to a declaration as you could make without the mark itself.

“How do you feel?” he said.

I thought about that honestly before I answered. “Different,” I said. “Like the volume went

down.”

Something moved through his expression. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what it does.”

“You could’ve told me sooner,” I said.

“You weren’t ready sooner,” he said.

I looked at him. He looked back. That was true and we both knew it and there wasn’t anything to argue with in it.

Vaela stirred inside me.

‘He waited,‘ she said.

‘I know,‘ I said.

‘That matters,‘ she said.

I didn’t answer her because she was right and she knew it and she didn’t need me to confirm

1. it.

I sat up slowly. My body felt heavier than usual in a way that wasn’t unpleasant, the particular weight of someone who had been pulled deep and had come back up slowly. Caius stayed where he was and let me move at my own pace without reaching for me or asking if I needed anything.

That was one of the things about him I’d stopped being surprised by.

He always knew when to stay still.

I pushed my hair back and looked at the window and thought about everything that had happened today. The office. The bond building through the morning. The food. His hand. The

When I woke

+25 Points

corridor. The room. All of it leading to this, to waking up in the quiet of a bond that had finally been given what it needed.

“The meeting,” I said.

“Two days,” he said.

I nodded once. Two days was enough. We’d covered what we needed to cover and what remained was the thing itself. Caden at neutral ground. Whatever he came looking for. Whatever we showed him without trying to show him anything.

I looked at Caius. “Are you alright?” I said.

He looked at me for a moment. “Yes,” he said.

“Vorak?”

“Quiet,” he said. “For now.”

I smiled at that. For now. As if the quiet was temporary and we both knew it and neither of us was pretending otherwise. The bond would build again. It always did. But today had given us something to measure it against, a proof that there was a way through it that didn’t require

either of us to cross a line we hadn’t chosen to cross.

I turned my head and looked at him. “Next time will be easier,” I said.

He looked at me. “Probably,” he said.

“Probably isn’t yes,” I said.

Something moved through his expression. “No,” he said. “But it’s close.”

Vaela moved inside me, warm and certain.

‘You trust him,‘ she said.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You’ve trusted him for a while,’ she said.

‘I know,‘ I said.

I looked at Caius sitting beside me in the quiet of the room and thought about the first time I’d seen him. Standing in the doorway of the shack with the light coming in around him while

I sat in the corner with my knees pulled up and the chain on my ankle and everything in me waiting to find out what kind of pain was coming through the door next.

< When I woke

He hadn’t moved toward me.

+25 Points

He’d just stood there and looked at me and stayed still and I hadn’t understood then what that meant. I hadn’t understood that the stillness was him holding something back. That something had hit him the moment he stepped through that door and he was managing it while I sat there in my corner and waited for the worst.

I understood it now.

lay back down.

Not because I was tired. Because the room was warm and the bond was quiet and Caius was beside me and none of it required anything from me right now except to be here.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify