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18

LANDON

T he air was still wet with morning when Landon stepped out of the cabin, the kind of hush that only showed up before the sun really decided to wake the world.

His boots crushed pine needles and damp leaves as he moved through the woods with more purpose than he had in weeks.

Maybe months. Everything inside him felt like it was shifting, and hell if he could ignore it anymore.

His aunt had always been a little.

.. out there. Reading tea leaves, burning sage, telling him bedtime stories full of wolves and old kings like they were family legends instead of fairy tales.

But lately, those stories weren’t feeling so far-fetched.

Especially not after watching Sonya turn into a damn wolf under the moonlight and still kiss him like he was the only thing grounding her.

He hadn’t slept. Couldn’t.

Not after that. Not after watching his own damn eyes glow in the mirror like something out of a horror flick.

But he wasn’t scared.

Not now.

He was done being the guy who kept his head down and smiled through confusion.

Something had cracked wide open inside him.

The fear hadn’t disappeared—it had just..

. shifted. Sharpened.

Like it was pointing somewhere.

That somewhere was hidden beneath an old tree just past the bend in the trail—the place Aunt Jen had taken him once when he was a teenager, back when she still trusted him with secrets and moonlit hikes and stories she swore were real.

“I’ll show you one day,” she’d said, patting the thick bark of the twisted oak with a wink.

“When you’re ready.”

Well, guess what, Aunt Jen?

He was ready.

He crouched near the base of the tree and brushed away the thick layer of moss and earth.

His fingers scraped something hard beneath the soil.

Wood. A box.

His pulse ticked higher.

He pried it out with his bare hands.

The hinges groaned as he opened the small chest.

Inside was a thick book, bound in cracked leather and heavy as hell.

It smelled of dust and age and something more—something ancient.

His fingers trembled slightly as he flipped it open.

The pages were covered in handwritten script, inked in looping strokes.

It was hard to read—faded, maybe even older than the tree it had been buried under—but one name kept leaping out to him.

Lycan King.

He sat down cross-legged right there in the dirt, the wind tugging at his hair, and started to read.

It wasn’t like a storybook.

It was more like a record—legends, memories, truths passed down by blood and claw.

It spoke of a time when the packs were wild and broken, when humans hunted what they feared and shifters turned on one another to survive.

And then came him .

The Lycan King.

A shifter born not of one pack, but of all of them.

A bloodline thought dead.

He rose not through fear, but unity.

Brought the fractured under one howl.

Fought with fire in his eyes and mercy in his heart.

The more Landon read, the more the words felt like déjà vu crawling through his veins.

There were parts that matched what Sonya had said—pieces of prophecy, signs of return, whispers of power waking up in forgotten blood.

And then there were things no one had told him.

Things that scared him more than Roman’s name ever could.

Like how the return of the Lycan bloodline wouldn’t just change pack dynamics.

It would break the current ones.

He stood slowly, the book in his hands, heavy with destiny.

His hands weren’t trembling anymore.

He knew who he was now.

Or at least, who he was becoming .

He wasn’t just some small-town guy with a good heart and a complicated crush.

He was a fuse waiting to be lit.

By the time he made it back to the cabin, the sun had cleared the ridge, spilling gold over the trees.

He set the book on his desk and looked at himself in the mirror above the sink.

His reflection stared back—auburn hair wild, jaw tight, eyes steady.

Not glowing.

Not yet.

But different. Sharper.

Stronger.

Like the boy in the mirror had finally shut the door on the scared version of himself and was stepping into something bigger.

He was no longer a wandering young guy, but a man who was ready for his calling.

He couldn’t run from it now.

Wouldn’t.

And if Roman wanted a fight?

He’d get one.

But Landon wouldn’t fight as a pawn.

He’d fight as a king.