Page 87 of Sold to Three Alpha Kings

“My wolf was never dead,” she says clearly. “Only sleeping. Now, she’s finally awake.”

Charlize closes her eyes and draws a deep, long breath.

For a moment, nothing happens. The hall holds its breath along with me. Then the air around her shifts, subtle at first, a ripple of warmth I feel even from where I stand.

I feel it before I see it—that same thread of connection I’ve felt since the throne room, sharpening, pulling taut.

Her form blurs at the edges.

Gasps ripple through the crowd as her wolf emerges, smaller than most Alpha wolves but unmistakably real, fur the deep red of her hair, eyes the same clear blue.

She stands there a moment, steady on four legs for the first time in her life. And something in her posture reads as pure disbelief even in wolf form—like she still can’t quite trust that this is real.

She holds the shift only a moment before returning to her human form, breathless but steady, chin lifted, refusing to waver.

The hall falls utterly silent.

“I am not shiftless,” she says, voice ringing clear now. “I never was. And I choose, freely, standing here in front of all of you, to accept the bond these three men offered me. Not because fate demanded it. Because I want it. Chris. Sinth. Wayne. I claim you, exactly as fully as you’ve claimed me.”

She says our names like a vow. Like a challenge. Like something no elder in this hall has any power left to undo.

I’ve never been prouder of anything in my entire life.

Edgar tries to speak again, some final attempt at authority, and it’s Elder Corvin who cuts him off this time, calm in a way I’ve rarely seen from him.

“You’re done,” he says, like he’s been waiting a long time to put him away. “Guards. Arrest this traitor.”

Edgar’s face drains of color entirely. “You cannot arrest an elder over the word of a shiftless—”

“Finish that statement, and it’s your corpse they’ll drag out of here,” Wayne says, his voice low and venomous.

The guards move without hesitation, and Edgar’s protests dissolve into sputtering as they drag him from the hall.

The crowd parts to let them through without a single voice raised in his defense. A few of the other elders exchange uneasy glances, clearly recalculating their own positions in real time.

“He’ll be tried for treason against the crown,” Corvin says, loud enough for the whole hall to hear. “Inciting rebellion. Slander against a King’s chosen mate. He will not see the other side of that trial.”

I meet his gaze, and he gives me a curt nod.

Nobody argues. Not one voice, not one objection, and the silence that follows tells me everything I need to know about how thoroughly the balance in this hall has shifted in the span of a single afternoon.

The crowd doesn’t fall in line all at once. I notice that clearly, scanning the faces still watching her with lingering doubt.

But enough of them do. A soldier drops to one knee first, then another. Pack members from all three territories follow, slowly but steadily, until the hall is filled with bowed heads where moments ago there was only sneering doubt.

The previous woman I spotted earlier standing in the corner presses a hand to her chest and bows her head deeply, tears visible even from where I stand.

A young guard from Trident murmurs something to the soldier beside him, both of them nodding, expressions shifting from doubt to something like respect.

Even a few of Wayne’s own people, who never needed convincing in the first place, look at her now with something closer to reverence than mere acceptance.

Not everyone. I catch a few faces still guarded, still unconvinced, watching her with wary suspicion.

It’s enough anyway. More than enough.

I cross the hall to her, ignoring the crowd entirely, and take her face in my hands.

“You didn’t need to do that,” I say, voice rough. “You didn’t need to prove anything to any of them.”