The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 137

Ironfield

One more day passed between the scent marking and the meeting. It was the quietest day we’d had since returning from Ashcrest.

Then the morning of the Caden meeting arrived.

Caius was already up when I opened my eyes.

He was standing at the window witUnlock its ok 137h his back to me, dressed, looking out at the territory the way he looked at things he was already thinking three steps ahead of. I lay there for a moment and watched him and felt Vaela stir inside me, alert and certain.

I sat up.

He turned when he felt me through the bond.

“How long have you been up?” I said.

“A while,” he said.

I nodded and got up without asking anything else. There wasn’t anything else to ask. Today was the day and we both knew what it required and neither of us needed to talk about it to be ready for it.

I dressed and we went down to breakfast together and ate without talking much. The pack house was quieter than usual at this hour, most wolves still in their quarters, the kitchen just starting to move. Dena brought food without being asked and set it between us and left

without a word.

I ate and watched Caius across the table.

He was in the particular mode he got into before something significant. Not tense. Contained. Everything pulled inward and organized in a way that left nothing loose. I’d learned to recognize it. It wasn’t the same as worry. It was the opposite of worry actually. It was a man who had accounted for every variable he could account for and had made his peace with the ones he couldn’t.

When we were done he looked at me. “Zeron’s waiting at the tree line,” he said.

I stood. “Then let’s go,” I said.

Zeron was at the tree line with the others, already shifted, a bag secured between his teeth.

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Two warriors flanked him, the same. Caius looked at me once and I nodded and we shifted

together. Vaela arrived fully and the world opened up around me the way it always did in this

form.

Caius’s wolf looked at me.

I was already moving.

The forest was cold. The ground was solid. The distance closed faster than I expected, the trees moving past on either side, the bond warm between us as we covered the ground. Zeron and the warriors kept pace without effort.

When the trees thinned and the neutral ground came into view we slowed and shifted back. I dressed quickly, stood straight, looked at the stone building ahead of us sitting on open ground between two territories belonging to nobody.

Caius came to stand beside me.

“He’s already inside,” he said.

I nodded once. We walked toward the door.

The door opened into a single plain room.

Stone floor. A table with chairs on either side. A fire already burning in the far wall. Three wolves standing when we entered, Caden in the center, his beta to his left, his head of counsel to his right. The third wolf stood slightly back from the table exactly where Caius

had said he’d be.

I took all of it in before I took my seat.

Caden was watching me when I looked at him directly. Not pretending he hadn’t been. That told me something about him immediately, that he didn’t perform neutrality the way some Alphas did, didn’t go through the motions of appearing uninterested before revealing what he actually wanted. He was already looking at what he’d come to look at.

I looked back.

He was older than I’d expected from the documents. Not in a way that diminished him. In a way that had settled into him, the kind of age that came from carrying significant responsibility for a long time and not putting it down. His eyes were the most direct part of him. They moved between me and Caius once and then settled back on me and stayed.

“Alpha King,” he said. Then, “Isla Thorne.”

“Alpha Caden,” Caius said beside me.

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I said nothing. I didn’t need to yet.

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We sat and Caden’s delegation sat and the room settled into the particular quality of silence that preceded something significant. The fire crackled once in the hearth.

Caden looked at me. “The reports from Ashcrest have been circulating for two weeks,” he said. “A Celestial wolf. Unmated. Residing at Wraithbone.”

“Mated,” I said. “Unmarked. There’s a difference.”

He held that for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “There is.”

Something had shifted in him. I felt it through Vaela before I saw it in his face. A small internal adjustment, the kind that happened when a piece of information landed exactly where it was supposed to land.

“The High Council will argue the distinction,” he said.

“They can argue whatever they want,” I said. “The bond doesn’t require their opinion to exist.”

Caden looked at me for a long moment.

Then he looked at Caius.

Then back at me.

“You’re not what I expected,” he said.

“What did you expect?” I said.

He thought about that honestly before he answered. “Someone still finding her footing,” he

said.

I held his gaze. “I found it,” I said.

Caden was quiet for a moment after that.

Not uncomfortable quiet. The quiet of a man sitting with something he’d just received and deciding what to do with it.

His beta leaned slightly toward him and said something low that I didn’t catch. Caden didn’t

respond to it. His attention stayed on me.

“You lost your mate,” I said.

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