The Alpha King's Mate novel Chapter 10

"It's okay, Maia. You were just protecting yourself," she says before pulling me into a hug.

"Maia, you can trust the girls and me. We will never tell anyone about you until you're ready," she says. I smile.

"Thank you," I say, my hands poised calmly in my lap. I feel extremely comfortable in Vivian's home.

I tell her my life story, how I have no parents, how the animals have been my only friends, and how I have lived my whole existence isolated and alone. I tell her how the hunters have stripped my forest bare and how I was left with no choice but to venture outside the forest edge when a woman picked the last circle of mushrooms, leaving me starving.

Vivian tells the girls to go and play, and they leave the kitchen and skip to another room.

"I'm so sorry, Maia. King Fenris demanded we donate half our food to the soldiers. I had enough food just to get by, and then he demanded more. Villagers entered the forest to harvest fruit, crops, and seeds. And hunt wildlife for their meat and fur to sell."

Vivian pulls a handkerchief from the neckline of her dress and dabs at her teary eyes.

"It's not your fault. Please don't cry. How could a king let his people starve?" I ask. My eyes are watery with emotion. Vivian's tears dry, and she looks at me again.

"If we don't obey his commands, the werewolves will win the war and kill us all. They're ferocious creatures," Vivian says.

"King Fenris's guards told us werewolves rip children apart in front of their mothers, roast them over fires, and eat them. That won't be Ella and Grace's fate," she says.

King Fenris

Arriving at the training fields, my most trusted knight, Sir Hugo, and I hop down from our thoroughbreds and tie them to posts with rope. Thousands of soldiers are in training. There is a cacophony of sounds: swords clashing, axes and maces thrown at wooden targets, tree stumps, and men grunting with exertion.

A few hundred archers shoot at targets from varying distances and nod at me as I pass behind them. There is lots of yelling as men practice their war cries or call out to one another. A few training casualties hobble around with injuries to their ankles, knees, and feet.

My Commander in Chief, James Boroughshaw, is stationed outside a makeshift tent and is observing the jousting closest to us.

"My King," James says as he kneels before me.

"Commander James," I nod, and he stands back up.

"I require an update of our progress," I say, sitting down in a wooden folding chair and accepting the glass of brandy Squire Thomas hands to me.

"Of course, Your Highness. Since we last spoke, we have recruited over four thousand more men, and more are yet to arrive in a few days," James says, sitting beside me.

"One more thing, Commander," I say.

"Yes, my Lord?" James asks.

"I see injured men. Have them discreetly killed immediately and tell the cooks to use their meat in the stews to feed the growing army," I instruct. "I will have no weakness in this war," I instruct.

"Yes, Your Highness," James says, standing, bowing and following Sir Hugo to gather the injured.

Beta Troy

Enjoying my pint, I listen to a few drunk men tell a story about a princess who wields magical powers and lives deep in the forest.

"A magical princess that lives in the forest? - you've had too many pints tonight, my friend," a man named Gale tells another named Mortly and slaps him on the back in camaraderie. They're both drunker than seawater.

Laughing quietly at their antics, it gets me thinking.

If there were a magical princess, she'd solve all our problems. We are rudely interrupted by a few West Wallow knights, who approach the table Gale and Mortly sit at, roll out a royal scroll, and throw down a quill with a small pot of ink. The men boo them.