The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 207

Before sunrise

(Rodan)

The cell was smaller than Texpected.

Stone walls. Iron bars. A narrow bed built into one corner. Nothing about it was designed for comfort because comfort wasn’t the purpose. It was a place where condemned wolves waited for the Crown to carry out their sentence.

I walked to the bars and looked through them without expecting to see anything worth seeing

Morning.

That was what one of the guards had said before the door closed

At first light, my sentence would be carried out.

I felt nothing except the certainty that there was no road left to change where mine ended.

I turned away from the bars and sat on the edge of the bed.

The room was quiet.

Not the quiet of Ashcrest after dark, when patrols changed and wolves settled into their homes. This was different. The silence belonged to stone walls that had watched generations of condemned wolves wait

for the same sunrise.

I rested my forearms on my knees and stared at the floor.

I’d stood in judgment over others.

I’d spoken sentences that changed lives.

I’d believed every one of them had been necessary.

Now the Crown had judged me.

There was a strange balance in that.

Not justice.

Not irony.

Only consequence.

A knock sounded against the bars.

One of the guards stepped into view carrying a tray.

Bread.

Water.

< Before sund

Nothing more.

He slid it through the opening without looking at me.

“Your final meal will be brought in the morning,” he said.

I looked at the tray before raising my eyes to him.

“I don’t need it.”

He nodded once.

“Most don’t.”

He picked up the untouched tray and walked away.

His footsteps faded until the prison became quiet again.

I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes.

Ashcrest would continue without me.

Caius would rule.

Isla would stand beside him.

My name would become another lesson told to young Alphas who believed power alone was enough to keep a throne.

I looked around the cell once more.

There wasn’t much to see.

The walls had been worn smooth by time rather than claws. How many wolves had spent their final night here before walking the same road waiting for me? I doubted many of them had expected to end their lives this way.

Neither had I.

Expectation had never changed reality.

It certainly wasn’t going to start now.

I stood and walked the length of the cell.

It took only a few steps before reached the opposite wall. I turned and walked back again, more out of habit than purpose. There was nowhere else to go.

I stopped at the bais once more.

The corridor beyond remained empty, lit only by lanterns fixed to the stone walls. Somewhere above this prison, wolves were living their lives without giving this place a second thought. By the next sunrise. I would become another name recorded in the Crown’s history.

Footsteps came down the corridor.

< Before sunde

This time they stopped outside my cell instead of passing by. I looked up as a Crown official stepped int view, his grey robes marked with the royal crest across the chest. He carried a scroll sealed with dark wa

“You are to be escorted at first light,” he said.

“The sentence has been confirmed by the Crown.”

He waited long enough to see if I had anything to say before breaking the seal and reading the order aloud. When he finished, he rolled the scroll closed and walked away without another word.

The words settled over the cell.

There would be no delay and no further hearing. Every document had been signed, every witness recorded, and every requirement under Crown law had been met. The process would continue exactly as it had for every condemned wolf before me.

I looked at the empty corridor.

Strange how quickly a life could be reduced to paperwork. Years spent building a territory, leading a pack and defending a name had ended with a sealed scroll and a few spoken words.

Nothing more was required.

I returned to the bed and sat down again.

The hours ahead no longer belonged to me. They belonged to the Crown, measured out by changing guards and the slow fading of the lanterns outside my cell. All I could do now was wait.

I thought about Ashcrest one last time.

Not the hearing.

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