Page 2 of The Wolf King's Demand

He gave a cry of anger and pain. Blood dripped from the hood of the cloak that hid his face.

At least I injured him, Addison thought. She had no idea if she could win this fight, but she refused to be killed without at least a fight to the death.

The assassin growled at her, and the sound was animalistic, even though he was in human form. A moment later, his fist crashed into her ribs again. There was no way she could keep the knife away from her. Her strength would give out in seconds, and the blade would plunge into her chest.

This isn’t fair, she thought. I didn’t even get to see my arranged husband naked.

Suddenly, the door burst open, and the sounds of several men entering the house reached her ears.

“Princess Addison!” one of the guards called. “Are you all right?”

The man in the cloak didn’t stop. Not until another, far more chilling sound came.

A piercing howl that could only belong to King Tyler filled the air. As soon as the alarms went off in her house, he must have transformed into his wolf form to get here.

At that, the man in the cloak froze. Addison felt his muscles clench in a combination of anger and fear.

A moment later, he was off her and racing away.

“Up here! In the office!” she cried, wincing as she sat up. The would-be killer would be out a window and long gone by the time security or Tyler arrived. That meant he would be out there somewhere. This might be the first attack of many.

She had ventured into uncharted territory, a place she never fathomed she'd find herself in. Leading her parents' tech and computer business had accustomed her to dealing with unsavory characters. Since her childhood, layers of security in the castle that cocooned her life never mattered to her. The notion that she, of all people, could be the target of a vendetta had been beyond her imagination.

The realization hit her like a bolt of lightning, shaking the very foundations of her reality. The boldness of someone plotting her death stripped away the layers of comfort she had grown accustomed to.

It was a chilling reminder that danger could breach even the most fortified defenses. In the face of this weakness, she struggled with the stark truth that her sheltered existence might not be enough to safeguard her from the ruthless forces now closing in on her.

What did I just step into? she wondered as the door opened. And how am I going to make my way out of it?

TWO

TYLER

Tyler sat in his library, his favorite sanctuary, where he spent countless hours studying the pages of his nation's history. The accounts of the past never failed to spark his out-of-the-box thinking.

Within these pages lay the rich tapestry of his nation's story … a tapestry woven with threads of conquests and failures, bravery and weakness. Each scroll he'd collected held the voices of his ancestors, their experiences etched in ink, their wisdom and foolishness forever preserved.

As he fell deeper into the stories of those who had shaped his kingdom, he couldn't help but feel a connection to the history. These accounts of both the battle-won triumphs and gut-wrenching losses of his forefathers reminded him that his own journey was but a chapter in the grand epic of his kingdom’s legacy.

He could only wonder what this library would hold about him and his rule in a hundred years. There was only one place to learn to be a king, and that was being on the throne, but if there was anyone who could help him learn to manage it, he’d find them within these pages.

Unfortunately, nothing in these scrolls made him any less troubled than he had been before. This was a time of crisis in the kingdom, and a crisis could explode into a disaster because of a tiny, overlooked detail. Why had one king led the country to triumph when another, seemingly following in his footsteps, drove it into ruin? There were no simple answers.

Just as he was growing tired of it all, there came a knock at the door. Tyler breathed a sigh of relief. He could use a distraction from his brooding.

“Come in,” he called.

Louis, Tyler's trusted beta and his right-hand man in every endeavor, stood in the doorway. Their bond surpassed mere friendship; it was a deep understanding of each other developed through years of getting into trouble together as children to making decisions affecting the lives of others in his kingdom.

Jointly, they formed a strong partnership, a combination of their individual strengths. With his ability to chart the course and set grand goals, Tyler found strength in knowing Louis was the dedicated hand at his side.

“Is there any news from the North?” Tyler asked his confidante.

That was the most acute emergency facing the country at the moment. Someone was attacking villages in the north. He thought them to be a small group of well-organized people who always escaped before military support could arrive. It didn’t seem like the work of typical raiders because they often attacked easy targets in favor of more profitable ones. It seemed more like someone was actively trying to hurt Tyler and his people.

“We have one report, sir. But I can’t promise it’s accurate.”

Tyler’s eyes narrowed. “What is it?”

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