The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 167

The only choice

(Calus)

Pryor found me in the corridor just before evening.

Not through the mind link. In person, which meant whatever he had to say he didn’t want carried through the pack bond even in pieces. I read that before he said a word and turned back toward the office without needing to be asked

He closed the door behind him.

Pryor set a folded document on the desk. I opened it and read through the names. Six royal guards assigned to Brent’s transport and initial confinement. Five of them accounted for, still on rotation, nothing unusual noted. The sixth name had a single line beside it.

Resigned her post four days after returning from Ashcrest. Left Wraithbone without giving notice or

reason.

I looked at the name.

Dara. Twenty six. Three years in the royal guard. Clean record, no complaints, no incidents in her entire time under my command.

Gone four days after transporting Brent.

“She resigned,” I said.

“Without explanation,” Pryor said. “The guard captain noted it as unusual but didn’t flag it because resignation isn’t a breach on its own.”

“It is when it follows a prisoner transport,” I said.

“Yes,” Pryor said. “In hindsight.”

I set the document down,

“She felt the bond,” I said.

Pryor was quiet for a moment. “That would explain the timing,” he said.

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“It explains all of it,” I said. “She transported him, felt the bond, and couldn’t leave him in a cell. So she got him out and then left before anyone connected the two things.”

“She didn’t expect anyone to connect them,” Pryor said. “A resignation and a missing prisoner are separate incidents unless someone is looking for the thread between them.”

“Which nobody was,” I said. “Until the settlement.”

Pryor nodded once.

I thought about Dara. Twenty six years old, three clean years in the royal guard, a life she’d built inside Wraithbone’s structure, and she’d walked away from all of it because the band arrived without asking her permission and she’d made the only choice that felt possible in the moment she was standing in.

Lunderstood that more than I wanted to admit out loud.

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“Unknown” Pryor said “She left no forwarding information. Her quarters were cleared out.”

“She’s with him,” I said.

“Most likely,” Pryor said.

1 stood and crossed to the window and looked out at the grounds. The evening was corning in properly now, the light changing, pack members moving inside or settling into the quiet routines of the later hours. Isla was somewhere in the pack house, she’d come back inside before me.

“I need to tell Isla,” I said.

“Tonight?” Pryor asked.

“She should have heard about Brent before now,” I said. “I kept it from her yesterday because of the timing. I won’t keep it from her again.”

Pryor didn’t argue with that. He never argued with decisions he agreed with.

“What do you want done about Dara?” he asked.

I thought about it. A former royal guard who had breached her post and helped a prisoner escape. The correct response by any standard I had ever applied to conduct like this was clear. She’d compromised the integrity of the guard. She’d freed a man whose sentence was still pending for direct harm.

But she’d done it because the bond arrived and she hadn’t been prepared for it.

“Find her,” I said. “Quietly. I want to know where she is and what she’s been doing since she left. Nothing beyond that until I’ve spoken to Isla.”

Pryor nodded. “And Brent?”

“Same,” I said, “Location confirmed. Nothing else moves until I know what Isla wants.”

That stopped Pryor for just a fraction of a second. Not surprise exactly. Something closer to approval, which he would never say out loud and didn’t need to.

“I’ll have more information within a few days,” he said.

“Good,” I said. “That’s all for tonight.”

He picked up the document from the desk and left, pulling the door closed behind him.

I stood at the window for a while after he’d gone.

Dara and Brent in the settlement, or somewhere near it, building something out of a situation neither of them had chosen and both of them were now fully inside. Brent who had stood in the Ashcrest hall and said I did it without excuse or deflection, the words stripped clean before they could form into something more manageable. Brent who had looked at Isla in that market and looked away first

I didn’t know what to do with him yet.

The haren he’d done was real. His own confession had confirmed it. His sentence was still pending and pending didn’t mean forgiven, it meant the decision hadn’t been made yet and the decision still needed to be made. A mate bond didn’t erase what came before it. I knew that as well as anyone

But it complicated things in ways I hadn’t accounted for when I sent him away from Ashcrest under guard

I pushed off the window and went to find Isla..

She was in our quarters, sitting near the window with the fox she’d bought at the settlement in her hands, turning it over the way she turned things over when she was thinking without trying to think. She looked up when I came in.

Something in my expression told her before I said anything.

She set the fox down and looked at me and waited, the way she waited for things she already knew weren’t simple.

I sat beside her and told her everything. The inquiry I’d sent through Pryor. Dara. The resignation. What it meant that Brent was free and why. I didn’t filter any of it and I didn’t pace the delivery to make it easier. She’d asked me not to do that and I’d agreed and I meant it.

She listened without interrupting.

When I finished she was quiet for a moment.

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