Page 123 of Chased By My Grumpy Alpha
My heart stops. Betrothed! The Crown Prince is engaged to this woman, this creature who orchestrated my capture and is lying about everything.
The King studies the woman for a long moment, then nods slowly. “Permission granted. Lady Zari, you may proceed.”
She makes a small gesture with her hands, and horror floods through me as two guards step forward and I see what they’re carrying. Whips. Long, vicious-looking things, with metal tips that gleam in the throne room’s colorful lights.
Zari stands to the side, watching the proceedings with cold satisfaction, her delicate features composed in a mask of righteous fury.
“No,” I whisper, but it’s too late.
The first lash tears across my back like liquid fire. I scream, the sound echoing off the marble walls and soaring ceiling. The second strike follows immediately, and the third, each one sending waves of agony throughout my entire body.
But through the pain, through the horror and betrayal and fear, something new is building inside me. Something hot and fierce and utterly furious. A rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt before, burning through my veins like molten metal.
They lied about me. They tortured my friends. They’re going to kill us all for their own political games.
The fourth lash falls, and I feel something crack inside me. Not my body—something deeper. Something that has been locked away my entire life.
The fifth lash, and the rage explodes within me.
The sixth—
The massive doors of the throne room burst open with a thunderous sound. The guard stops his whip mid-strike as every head in the room turns toward the entrance.
“STEP AWAY FROM MY MATE!”
The voice that roars through the throne room is one I know intimately. The one that has whispered my name in the darkness, that has commanded and cajoled and argued with me for weeks.
Lucian.
Through my blood-soaked vision, through the tears and pain, I see him striding through those massive doors like an avenging angel. His face is a veneer of pure, deadly fury. His eyes—those blue eyes I know so well—are blazing with an anger that makes the very air around him seem to crackle with danger.
He moves toward me with lethal grace, and the guards who were whipping me take a step back. Even they can recognize a stronger predator when they see one.
“Lucian,” I gasp, watching him approach.
He reaches me in three long strides, positioning himself between me and the guards like a shield. His hands are gentle when they touch my face, checking for damage, but his voice is pure ice when he speaks.
“If anyone ever lays a hand on this woman again,” he says, his words carrying clearly through the stunned silence of the throne room, “I will tear this kingdom apart, stone by stone.”
That’s when the King speaks, and his first word shatters my world completely.
“Son,” King Alaric says, and there’s relief in his voice as well as anger. “You certainly took your time.”
Son.
That word is the final blow. I stare up at Lucian—my Lucian, the mercenary who hunted for me and protected me and made me feel safe for the first time in my life.
The Crown Prince.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lucian
An hour.
An entire hour I’ve been searching this godforsaken place, and still nothing. No trace of her beyond the lingering stench that makes my wolf want to claw its way out of my skin.
I pace the empty inn room like a caged animal. The bed sits unmade, sheets tangled from where we slept. The window hangs open, curtains fluttering in the evening breeze. Everything exactly as I left it when the bewitched inn owner lured me downstairs with her glazed eyes and honeyed words.
