Chapter 3

LYRA

My knuckles turned white. I turned to look at my husband shaking uncontrollably. With my eyes, I pleaded for him to look at me. He wouldn’t turn to me, his eyes remained on the mistress he had been frolicking with throughout our marriage.

No. He disliked me, that wa true. But I was his wife, we had come so far together and we had built Redmoon together in his father’s absence. He wasn’t going to throw it all away for her. Xander couldn’t sacrifice me, his wife, for a common mistress, right?

Wrong. I was very wrong.

“You can take her.”

The room started to spin around me as I watched his index finger point at my face.

My eyes widened, more out of fear than disbelief. I looked up at the mask man and shook my head, hot tears rushing down my cheeks.

“Please, Xander. No. You can’t do this to me.”

“It’s you or her…and I…” he started to speak, then looked away from me and fixed his gaze on his mistress. Emily, or whatever her name was. I watched in pain as he reached for her hand and squeezed it gently. He was… he was really in love with her.

The leader in the mask took a step towards us. There was something oddly familiar about him. I felt like I could see him smile behind the huge wolf head on his neck.

“He chose the blonde one.” He started to speak, and the men behind him - all four of them - came forward.

“Seize the blonde one.”

“What?! No!” Xander screamed at the top of his lungs. I had never seen him so afraid to lose anything.

“Help me! Don’t let them take me!” She cried and kicked, and screamed. It didn’t do her any good. Two men tore her away from Xander’s hold and pinned her hands behind her back.

At that moment, it didn’t matter what she had done to me or my marriage in the past, I didn’t want to see her like that.

“What do you want?! Tell me, I’ll give you anything! Money, lands, food. You’re…you’re the rogues of Blackwater, aren’t you? I’ve heard your land is brazen.” Xander stopped to catch his breath and swallowed hard.

“You do not have good roads, or hospitals, or infrastructures, or water. I can…I can make that happen. I’m the alpha king. Just tell me your wish. All I ask is that you let us go.”

I nodded in agreement, fear grasping every inch of my mind that remained. I hated Xander with everything that I had, but if he could find a way to get us out of this alive…

I prayed and hoped that the rogues would listen and take Xander’s offer, but they weren’t known for striking deals.

“Money? Land? You would give us a better life? Can you imagine that, alpha?” The leader spoke up. He didn’t seem the least impressed.

“Now you admit that people are in Blackwater whose lives matter because you’re about to lose yours?”

“I…”

“Don’t you fucking speak!” The man snapped, and Xander melted into the wall and sealed his lips.

Grave silence fell on the room. Not a single sound could be heard, besides the pounding of my heart. The excruciating sound lingered forever, before the wolf masked leader threw his head back in laughter.

I narrowed my eyes on him. I was feeling so much emotions at once, I didn’t know which to focus on.

As we watched in fear, he raised his hands to his head and slowly took off the mask. With every inch of his face that was unveiled, my heart sunk deeper into the pit of my stomach.

He dropped the mask on the ground and smiled at me.

No!

My breath hitched at the back of my throat, choking me. I parted my lips to gasp for air. My life was being sucked away from my nostrils.

This couldn’t be happening.

The leader of the rogues of Blackwater was the man I slept with last night?!

“You.” The word slipped out of Xander’s lips in a breathless whisper, stealing the strange man’s attention from me.

“Yes, it is I. And I have to say, you disappoint me, brother.”

My ears couldn’t have stood any faster.

What?

Surely he did not just say…brother!

“Father would be rolling in his grave for your cowardice.” He continued.

“Do not bring my father into this, Xavier! You didn’t know him!”

Xavier. His name was Xavier?

The late alpha king had a son? A son that was raised in Blackwater? How? How did no one else know this? Or was I the only one aware of this?

Xavier shook his head as he chuckled bitterly. The twinkle in his smile only showed how much of a twisted maniac he was.

How had me masked this evil from me last night? Or was I just too drunk to see?!

“I didn’t know him, alright. How could I have? I was the son he didn’t want! The don he tried to kill! I was the son whose mother had to dump by a river in a land full of rogues just so your father, who is also my father, won’t be able to find me! I was twelve, for goddess sake! Twelve years old and I just wanted my father’s fucking love!”

He was screaming, raging, yet he stood at a spot. His aura was dangerously calm, if crippled me more.

“He’s dead now. And I woke up everyday swearing that I would take everything that belonged to him. Everything in this kingdom would be mine.”

Xander scoffed.

“You’re a fucking joke. You were a joke then, and you’re a bigger one now. You think anyone’s going to listen to you? The people of Redmoon would rather die.”

“I am ready to slaughter every single soul that bats an eye at me, dearest brother. Starting with yours.” Xavier retorted with a broad smile on his face, before tilting his neck, sending a signal to his soldier who stepped forward.

“Cut his throat.”

As the man walked briskly towards Xander with an axe in his hand, Xander fell flat on the ground and begged for his life.

“No! Please! Forgive me. I would give you…I would give you anything you want!”

The assassin didn’t stop. I clutched the sides of my dress, afraid to breathe.

He came back for revenge. Did he know who I was when he met me at the club? Was that why he kissed me and went ahead to sleep with me even though my mouth was filled with vomit? Was it part of a plot to spite the royal family? Had I been used?

So many questions ran through my mind as I watched Xavier stare at Xander with a crooked smile.

“Spare me! I beg of you! Whatever you want.”

“Stop.” On Xavier’s orders, the man halted.

“It would be rude of me to decline an offer so good after all, wouldn’t it? Very well then, I would let you live, but on one condition.”

“Wh…what?”

Xavier strolled to where Xander lay and squatted, so that he could look my husband sternly in the eyes.

“A seat on the table my father sat in.”

“D…done. It’s done, I swear on it.”

Xavier rose to his feet, his tall height conquered the presence of the room immediately.

He started to walk towards me, and I looked away from him. I had been so foolish to trust a stranger enough to go to bed with him, but he had been so kind, so understanding, so compassionate. How could one possess such contrasting characters? Which of them was a lie?

“I would be sure to take care of this beautiful gift you have given me, brother.” He said as he smiled at me.

“I have always wanted to have a woman so beautiful. Dark hair, bright brown eyes, porcelain skin clear of any spots.” He caressed my chin and my stomach turned, but all my senses were immediately heightened.

I could see last night all over again. How his hands explored my body, showing me places I had never though existed. How he guided my hips as I bounced up and down his dick. His hard length that filled me up in a way I had never experienced before, the way I had tasted on his tongue after he ate me to my first orgasm, the way he…

Fuck!

What the hell was I doing?! He was a murderer and a rogue! A man who had come to usurp and ruin a land I knew as my home for revenge! Why did I want to have him inside me there and then, even though I knew he could take me and my life?

When he cupped my cheeks with his palms and looked me straight in the eyes, all my questions were answered.

For the first time in twenty four years, my wolf purred “mate”.