Chapter 169

King POV

Alyssa isn’t in bed when I wake up.

That alone has my heart hammering like a war drum.

For one brutal second, I think maybe she ran. Left us. Left me.

I don’t even know why the thought crosses my mind, but now that it has, I can’t fucking shake it.

I grab my phone and check the app—no door alerts, no movement outside, no breaches.

Still, the absence burns.

I pull up the camera feed, and my chest loosens the second I see her. She’s in the kitchen, hair tied up in that bun she always does when she’s working—messy but somehow still sexy as hell—singing under her breath as she stirs something in a bowl.

Sleep Token.

Of course.

I figured out a long time ago that if it sounds like something vampires would fuck to, it’s them.

Zuri babbles from her high chair, gnawing on some fruit like the world outside her breakfast doesn’t exist.

I watch for a minute, just...watch. Smiling like the lovesick bastard my