The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 18

The King’s order–1

(Caius)

Rodan was on the floor inside the pack house.

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I stepped through the hole in the wall and stood over him and looked down at him and let him look back

at me. He was conscious. His face was cut from the wood that had given way when he went through it

and he was holding his side where he’d hit the floor but he was conscious and he could hear me and that

was what mattered right now.

“Get up,” I said.

He moved. Not quickly. He got one hand under himself and pushed and made it to his knees and then the

rest of the way up, and he stood in front of me with blood on his face and something in his expression that

had not been there in the yard before I hit him. The composure was gone. What was left underneath it was

what I’d suspected was there all along.

Fear. Real fear. The kind that didn’t have a performance built around it.

Good.

“Come with me,” I said.

I walked back through the hole into the yard and he followed and I didn’t check whether he was keeping up

because the alternative to keeping up was something he wasn’t going to choose right now. The yard was

exactly as I’d left it. Every wolf still in their place, still not moving, still not making a sound. Sixty pairs of

eyes on us as we came back through the wall.

I stopped in the center of the yard and turned to face the pack.

I didn’t raise my voice. I never needed to.

“Listen carefully,” I said. “Because I’m going to say this once.”

The yard was already silent. It got more silent. I hadn’t thought that was possible but it was.

“Nobody leaves this territory,” I said. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not until I give the order that says otherwise. If anyone attempts to cross that border they’ll be brought back and added to my list of people I want to speak to. If anyone passes information about this pack or about my presence here to anyone outside this territory the consequences will be severe.” I looked at the faces in front of me. “Do you

understand me?”

Nobody spoke. Nobody needed to. The understanding was in every face.

“My warriors will be positioned at every border point before nightfall,” I said. “Your own border guards will

stand down and my men will take over. This is not a request.”

I looked at Rodan’s beta, Drace, who was standing near the front of the pack with an expression that was

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The King’sarder 1

trying very hard to be neutral and not managing it.

“You,” I said.

He straightened.

“I want every member of this pack’s hierarchy in the pack house in one hour. Alpha, luna, beta, gamma, delta. Everyone who holds rank in this pack sits in that roorn in one hour.”

Drace nodded quickly.

I looked back at the general pack.

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“The rest of you go about your day,” I said. “Don’t discuss what you’ve seen this morning with each other. Don’t leave the territory. Don’t do anything that gives me a reason to add your name to my list.” I paused.

“Dismissed.”

They moved. Not in the loose way a pack moved when a normal day was resuming. They moved carefully,

quietly, in the way people moved when they were very aware of being watched and very motivated to give

no cause for concern. Within two minutes the yard had cleared and it was just me and Rodan and Zeron

and my twelve warriors positioned around the grounds.

I turned to Rodan.

He was standing where he’d followed me to, a few feet to my right, and he was very still. The blood on his

face had started to dry at the edges. He hadn’t wiped it. I didn’t think he’d wanted to make any

unnecessary movements.

“Walk with me,” I said.

I didn’t wait for his response. I started walking toward the far end of the grounds, away from the pack

house, away from the remaining wolves near the outer buildings, toward the open training yard where

there was nobody within earshot. I heard his footsteps behind me and I kept walking until I reached the

center of the training yard and stopped and turned.

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