Claimed by the Mad Lycan King

”What are you going to do then?” Alpha Bryan asked with derision. Without King Zade here, he had no one to fear. Ace couldn’t scare him, and the royal beta couldn’t deliver a real consequence without the king’s permission. ”What are you going to do?” he repeated the question, and his eyes fixed on Seara.

In the past, Seara would back down and lower her head, but this time she was too upset to do that, since he had insulted Zade by calling him weak.

If she gave in now, Alpha Bryan would not be the only one who would think Zade was weak because he had a weak mate, but the other alphas would believe the same. Seara couldn’t let anyone talk down on Zade.

She clutched the hem of her shirt under the table. Despite her will to defend her mate’s dignity, the panic attack loomed over her head. She prayed her voice wouldn’t falter when she spoke.

”Leave the room,” Seara said firmly while she actively reminded herself to breathe.

Breathe... Everything would be alright... They wouldn’t be able to hurt her. Breathe... She chanted the words in her head like a mantra.

”What did you say?” Alpha Bryan narrowed his eyes dangerously at Seara, and Ace growled as he positioned himself in front of her protectively.

”I say leave the room; you have disrupted the meeting,” Seara said louder this time.

”Who do you think you are?!” Alpha Bryan slammed his fist against the table, his brown eyes filled with rage.

Seara stood up. Not only did she lack dramatic momentum, but she was also much shorter than the alphas, betas, and gammas in the room. No one would take her seriously.

”I am King Zade’s mate. I have the same authority as my mate, and for you to disrespect me is the same as you disrespecting King Zade.” Seara turned to Ace. ”What is the punishment for tarnishing the king’s name?”

”Death,” Ace answered without hesitation.

With that reply, Seara turned her focus back to Alpha Bryan. ”You can take your own life, or you can get out of this room. You are being disrespectful and disrupting the process of the meeting without giving a real solution.”

Alpha Bryan wanted to say something more, but his beta touched his shoulder, and he seemed to mind-link him, trying to appease his alpha from saying something that he would regret.

In the end, Alpha Bryan stormed out of the room. He didn’t say anything when he stepped out and didn’t forget to slam the door as hard as he could. The sound was so loud that it left the room in complete silence, as they didn’t know what to do.

”If your only solution is to start attacking people and risk descending into madness by killing humans, I suggest you leave the room. Unless King Zade says so, we will not pursue that path, because that is not a solution but a suicide.”

Seara was standing up. Right now, there were only nineteen alphas and their betas or gammas, and six of them stood up. They refused to be there, as they shared the same opinion as Alpha Bryan, leaving only thirteen packs who stayed at the table.

Alpha Matt, Alpha Sebastian, Alpha Edgar, and the remaining ten packs were still there.

”Let’s continue the meeting.” Seara sat down again when the last alpha left the room with his gamma.

***

”It didn’t go well, but it is not a surprise,” Zade said to Jack in a secluded area, where there was no surveillance camera. ”He didn’t see what you have witnessed, and with Owen in his ears, the result is predictable.”

Both of them were sitting in their cars with their windows down, taking a quiet corner of an abandoned road, which Jack knew was safe for their rendezvous.

”I heard his daughter is in the hospital, and Owen’s wife is the one who has been taking care of her.” Zade glanced at Jack, who stared at him with a troubled look.

He had high expectations that Zade would be able to convince Azrael, but deep down, he knew it was close to impossible. His confidence stemmed from his fear, because it was unthinkable for him to work with the enemy to save this country.

With Azrael having denied Zade’s offer and the speech still going to happen, Zade and his kind would be labelled as a threat to the nation.

”Yes.” Jack furrowed his brows. ”Do you think... she is no longer herself?”

If someone told him that one day people could swap their bodies and the devils and the monsters from the myth were real, he wouldn’t even waste a breath on that person.

However, it was different now. They were real, and as much as he didn’t want to believe that, he had seen it with his own eyes.

”Most likely.”

Jack gritted his teeth. ”How do I know if the people around me are not one of them?”

”You don’t know. Don’t trust anyone, unless you are sure.”

Jack stared at the cut on his palm. He had to cut himself to show this monster that he had not been compromised because his blood would be different otherwise. He knew how different the blood was because he was there to witness it that night.

”You have captured someone important from my kind. I want his location and how to get him out of there.”

”You can’t get anyone out of there.” Jack shook his head. ”The security is top-notch.”

”Let me think of a way in. I need all the information about that building.” Zade looked at Jack. ”Including the information from your wife. She is the head researcher, right?”

Jack clenched his jaw. ”Don’t harm her.”

”I don’t want to harm anyone, Jack. Your enemy is not me. The real enemy is so close to you, and I need my people to be safe as well. Both of us want the same thing, Jack.”