Page 22 of Lycan King’s Claim (Lycan King’s Reign Duet #2)

T he weight of betrayal hangs heavy in the air as I pace back and forth in my study.

The walls feel like they are closing in around me, suffocating me as rage courses through every inch of me.

I listen to the phone ring, each passing second, my impatience growing stronger.

My mother watches me nervously, knowing this is her fault; she never should have filed the challenge with the Council.

It will cause a delay. However, it may also end in Sienna’s death.

It makes me wonder how much training Carina has had; every time I visited her, she was always with the guard, and her father always had to fetch her.

I know she hated training; she was always excited to see me and escape her father’s relentless training.

Fury courses through my veins, a fiery rage threatening to consume everything in its path. The revelation that Sienna is fighting for my hand has struck me like a thunderbolt, shattering the fragile remnants of trust I had left.

With trembling hands, I reach for the phone on my desk, redialing the number when the phone call rings out, the weight of this decision heavy upon me. Finally, someone answers. And I snatch the phone from my desk, placing it to my ear.

“Council member Ridion’s office, how may I help you?” Says a feminine voice on the other end of the line.

“I need to speak to Ridion about the fated bond challenge tomorrow,” I tell her. “Kingdom identification number?” She asks, and I rattle the number off, which is basically the last three letters of my last name and date of birth.

“Transferring you now, please hold the line,” she tells me, a little too chirpy. My eyes flick to my mother as the hold music plays, the tune grating my raw nerves. My mother sits quietly like a child scolded for throwing a tantrum, she has not said anything about me calling the Council.

“King Xandros, what can I do for you? This couldn’t wait until tomorrow when I see you?" A deep baritone voice comes through the speaker.

“No, it couldn’t; I understand you had a challenge put forth for my hand sometime today?” I tell him.

“Ah yes, from Miss Sienna Dravin,” he answers. “Why does that last name sound so familiar?” He seems to mumble to himself.

With trembling hands and my voice dripping with barely contained anger. “Cancel the arrangement,” I demand, my words laced with venom. “It wasn’t Sienna. It was my mother who made the request.”

The silence stretches on the other end of the line, a pause that amplifies the moment’s intensity and increases my anger. Finally, a voice responds, authoritative and unyielding.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but the date has been set. Unless Sienna forfeits on the day of the ceremony, there is nothing we can do.” He seems confused. “Is she not your mate?” He asks.

“She is, but I have a treaty agreement with the Dresden Kingdom; the wedding is tomorrow,” I tell him, catching my mother sneaking out the door.

I growl, pointing, and her gaze moves to me; I point to the chair.

“I’m not a child; come find me afterward, preferably with others present,” she snaps hastily, leaving the room.

“I’m well aware of the wedding tomorrow; King Vin has been blowing up my phone so much that I had to block his number for the past hour.

Hopefully, he pesters another Council Elder.

But this is good news, my King, you found your true mate, the Council was hoping, and it seems our wishes were granted,” he babbles on. I roll my eyes.

“There is one issue with the situation, my mate was human, and Carina will kill her tomorrow; I need this challenge called off, or I risk losing my mate to my wife,” as I say the words, they taste funny on my tongue, bitter. I shake the strange feeling away.

“I’m sorry, Xandros, but my hands are tied. You said so yourself, she is your mate, and she has every right to challenge for your hand.”

The words hit me like a physical blow, the realization that I am trapped within the confines of tradition and obligation.

The Council’s iron grip tightens around me, squeezing the life out of any hope for a different outcome.

Anguish wells up within me, the weight of responsibility bearing upon my shoulders.

In a frenzy of emotions, I storm through the palace’s corridors, my footsteps echoing in the empty halls.

I find myself standing before my mother’s chambers, my heart pounding with rage and confusion.

Pushing open the door, I confront her, my voice seething with anger.

“What have you done, Mother? Are you trying to kill my mate?”

“Of course not; I’m assuming you couldn’t get the challenge removed?” I glare at her as she sits beside my father; he grips her knees gently.

“Of course not, only she can do that, and I doubt after earlier she’ll do that now, not after she tried to kill herself,” my mother gasps at her words. “She what?” She sits forward suddenly, and I see the worry in her eyes, which confuses me.

“You’re still training her, aren’t you?” She purses her lips. “What is your intention, Mother? Because besides helping her accomplish what she nearly did earlier, I don’t understand you,” I snap at her.

Her eyes meet mine, a flicker of regret and guilt passing through them. “I was wrong, Xandros,” she admits, her voice laced with sorrow. “I misunderstood Sienna.”

“Excuse me?” I ask, and she sighs.

“I was wrong about her, Xandros. She isn’t her parents; I see that now,” she admits. “Wow, you just came to this conclusion?” I scoff.

“In the accident, she had the chance to leave me for dead, but she chose to save me instead.” She murmurs. “I knew then, even though I hurt her, even though I dragged her name through the mud, and she despised me, she saved me. Sienna didn’t have to, but she did,” my mother states.

Confusion washes over me, my mind struggling to comprehend her words.

I remember that day, the accident that left my mother bumped and bruised while Sienna was knocking on death’s door.

But she wasn’t gravely wounded, not enough to warrant such a change in my mother.

What is she hiding from me? What truth lay buried beneath the surface?

“Explain yourself, Mother. What are you talking about?” I press, my eyes searching hers for any hint of the truth.

Frustration wells up within me, threatening to overflow. I grab her shoulders tightly, my voice quivering with emotion. “For once, can everyone just speak the words they mean and not drive me insane by having me guess?”

“You’re punishing her for running, and now she challenges for your hand. You punish her again?”

“She left me!” I snarl.

Her gaze softens, and I can see the pain etched into the lines of her face.

“Sienna is not our enemy. I was wrong to judge her. She didn’t warrant my anger; she may not believe in the mate bonds or believe that she loves you, yet she was trying to escape the pain of seeing you with Carina.

How could you cause her so much pain if she didn’t love you?

Unfortunately, all she has known is pain and this entire thing with Toby.

” I snarl at her causal use of that vermin’s name. My mother glares at me.

“Snarl at me all you want, but it won’t change the fact she ran off with him; I am just explaining why she would,” my mother snaps at me, and I fold my arms across my chest.

“Well, continue then. Let’s hear it?” I retort.

“As I was saying, this situation with her old boss, he’s the only person that has saved her; she doesn’t love him, but feels safe with him, not that I blame her.

I know what it’s like to run, Xandros. Run from one monster, all while praying you land in the arms of one that will hurt you a little less.

” she tells me, glancing at my father before turning her attention back to me.

“When she first came here, and we learned who she was? I assumed she was here to ruin us, here to finish what her mother had started. I was wrong; I see that now; she was just accepting a forced circumstance. She never asked for this, Xandros, but imagine learning you have a mate, one that is a king, is frightening enough, but to learn you’re the daughter of a woman responsible for destroying his family.

” My mother’s shoulders drop, and she sighs heavily.

“She could have told me that to begin with,” I reply. My mother nods.

“Yes, she could have, but I don’t blame her for not telling you.

Imagine escaping one hellish nightmare to end up in another.

I got lucky with your father. When I found out he was my mate, I would have jumped at the thought of going with him.

And not because I thought I loved him, but because, at that time in my life, he was an option to escape my father.

You were an option until she realized you were married, and we realized who she was. ” My mother tells me.

Her words catch me off guard, and guilt nags at me.

“I am happy to take the blame for this, son. I pushed you; I did not help with your decision-making surrounding her. But she went from one nightmare to be plunged into another, and the only good thing, or person, she had in her life, one that has actually helped her–”

“Was Toby,” I answer. It doesn’t make what she did hurt any less, but it puts it in a better perspective. “Exactly, she didn’t love him; he was another way out, a better option when she had none here.” my mother whispers.

“But she did have options here, Mother; I told her I would go to war over her; I would break the treaty for her,” my mother gasps, while my father smirks. I know that’s because he’d have done the same for my mother.

“She didn’t want me to, she said–” my father growls, cutting me off.

“Because of one life for the sake of thousands, Xandros. That is not Sienna rejecting you; that is her being a Queen. Choosing her people over her own desires. A Queen who belongs on your arm leading alongside you, not locked in a room only allowed out to tend to her mate and his wife when he decides.” my father states, and my mother nods sadly.

“There is a reason Lycan Kings need a Queen, Xandros. They are the voice of reason when we are ruled by emotion, not our heads. They’re the ones that keep us sane when rules, regulations, and policies send us insane.

A mate takes our power when it’s too much of a burden to carry or when we aren’t fit to have it. ” my father tells me.

“Furthermore, Xandros…. Carina is not your mate, and marking her won’t fix that.

A chosen bond will never match a fated one.

And after observing Carina these past few weeks, I believe she is doing the same thing, looking to escape her father.

You were the only option, just as Toby was Sienna’s.

” my mother says, and I sigh, knowing she’s right.

Carina and I don’t love each other, but that didn’t mean we didn’t try to. We are just not compatible.

“So, what are you saying?” I ask my parents. “I break the treaty, start a war?” I ask them. “Let her challenge for your hand,” my father states. I shake my head.

“No, I won’t allow it. Carina will kill-”

“Carina is all bark and no bite, son. She came in a few times while training. She always refused to train against her,” my mother tells me.

“No, she can fight. Her father constantly had her training like she was going to war with the guards.” I tell her, and her brows furrow in confusion. “And Sienna, well, she can’t fight…. She was human and weak.” My mother laughs.

“That is only how you see her. Under the weight of familiar abuse, she will crumble. And why is that?” my mother asks. I scoff at her words. This is ridiculous. She has lost her mind if she thinks my mate stands a chance against a vampire that is over 100 years old.

“You tore Sienna apart, Xandros, believing it rendered her powerless.” My mother’s voice is laced with disdain.

“When you’ve lived and loved the monster that torments you, the world’s beasts don’t seem as terrifying.

So naturally, she shrinks from you—her supposed protector turned oppressor.

Don’t mistake her submission to you as an overall weakness.

Like glass shattered into shards, she’ll wield her broken state as a weapon.

Having survived the agony imposed by those she loved, she’s immune to hurt further.

Those shards can no longer hurt her, but you can bet she knows how to use them.

And remember, Xandros, even shattered glass can cut and bleed you out. ”

“And if she loses?”

“Then, in her eyes, she still wins, for she escaped you.” my mother says sadly, and I can see her regret at how she treated her, making what I did before coming here all the more worse.