CLAIMED BY THE ALPHA KING

5: The Gilded Cage

**(Elara’s POV)**

The pack house is a blur of stone and shadows. Ronan carries me through the corridors as if I weigh nothing, his long, determined strides eating up the distance. Wolves leap out of our path, their eyes wide with shock and fear, their gazes dropping to the floor as their King storms past. They see me slung over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and I can feel their silent judgment, their whispers following in our wake. The humiliation burns hotter than ever.

He doesn’t take me to the dungeons, as I expect. He bypasses the lower levels and ascends a grand staircase to the private, upper floors of the house—the royal wing, where no one but his most trusted circle is allowed. He stops before a heavy, oak door at the end of a secluded hallway, shifts my weight effortlessly, and unlocks it.

He doesn’t shove me inside. He places me on my feet, his hands lingering on my arms for a fraction of a second too long. The brief contact sends another jolt of that chaotic energy through me, and he snatches his hands back as if burned.

“This will be your room,” he says, his voice a low, impersonal rumble. “You will not leave it.”

I spin around to face him, my rage a wild animal in my chest. “You can’t do this! This is kidnapping!”

“I can,” he says, his silver eyes cold and unyielding. “And I have. You are a danger to yourself and others. You will remain here until I have answers.”

“I am not your prisoner!” I shout, my voice cracking.

“You became my prisoner the moment you ran,” he counters, his expression unreadable. “You had a choice. You made the wrong one.”

Before I can spit another useless retort, he steps back out of the room and pulls the heavy door shut. The sound of the lock clicking into place is the most definitive, soul-crushing sound I have ever heard.

I launch myself at the door, pounding my fists against the solid oak until my knuckles are raw. “Let me out! Ronan, let me out!”

There is no answer. Only the deafening silence of my gilded cage.

I finally stumble back, my energy spent, and take in my surroundings. It’s not a cell. It’s a luxurious bedroom, larger than my entire hovel back in Glenmoor. A massive bed with furs piled high sits against one wall. A fireplace, cold and empty, dominates another. There are plush rugs on the floor and intricate tapestries on the walls. There’s even a small balcony with doors made of reinforced glass, overlooking a dark, sprawling forest. It’s beautiful. And it’s a prison.

I pace the room like a caged wolf, every nerve ending still screaming from the chase, from his touch. The scent of him is everywhere—on my skin, in my hair, and somehow, already embedded in the very air of this room. The bond is a constant, agonizing hum beneath my skin, a pull so strong it feels like a physical magnet, drawing me toward the locked door, toward the man on the other side.

I hate him. I hate him with every fiber of my being for the humiliation, for this imprisonment.

But as I pace, a different feeling begins to surface, pushing through the rage. It’s the memory of the power that flared from my hand, the spark that sent Seraphina reeling. I look down at my own palms, half-expecting to see them glowing. There’s nothing there, but I can still feel the echo of it, a strange, dormant hum deep within me.

For twenty years, I was nothing. A ghost. But tonight, I threw three she-wolves back without touching them. I made the Alpha King bleed.

The thought is terrifying.

And it is the first taste of power I have ever known.

---

**(Ronan’s POV)**

I stand on the other side of the door, my back pressed against the cold, hard wood. I can hear her screaming my name, her fists beating a frantic, useless rhythm against the oak. Every blow she lands feels like a punch to my own gut. My wolf, my own damn traitorous wolf, howls in protest, clawing at my insides, demanding I break down the door, go to my mate, soothe her, claim her.

I clench my fists, my own nails digging into my palms as I fight for control.

*She is not your mate,* I tell myself, the words a familiar, bitter litany. *She is a problem. A threat.*

But my body remembers. It remembers the searing heat when her skin touched mine, the supernova of energy that nearly brought me, the Alpha King, to my knees. It remembers the scent of her—rain-soaked earth, wild defiance, and an intoxicating sweetness that is hers alone. My cheek still stings where her nails raked my skin. My neck, where I buried my face to breathe her in, burns with a phantom heat.

I almost lost control. Down in that glade, with her pinned against the tree, her body trembling, her throat bared for me… I almost bit her. The urge was so primal, so overwhelming, it took every ounce of my will, forged over thirty years of discipline and duty, to rip myself away.

I am a King. I do not lose control.

But this girl, this slip of a thing with fire in her eyes and a storm brewing inside her, shatters my control with a single touch.

The Seer’s words echo in my mind. *An ancient power. A power you have no right to possess.*

I look at my own hand, the one that held her arm. It feels like it’s still vibrating with the energy that passed between us. Seraphina was right about one thing. It felt like dark magic. But the Seer was right, too. It felt… old. Foundational.

Her screams have subsided now, replaced by a heavy silence that is somehow worse. I can picture her in there, pacing, trapped. My prisoner. The thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I do not take prisoners. I eliminate threats.

But I cannot eliminate her. The bond, a thing I have only ever read about in old texts, will not allow it. It is a chain, linking my soul to hers, and the rejection did not break it. It only twisted the metal, turning it into a weapon that wounds us both.

I push myself off the door, my movements stiff. I cannot stand here all night. I need answers, and I need them now.

I turn to the two royal guards stationed at the end of the hall, their faces impassive masks. “No one enters this room. No one speaks to her. Understand?”

“Yes, Alpha King,” they say in unison, their heads bowed.

I stride away, my mind a whirlwind. I am walking a knife’s edge between my duty as King and the feral demands of the beast inside me. One wrong step, and I will fall.

I find my Beta, Kaelen, in the strategy room, his brow furrowed over maps of our territory. He looks up as I enter, his eyes immediately finding the fresh scratches on my cheek. His eyebrows shoot up, but he is wise enough not to ask.

“Trouble, my King?”

“More than you know,” I growl, my voice rough. I lean over the table, planting my hands on the cool wood to steady myself. “Send for the Seer. Bring her to the west wing library.” My gaze drifts to the window, to the moon hanging high and cold in the sky. “And tell her to bring the old texts. The ones that speak of the Luna Queens.”