Page 4

Draven

M y head is spinning.

The shift. The rage. The lycan.

It shouldn’t have happened. What the hell was that?

I remember it in bits and pieces, before the beast shoved me away and locked me inside my own mind.

I’ve never turned into a lycan before. I thought I couldn’t shift fully. I thought I was something else — something in-between. A king with wings. Magic. Power. Strength.

But not that.

I was ten when the wings came. The scales. The flame under my skin. Everyone said it was my dragon blood awakening, what I inherited from my father.

And when I didn’t shift fully at sixteen like other shifters, they said I just didn’t have a wolf, the part of me that I could have inherited from my mother.

And I didn’t have a dragon, either. Just the wings, the strength and the magic.

The lycan part was never even considered. Too distant in lineage to rise.

I was more than powerful enough to win all challenges and take my throne, though. The first Alpha King without a shifted form.

But if I have a lycan, why did it come forward just now? Eighteen years later than it should have? I should have shifted completely at ten. That’s when lycans come forward. Earlier than any other shifter. They’re the most impatient ones and the quickest to anger.

A deep pain settles inside me, wrapping around my heart like a vine made of thorns.

It feels like someone took a blade made of fire and drove it straight through my chest — then twisted.

Over and over. The bond isn’t gone. It’s still there, shredded and bleeding.

Torn from the inside out. Every breath feels like inhaling acid.

My magic is scattered, panicked, like it doesn’t know where to go.

My soul claws at my insides, trying to reach for her end of the bond.

But it finds nothing. The emptiness is maddening.

Louder than pain. A silence so complete it roars.

I look down.

A bruise blooms at the center of my chest, dark and angry.

She really is my mate.

It’s the only word the lycan was screaming inside my skull before everything went black. Over and over. Mate. Mate. Mate. Until it was all I could hear.

And I rejected her.

I rejected my own mate.

She severed the bond. Cut it clean. And now there’s this gaping hole where something sacred should be.

How is that even possible? How did I not feel it before? How did I not know?

I lift my head and meet her gaze.

She watches me with wary, narrowed eyes.

She’s perched high on the bed, regal in her defiance. And me? I’m on my knees on the cold floor beneath her.

Fitting.

Before I can even open my mouth to say anything, she lifts a pillow and chucks it straight at my chest.

“Cover yourself, Your Majesty,” she says flatly. “No one wants to see your royal jewels.”

I blink.

She’s not crying. Not begging. Not even curious. There’s none of the pain I’m feeling on her side. She looks at me like I’m just another problem to deal with. Like I’m just something mildly annoying.

I remember her from six months ago.

She was different that night — quiet, hesitant.

But even then, there was something about her…

something that made me pause. Something that curled around my instincts and told me not to strike.

I could’ve ordered her execution. Could’ve had her tossed in a dungeon and forgotten.

But I didn’t. I remember saying the word exile , but it felt like it came from somewhere else — like someone was speaking through me, pulling the strings of my mouth while I watched from behind my own eyes.

At the same time, something inside me slammed shut.

Every time I tried to think about her afterward — to question why her presence rattled me, why I kept feeling her everywhere — my thoughts slipped away like smoke. I couldn’t hold onto them. Couldn’t hold onto her. It was like my mind refused to let her in… and I couldn’t ask why.

“I could have killed you. The lycan was feral,” I murmur, getting up slowly, pillow strategically placed. My voice is hoarse. Raw.

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well. You didn’t. So congrats.”

“You don’t feel it?” I ask. My fingers twitch against the pillow. “The bond. It’s still there. You really are my mate.”

She shrugs, moving. “Nope. That sounds like a you problem. I solved mine.” She stands from the bed and starts pacing the room, scanning for an exit.

“I’m sorry,” I say, voice low, rough.

She freezes.

Her eyes snap to mine — sharp and cold enough to draw blood. I swallow hard. Fuck, I need her to understand. I need to make this right.

“I didn’t know you were my mate,” I say. “I couldn’t feel the bond.”

I pause, glancing down at the deep bruise across my chest. The skin is dark and aching, but it’s nothing compared to what’s clawing at my insides.

“I can feel it now,” I whisper.

She crosses her arms, one brow raised.

“Too bad. So sad.” Her tone is flat. Unbothered. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Yes, it does!” My head snaps up. “When the High Priestess of the Moon tested me for the Mate Spark — before what should’ve been my first shift — there was nothing.

No trace. I thought I didn’t have a mate.

I thought I wasn’t meant for one. And I couldn’t feel my bond to you.

Not until now. Someone clearly tampered with it. With me. And what you did—”

I cross my arms across my chest. “What you did is illegal. Severing a bond like that — it's forbidden. It’s the law.”

She immediately looks to the ceiling, hands fisted, lips pressed tightly like she can barely restrain herself from cursing me out.

“For the love of — can you please put on some pants? Or a sheet? Or something? Stop flashing your ding-a-ling at me!”

She makes an aggressive little flicking motion toward me, as if she’s trying to ward off an angry spirit.

My… ding-a-ling ?

I blink. “Seriously?”

Shifters don’t care about nudity. It’s not a thing. We’re running around naked all the time.

I head toward the closet anyway, speaking over my shoulder as I move. “Did you know about my lycan?”

“Draxis,” she says flatly.

I pause. “What?”

“You mean Draxis.” Her tone is calm, matter-of-fact. “That’s his name, isn’t it? And by the way, he needs training. He’s very stubborn.”

I freeze, one hand halfway through zipping up my pants.

“Training?” I repeat slowly, turning to face her. “A lycan?”

She just shrugs. “Yeah. Training. He needs to learn how to listen.”

Is she being serious right now?

“I’ve never shifted before,” I tell her, voice low. “Not once. Even now, I can’t feel him in my head. I can’t talk to him. It’s like… he’s gone.” I exhale hard, jaw clenched. “The moment you severed the bond—”

Pain punches through my chest so hard I nearly double over. I grind my teeth and breathe through it.

“The moment you did what you did,” I say again, steadier this time, “that was the first time he ever came out.”

She tilts her head, expression unreadable. Her eyes scan mine like I’m a puzzle she’s trying to solve.

“So you didn’t just hide him?” she asks. “Because he’s different?”

“No,” I snap. “Of course not. Why would I—?” I stop. “Did you know about him before? Did your wolf feel him?”

She shakes her head slowly, eyes dimming just a little. Her voice is softer now.

“You need to figure your stuff out,” she says. “Your lycan is magically leashed.”

My blood runs cold. “What?”

She taps a finger against her own neck. “There’s some really old magic wrapped around him. Deep. Powerful. You need to find someone who can help you untangle it. Because that collar? It’s probably why you’ve never shifted. Why you can’t hear him. Why everything about you feels off.”

Fuck. What the fuck? Leashed? This is bad. So bad.

But so is the fact that I rejected my mate.

“I’m sorry,” I say, voice thick. “For the rejection. For all of it. I’ll make it right, I swear it. Whatever you need — whatever it takes — I’ll do it.”

By the end, my voice is frayed. Torn apart.

I can’t lose her. Not now. Not when I finally know what she is to me.

She looks at me unimpressed.

“No, thank you,” she says simply. “I just want to leave.”

That’s it. Cold. Clean. Like ice.

“That’s not an option,” I growl, the sound raw in my throat.

I step toward her. She lifts her hand, palm out, warning me off. I don’t stop. I keep moving until her hand presses flat against my chest — right over the bruise.

The second her skin touches mine, the pain inside me eases. Just like that.

My breath catches. I almost fall to my knees.

But she yanks her hand away like I burned her. Her face twists with fury.

“I don’t owe you anything,” she spits. “I understand now that there’s probably some ancient spell screwing with your side of the bond — great. That’s your problem, though. It doesn’t undo what you did. It doesn’t erase what I went through.”

She steps back, chin high, voice trembling with rage.

“I went through six months of agony. While you played king and cuddled your girlfriend, I was trying to hold myself together in exile. My wolf and I? We’re good now.

We’re finally free. And you?” Her smile is sharp.

“You still have a girlfriend. Go play house with her. I’ll find someone else.

And we’ll both live happily ever after — separately. ”

The growl that tears out of me is pure instinct. It rattles the room. Cracks through the walls.

Her finger jabs up under my nose so fast it stuns me.

“None of that,” she snaps. “Don’t you dare pull some alpha possessiveness bullshit on me. Answer the question — did you or did you not have sex with your little girlfriend while I was lost in Kunou Forest, trying to survive?”

The fury in her voice could level a kingdom.

“I didn’t,” I say, voice low. Steady. True.

She blinks.

“What?” she asks, the fight stalling just slightly behind her eyes.

“I didn’t sleep with anyone,” I say quietly. “Not once these past six months.”