Page 25

I looked through the cabinets to find the map of the kingdom.

It had a layout of where all the packs lived and their territories.

It would help me track where I had looked and where else I could search.

The scent of coconut filled the room, and I growled.

I didn’t need her around. It would only anger me and my lycan to have another try to touch me with the bond being severed.

I hoped Nova would understand this and not attempt it.

“It’s better this way, my king. You may not see it yet, but it is.”

The tone she spoke in was what I’d expected. A gleeful smile stretched across her face as Kylie fled. Nova most likely thought this would open the door for me to take a new mate. I didn’t want a new mate. I wanted my mate.

“Do me a favor and stop speaking,” I growled.

She scoffed. “It’s not like she would have been a good queen to you. She doesn’t know the ways of being a good luna, let alone a queen. She had to be taught how to be a luna.”

Nova didn’t know the life my mate lived before coming here.

Many of the females are taught the ways of being a luna while growing up.

This female was more trained to fight because she held dominance and power.

She understood nothing about my mate because she never lived the same life.

The pack treated her well, with respect, and taught her to fight.

Kylie was only taught how to clean and was treated poorly.

“How would you know what kind of queen she would be?” I snarled, turning toward her.

“Have you walked in her shoes and know of her life? No. You were not raised the same way she was. If you want to continue to speak poorly of your queen, I will do the same thing to you as I did to the last person who spoke of her like this.”

Nova swallowed and took a step back from me.

I tapped into my lycan’s power, knowing it would cause him to be more on the surface than I wanted.

Nova seemed to believe she could speak like this without consequence.

It was time I showed this pack that they couldn’t challenge me like this.

She took another step back, my lycan’s eyes looking at her instead of mine.

“Maybe you should learn the ways of the omegas to understand your place.”

She growled at me, something I should backhand her for, though I didn’t believe in hitting a female. “I am to be part of the royal army! I do not clean. I fight!”

“You spoke ill of your queen. That is punishable by my discretion. Now, go to the kitchens and speak with Amara. She is currently in charge while Queen Kylie is away. You will tell her you are now on rotation until I see a change in attitude.”

Nova screamed with a fury that tore through the air before she stormed out.

Her stomping feet echoed her rage and frustration.

I took solace in the knowledge that she would loathe every second of this.

It was a valuable lesson she needed to learn.

She clung to the belief that she was meant to be queen, which gave her a queen bitch attitude that didn’t allow her to play well with others.

Nova constantly made venomous remarks to everyone who would listen, keeping her from integrating with the pack.

Nobody respected her. This experience would force her to understand the reality of her place and hopefully humble her. It was the wake-up call she needed.

Every mention of Kylie deepened the hollow and expanding void inside me. My soul ached as the bond desperately tried to stretch toward its missing half. I was desperate and wanted nothing more than to be whole again.

I sank to my knees and slammed my head against the wall as grief consumed me.

The pain was suffocating and unbearable in a way I had never felt.

I finally understood why others had spoken of madness when severing the bond.

This feeling was why so many had spiraled into ruin.

It wasn’t merely a loss; it was the absence of something vital.

I extinguished the light that had once kept the darkness at bay.

This was what it felt like—an ache that hadn’t been there before. I had allowed myself to falter and questioned whether I truly loved Kylie. I let myself doubt that what we had was beyond the bonds that tied us together.

When she was here, the connection had been quiet and lacked the urgency I was supposed to feel.

I could step away from her without the bond clawing at me to return.

I simply didn’t have that unbearable pull that Eli experienced.

Every sign had pointed to the truth I hadn’t wanted to face: she wasn’t the mate I thought she would be, and I rejected her like a spoiled child.

I had trusted the bond to tell me everything, and maybe that had been my mistake all along.

Scenes of Kylie flickered through my mind like a never-ending highlight reel.

Each vision I experienced cut sharper than the last: the way her lips curled into a smile at my comments, the way her laughter rang out when I teased her, and when she lost herself in her favorite shows.

The fire in her eyes whenever she trained to master the role of luna.

The passion I saw when she looked at me.

Every one of those memories dragged my heart deeper into the ache. The tightness in my chest surged back in an unrelenting tide, as if her absence had left a wound that refused to heal.

I loved Kylie, yet I tossed her aside.

Zephyrine’s cackle echoed through my mind, sharp and unforgiving, rattling against my skull like a taunt I couldn’t escape. My hands flew to my ears, but it was useless—her voice wasn’t coming from the room, wasn’t something I could block out with a mere touch.

I bellowed for her to shut up, for the sound to cease, but she was listening. I knew she was. The damn curse she had cast upon me had taken root, twisting my reality, making sure I felt every consequence of rejecting her love. And now, there was no escaping it.