The Alpha King And His Chosen Luna novel Chapter 28

The road out–1

(Isla)

He came for me when the sky was still dark.

A knock at the door, two short ones, and then his voice saying it was time. I’d been awake already. I

hadn’t slept much. The bed in the room they’d put me in was a real bed, not the floor, not the

blanket in the corner, a real bed with a frame and a proper mattress and a pillow and I’d lain in it for

hours in the dark trying to understand what it meant that nobody was coming to chain me.

I kept waiting for the sound of Torvin’s boots.

They never came.

I got up when he knocked and opened the door and he looked at me the way he’d been looking at

me since the shack, that direct and unreadable thing, and said the horses were ready. I followed

him through the pack house corridors and out through the front door into the cold dark morning

and I didn’t look at anything as we walked. Not the kitchen where I’d spent years on my feet before

the sun came up. Not the main hall where I’d served and cleaned and kept my eyes down. Not the

yard where Rodan had stood with his hands behind his back and watched.

I didn’t look at any of it.

The horses were at the front gate. His warriors were already mounted, twelve of them in a line, and

Sera, the healer who had treated me the night before, was mounted to one side of them. The large

man was standing near the front holding a large dark horse that stood very still.

I looked at the horse and then down at my ankle and I didn’t say anything but he saw it. He always

seemed to see things before I had to explain them.

He came and stood in front of me.

“I’ll lift you up,” he said. “You’ll ride in front of me.”

It wasn’t a question but it wasn’t a command either. It sat somewhere between the two in the way

a lot of things he said sat, like a decision that had already been made by someone who had

considered all the options and chosen the one that made the most sense.

I nodded.

He lifted me the same way he had before, careful and without any sudden movement, and settled

me onto the horse and then mounted behind me in one easy movement. His arm came around to take the reins and I was enclosed without being trapped, his presence behind me large and solid and not pressing in, just there.

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The road out–1

I sat very still and looked straight ahead.

He said something quietly to the large man and then we moved.

Through the gate. Out onto the pack grounds.

+25 Points

The grounds were empty at this hour. The pack was inside, every one of them, and none of them came out to watch us leave. I didn’t know whether that was because they’d been told to stay in or

because they’d made that choice themselves and it didn’t matter either way. The result was the

same. We rode through Ashcrest in silence with nobody watching and the only sound was the

horses on the dirt and the wind in the trees at the edge of the land.

I didn’t mean to look.

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