Sold to the Alpha King, Pregnant by a Stranger Chapter 09

Sold to the Alpha King, Pregnant by a Stranger Chapter 09 – The Engagement Gala

The Silvercreek engagement gala was broadcast live in three territories.

I watched from a car parked four hundred yards down the hill with Sable, a pair of binoculars, and a hoodie zipped to my chin.

“This is a terrible idea,” Sable said.

“Noted.”

“You’re eleven weeks pregnant with royal twins and we are surveilling a fortress full of royal guard.”

“Also noted.”

Through the binoculars, the ballroom was gold and glittering. My mother floating between senators. My father

drinking too fast in a corner, looking a hundred years old. And Delphine in white – white, for an engagement, subtle as always laughing with a champagne flute and a diamond on her hand the size of a walnut.

Then the room changed.

You could see it happen even from four hundred yards. A ripple. Three hundred people turning at once and going

down heads bowed, knees bent, an entire ballroom folding like grass in wind.

And the Alpha King walked in.

I stopped breathing.

He was the man from the bar. Of course he was. Dark hair, gold–brown eyes, a mouth built for cruelty. Black on black,

no crown, no entourage – he didn’t need one. Every wolf in that room was already on the floor.

He did not look at my sister once.

He got three steps into the ballroom and stopped dead.

His head came up like an animal catching a scent on the wind. He turned – not toward the crowd, not toward

Delphine, not toward my parents.

Toward the windows.

Toward the hill.

Toward me.

The mark on my throat went white–hot and I heard myself make a sound I’ve never made in my life. My wolf slammed against the inside of my skin so hard I doubled over against the dash.

“Wren-”

“Drive.”

“What-”

“DRIVE, SABLE.”

She drove.

Behind us, through the rear window, I saw the ballroom’s terrace doors blow open, and a shape came off that terrace at a speed no human eye should have been able to track.

We made it two miles.

Then the SUV shuddered as something landed on the roof.

Sable swore and braked hard, and I was out of the passenger door before it stopped rolling, staggering onto the dark road with gravel under my shoes and my heart trying to climb out through my throat.

He dropped off the roof and landed in front of me.

Six feet away.

For a long moment neither of us said anything at all. His chest was heaving. His eyes had gone gold – full gold, no

human left in them.

“Six weeks,” he said. His voice was ruined. “Six weeks, and every tracker in my kingdom, and you were here. Under my

nose. In my city.”

“Stay back.”

“I have torn this continent apart looking for you-”

“I said stay back.” I put my hand out and my wolf snarled behind my teeth and the sound that came out of my mouth

was not entirely mine. “You’re marrying my sister on Sunday.”

He went utterly still.

“Your-” His eyes moved to my face. Then to my throat, where his mark was blazing silver–white in the dark. Then,

slowly, down to my hands, which had – without any permission from me – folded over my stomach.

Rune Draven stopped breathing.

“Wren Vale,” he said hoarsely. “You’re the eldest daughter.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “You’re a genius.”

And then his knees hit the asphalt.