All Chapters of The Alpha's Unwanted Queen : Chapter 11 - Chapter 18

The Great Hall of the Midnight Packhouse was a cavern of sensory overload. Long oak tables groaned under the weight of massive platters of thick-cut bacon, roasted venison sausages, baskets of dense sourdough bread, and pitchers of dark, steaming ale. The air was thick with the scent of roasted grease, woodsmoke, and the vibrant, overwhelming auras of nearly a hundred awakened wolves laughing, shouting, and trading rowdy post-dawn jabs. Alpha Torin descended the wide stone staircase slowly, his heavy boots sounding a steady thud against the wood. He was dressed in black leather and a dark tunic, his damp hair swept back from his face. He had spent the last two hours reviewing border security reports, but if he were honest with himself, his focus had been entirely compromised. His mind kept drifting back to the southern tower—back to the pale, terrified face of the Ironwood princess clutching her blanket as if it were a shield. His inner wolf, Fenrir, was still pacing a restless path

The narrow service corridor felt as though it were running out of air. Evangeline was entirely lost to the panic, her small frame curled tightly against the base of the black stone wall as her lungs seized. The shallow, desperate wheezes cutting through her throat were growing weaker, her body trembling so violently that her head knocked repeatedly against the rough masonry. Torin knelt on the cold flagstones before her, his large hands hovering in the empty space between them. For a warrior who had faced down rogue hordes and severed the heads of monstrous beasts without a flicker of hesitation, he felt utterly paralyzed. His commanding Alpha aura, usually a weapon of absolute compliance, was only suffocating her further. He pulled the oppressive energy back into himself, desperately trying to quiet the crackling power that filled the hallway, but the damage was already done. She was slipping into unconsciousness right in front of him. "Look at me," Torin rumbled, his voice droppin

The heavy iron cauldrons of the Midnight Packhouse were built to feed armies, and they felt every bit of their brutal weight. Evangeline stood before the massive stone wash-basin in the back scullery, her small frame leaning heavily against the damp wood to keep from collapsing. The midday sun was streaming through the high kitchen windows, but to Eva, the world was a chaotic, shifting canvas of blinding white glare and suffocating, dark shadows. Her body was on fire. It had started just before noon—a strange, deep-seated heat that began in the center of her chest and spread outward through her limbs like liquid embers. It was a terrifyingly sharp contrast to the freezing draft sweeping across the floorboards. Sweat poured from her hairline, soaking the rough collar of her oversized dress and causing her dark blonde hair to plaster itself against her pale, hollow cheeks. Her vision swam, the heavy copper pots in front of her shifting and distorting as if seen through a wall of wate

The climb up the southern tower was a silent, lethal march. Torin didn't hide his approach. The heavy, rhythmic thud of his leather boots bounced harshly off the cold stone spiral staircase, sounding less like a man returning to his wife and more like an executioner ascending the scaffold. In his right hand, he tightly clutched the crushed, wrinkled parchment from the Ironwood Pack. The words sing your songs sweetly burned in his mind like a brand, stoking the fires of a cynical, protective fury that completely overrode the restless, grieving whines of his inner wolf. She is a weapon, Torin repeated to himself, his jaw locked. A beautiful, fractured illusion sent to break my pack. When he reached the top landing, he didn't bother to knock. He slammed his hand against the heavy oak door. Finding it unbolted—Eva had been too weak to even slide the iron latch back after Martha brought her up—he shoved it open with a violent force that sent the door crashing against the stone interior