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Maximus

Walking out of that room was the most difficult thing I had ever done in my life.

I thought rejecting my fated mate would be hard, but this was far worse.

Knowing I was walking away from Kylie and our pup had my lycan roaring inside of me.

While he threw himself against the walls of my mind, I walked out of the clinic and tried to contain him.

Now wasn’t the time to let him loose. Kylie wanted me to prove myself to her, and my lycan wasn’t patient enough to do that.

If he got loose, he would run back in there and mark her to make her ours again.

I couldn’t let that happen.

Go back, you fool!

The pain of him trying to force the shift stopped me in my tracks.

My eyes closed as I fought him, desperately trying to keep him contained.

During that whole conversation, I struggled to prevent him from shifting.

He didn’t understand the need for waiting and proving ourselves.

The only thing he understood was seeing his mate after months of thinking she was dead and then seeing her hurt.

The need to comfort her was too strong, and I couldn’t trust him not to take over and mark her.

When he promised he just wanted to console her, I hesitated, but I couldn’t explain how happy I was that she had told me no.

When I opened my eyes, two people stood a few feet away from me, giving me a sympathetic look. I didn’t know who either of them was, and I wanted to tell them to get lost. But they smelled of my mate, which caused my lycan to demand to know who they were.

The female was maybe five and a half feet tall, with small curves and an athletic body.

I could tell she would be lethal in a fight from the way she carried herself, and there was a wave of power radiating from her as she stared at me.

There was some fading in her black hair, indicating she was much older than her youthful face suggested.

Even her blue eyes conveyed wisdom, and I almost wanted to ask her age and who the hell she was.

There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t quite place it.

The male was similar in terms of the power and wisdom he exuded.

He was close to my height and built like every other alpha I’d ever met.

Like the female, his brown hair appeared duller than I’d expect from a young lycan, and his brown eyes were assessing me.

“Who are you?” I asked them both.

The female smiled. “I’m Charlotte, and this is my mate Nathaniel. I have a feeling I know who you are, and I’m wondering if you would like to talk.”

I growled. Did this female really think I would go off to be alone with two rogues I had never met before? That wasn’t happening.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said through gritted teeth. “Who are you? You’re more than you seem. I can feel it.”

The male smiled at me, and I was taken aback by the kindness on his face. “You met us shortly after you were born, King Maximus. We were once alphas of a pack within your territory.”

Well, that explained why they seemed familiar. Even if our lycans don’t emerge until later in life, we never forget a scent.

“Why are you here?”

It wasn’t like alphas to abandon their packs and choose the rogue life.

If my father had demanded that they leave, I doubted being in their presence right now was a good thing.

I couldn’t sense anything particularly sketchy about them, and even my lycan felt at ease.

They weren’t trying to challenge me, and the aura they emitted felt different from other alphas I’d met.

These two didn’t want the power they wielded.

That’s why they walked away. I could feel it even before they explained it to me.

“I’m sure you’ve heard of us. We were the ones who wanted a quieter life and renounced our titles. But we aren’t here to discuss ourselves,” Nathaniel said, waving his arm over to a small picnic bench outside the clinic.

We walked over, and I sat where I could have the best view of everyone coming and going, with my back as close to the wall as possible.

This was a position many alphas would choose so they could see everything around them without worrying about one direction.

I expected Nathaniel to want this spot, but he gladly sat across from me instead.

“What happened in there?” Charlotte asked me. “Kylie didn’t want to talk about it.”

“And you thought I would? You are strangers to me. I don’t care that you were alphas once under my father’s rule. I don’t know you, and I’m not sure why I am even sitting here.”

There was too much rage churning inside me to stay seated anyway.

There were so many things I needed to do.

For one thing, I needed to see if there was a place for me to stay here so I could begin courting my mate.

If she wanted me to prove to her that I had changed, then this had to be the first step.

“I’m sure things are tough right now, but holding all of that inside isn’t the way to go, my friend.” Charlotte frowned at me and looked at her mate. “I’m sure you will handle this better than I would. Maybe he needs a talk, alpha to alpha.”

He smiled at her and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Sounds like it, my luna. Why don’t you go check on Kylie and the pup?”

Charlotte stood up, kissed the top of his head, and then walked into the clinic. It was hard to see a couple easily showing affection like that. It’s how Kylie and I should be, but I fucked that up too much to have that right now.

“Let me guess. You thought you could walk in here, say you’re sorry, and then everything would be sunshine and rainbows while you took her back to the kingdom. Am I correct?”

I grunted but gave him a hard look. “It’s not like I expected it to be where I said sorry and she would forgive me. I just didn’t expect it to go the way it has.”

He laughed, and it made me want to punch him in the face. This time, I knew he was laughing at me. What male wouldn’t when I struck out with the one person who was supposed to forgive me?

“The females of our species are much harder to understand than human females. The lycan inside us all gives us the extra strength to push back when we don’t want something or to get the things we want. It will never be easy to be a mate—I’ll warn you of that now.”

The groan that escaped my lips at that had Nathaniel laughing again. It was far too easy to like this guy.

“I have a feeling she told you that the only way she will forgive you is if you prove to her you know how to be the mate she deserves.”

My mouth fell open. How the hell did he know that?

“I’ve seen it time and time again. When a woman of any race understands her worth, she will demand that any man step up to the plate to prove he is worthy of her.

Kylie didn’t know her worth when she first came here.

Her past was hard to accept, and I could see why.

When you spend your entire life being told you aren’t good enough, that shit will seep into your very being.

” He shook his head and sighed. “Even worse, she wasn’t just told these things. They were beaten into her.”

The snarl that ripped through me joined Nathaniel’s. He didn’t like saying those words any more than I liked hearing them. Kylie had been put through hell. It’s why I dismembered Alexander the way that I did.

“What is your plan to show her you will do what it takes to win her back?”

“What’s it to you?”

The way he growled, slammed his hands on the table, and leaned in toward me made me think this would turn into a physical fight.

My lycan reared up and pushed for the shift to defend ourselves, but I knew better than to do that.

This wasn’t a challenge in the way my lycan thought it was.

I had just pissed off the lycan who had been kind to me this whole time.

When you poke the monster, you should expect it to bite back.

“Kylie is like a daughter to me. I have helped her as much as I could since she came here. If you plan to bond with her again, then you not only need to prove to her that you won’t toss her aside for a new model once things get tough again. You also need to prove that to me. ”

His words took me by surprise. I could see why Kylie felt safe with these two. They were more like parents to her than her father ever was while she was with his pack.

“I plan to court her! Show her I will be there for her and our son. Take care of her the way I should have when she was mine.”

He shook his head and laughed. “That’s what you think being a mate is about?

You have so much to learn.” He settled back into his seat and sighed.

“Being a mate is more than just being there for them. It means putting them above everything and anything else. Nothing and no one is more important than your mate. They are your world, the reason you breathe. Not even the kingdom comes before them, and that is going to be a very hard thing to demonstrate while she is waiting for you to prove yourself.”

“And how the hell would you know?” I snarled at him.

I could tell he was judging me. Nathaniel knew I had rejected Kylie because of her issues with her lycan and wanted to throw digs at me for choosing the kingdom over her.

In his eyes, I could see wisdom gleaming.

“Because I had to make that tough choice myself,” Nathaniel told me, placing his arms on the table and leaning in again.

“When Charlotte was pregnant, there was a lot going on in our pack. Too many things had taken me away from her during the pregnancy, and honestly, I got tired of it. When she went into labor, I was given an ultimatum: either be there for the pack as it descended into chaos or be there for my mate. Do you want to know what I chose?”

My mouth went dry. I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to say it. He did what I couldn’t.

“I chose my mate. That decision was the easiest one I have ever made. There was no contest when it came to her or everything else. Throughout the pregnancy, Charlotte told me to tend to the pack because she didn’t need me at her side every second of the day.

But when she was in labor, it was no contest. That’s where I knew I had to be.

There wasn’t a force in this world that would keep me away from her. ”

“I would’ve been there for Kylie if I had known about the baby.”

“That’s not what I was talking about, son. We walked away from being in charge because I was being told I had to choose the pack over my mate. They were trying to force that on me.” So many emotions passed through his eyes that I couldn’t tell which one was staring back at me.

That’s when another growl escaped my throat. Was he trying to tell me my father was the one who made him decide this? That wasn’t like my father at all.

Nathaniel must’ve caught the shift in my expression.

“No,” he said calmly. “Not your father. My beta and others in the pack. But they weren’t mated.

They didn’t understand.” He took a moment to collect himself and smiled.

“I hope you see what I mean by this. Kylie deserves someone who chooses her. She has been at the bottom of priority lists her entire life. If you want her, then you need to show her she is your only priority, which is what she deserves.”

It wasn’t a revelation to hear those words. That had been my exact thought when she laid into me earlier.

Maybe I shouldn’t have walked out of her room. Did that make her think I wouldn’t choose her? I thought she would need space after our conversation, and I needed air to calm myself. It wasn’t just about me; calming myself meant calming the beast inside me.

No one deserved to deal with this monster.

Do you wish to see me in a worse mood?

No. No one does.

Then stop complaining and listen to the man. He is telling you how to win back our mate.

He wasn’t wrong. Nathaniel gave me the revelation I needed.

When I came here, I was already throwing caution to the wind regarding being a king.

Anyone else would have sent others to bring his mate back to him.

I didn’t want anyone touching her or even breathing in her direction anymore.

I should have been the one to travel around the kingdom to find her. That was my first mistake.

“You’re right. She deserves better. Kylie deserves the entire world at her feet.”

And I will be the one to do that for her.

So I stood up and thanked Nathaniel before walking away.

“Where are you going?” he called after me.

“To buy a cabin. I can’t show my mate how much she means to me if I go back to the kingdom.”