Chapter 17 – The Altar of Deceit

                I hurled my broom straight toward the round moon, as if its silver face could absorb the liquid rage boiling inside my chest.

                My lungs burned with every gasp of thin, freezing air, a volatile cocktail of hatred, a desperate thirst for revenge, and a mental storm that refused to break.  There was no way I would let the Prince and his vile entourage walk away unpunished.

Three days of waiting had felt like three agonizing centuries of rot, and every heartbeat only sharpened my resolve into a shards-of-glass blade.

                My plan to head directly to Human Town had been violently postponed by the truth.

First, the Royals needed a lesson, one they would not forget until the last of their line crumbled to dust. The irony gnawed at me like a starving parasite. The Lycan King and his house were supposed to safeguard peace among the species. Yet here stood this Crown Prince, a man who’d claimed to be my fated mate, obsessed with personal power and willing to sacrifice me on the altar of a hybrid-breeding factory.

                ‘Era,’ I whispered into the night, “as sure as my name is Ana, I won’t be toyed with. The Royals need to be gutted. They need to be taught that a witch’s fire is not something you can cage for profit.”

                Era remained silent.

                An unusual, ambiguous hush, that tasted of lead. The bond between wolf and mate was sacred, and though I had seen the monster behind the mask, my wolf was mourning the dream. That quiet unsettled me more than any roar, it was the sound of a spirit being torn in two.

The following days passed in restless, uneven fragments. I plotted, rehearsed my spells, and searched for balance, yet my mind spun like a blazing wheel, throwing sparks of paranoia into every corner of my brain.

                On the second night, I camped near the Shaman’s dwelling again, crouched in the shadows. Wisps of smoke drifted upward, heavy with the sour reek of half‑finished elixirs. It was proof that the old butcher was still inside, brewing the very toxins meant to paralyze my magic.

                Finally, the hour arrived.

                 The Heat had cooled into a simmering, dangerous coal, and I could safely return to earth without the fever blinding me. I bathed in a glacial creek, letting the numbing water strip away the scent of the forest, then walked the path toward the Palace. The morning sun climbed slowly, a pale, judgmental eye guiding me as though the universe itself demanded this blood-reckoning.

                I cloaked my scent with a heavy layer of damp earth and elderberry, Romani would not detect me until I was standing on his throat. Today, I promised myself, the Crown Prince would learn the true cost of a witch's spite.

                Climbing the Palace steps, I inhaled deeply, tasting the expensive incense that seemed to permeate the stone.

                My mantras were sharp, my intent deadly.

                But as I neared his private study, voices leaked through the heavy oak door, one furious, the other oily and frustrated.

                “So you’re telling me a little witch has been missing for three days? Do you realize the humiliation I’ve suffered?” Romani’s voice boomed with a terrifying, possessive ego. “Announcing that my mating ceremony had to be postponed? The gossip machine in the Kingdom is in full swing. Everyone knows Ana disappeared. They think I’m weak, that I can’t even keep a female in her rooms!”

A thunderous thud followed, the sound of his fist pulverizing the wood of a desk.

“This isn’t going according to plan, Eric! Has she guessed our secret? We never discussed the... extraction... in her presence. Where could she be?”

                A shuffle, then a long, weary sigh.

                “You tell me,” Eric muttered, his voice lacking its usual sycophantic edge. “The warriors searched everywhere. But with a witch, you never know. Maybe it’s tied to the full moon. If that’s it, she’ll surely return. The bond won't let her stay away from you for long. Give it time.”

Romani growled, a deep, guttural sound that vibrated in my very marrow.

                “Time? We can’t afford it! She’s crucial. Elara grows jealous, restless, she sees Ana as a rival. She won’t rest until the ceremony is complete and the first draw is made. How did you not notice her disappearance?”

                That was my cue.

                The moment had rotted to a perfect, poisonous ripeness.

I shoved the door open with a flick of my wrist that sent the heavy hinges screaming. Two heads snapped toward me, eyes widening in a mixture of predatory hunger and genuine shock.

                Before I could unleash the spell I had prepared, a curse of withered loins, infertility, and the agonizing, permanent impotence I had rehearsed for seventy-two hours, the voice that erupted from my throat was not mine.

                It was Era’s.

                It was a primal, thunderous roar that shattered my control. The instant Romani’s eyes locked with mine, his blue pupils blowing wide until they were black holes of terrifying lust, my wolf took the reins.

                                “MATE! MINE!”

                Control slipped from me like blood through a sieve.

                In a heartbeat, the distance between us vanished. I wasn't attacking, I was colliding. I was in his arms, my lips pressed to his in a kiss that tasted of war and honey.

                Slade, Romani’s wolf, broke free from the Prince’s grip as if our wolves had conspired behind our backs to betray our minds. The pull was irresistible, a gravitational collapse stronger than witch-fire, stronger than my own crumbling dignity.

                “Damn, baby,” Romani groaned against my neck, his teeth grazing my pulse point as his scent, sandalwood and ozone, flooded my senses, drowning every plan of revenge I had ever made.

                My resolve didn't just break, it vaporized.

                He scooped me up, his hands like iron clamps on my thighs, carrying me with a brute force that left me breathless.

                Within seconds, we were in his private chambers, the doors slamming shut. I tried to chain Era, to claw back some semblance of sanity, but she refused. She was a creature of the moon, and she wanted her Prince. My body betrayed me, shivering into a state of total surrender without a full shift.

                “Let me love you, mate. We were made for each other,” Romani whispered in a hoarse, ruinous rasp, his eyes black pools of pure, unadulterated desire.

His hands move hastily over my body, one by one my clothes fly into the air to land somewhere on the floor.

His hands moved hastily over my body, one by one my clothes flew into the air to land somewhere on the floor. When his clothes had also disappeared, all I could do was stare at him, completely paralyzed by the ruthless biology of the bond.

                My mind screamed murder, but my body obeyed a much older, darker law. His lips trailed my inner thigh, and the world spun off its axis. My hips start to move on their own as I feel his warm mouth closing on my most intimate spot. My head feels light, I can no longer think clearly. I lift myself closer to his mouth, demanding more and more of this wonderful, devastating feeling.

                I clawed at his hair, gasping, torn between the urge to rip his throat out and the need to pull him closer. My thoughts blurred, my heart raced like a trapped bird. Every instinct told me to fight, yet every fiber of my being ached for the touch of the man who had planned to harvest me.

                ‘Prince, please... yes, yes!’ I moaned, a pathetic, lustful mess of a woman. The words escaped me like a leak in a dam, half-curse, half-plea. As I experienced my first orgasm at the mercy of his expert, cruel tongue, my body shuddered with a pleasure so intense it felt like a beautiful death. I threw my head back in ecstasy, unable to control my desires.

                ‘Era, now!’ I heard my consciousness scream somewhere far away, but it was impossible to come to my senses. I felt the heavy, hot weight of his member at my entrance before he slowly, almost torturously, slid into me.

                When he was driven balls-deep inside me, I could not suppress a sharp, piercing cry of pain. The metallic smell of torn maidenhead mixed with the heavy musk of our lust, filling the room with a scent that was both sacred and profane.

                As he slowly began to move, the initial agony subsided into a heavenly, rhythmic urge for the unknown.

                ‘Goddess, yes. Slade, move faster!’ I heard myself say, my own voice sounding foreign and desperate.

                My hips moved impatiently, seeking the friction, as I felt my second orgasm of the evening burning like white phosphorus inside me.

                The hours that followed were a blurred, sweaty haze of struggle and total surrender. The  mate bond was an unforgiving tide that didn't care about betrayal or my own survival. My anger dissolved into drunken confusion, my hatred drowning in a storm of conflicting, dopamine-fueled emotions.

                Two long hours of frantic, desperate lovemaking followed, a visceral dance of two predators claiming what the moon had promised.

                I screamed myself hoarse with pleasure while the Prince could barely control his own animalistic groans, his claws digging furrows into the silk sheets.

                As he spilled himself inside me for the last time, a hot flood that filled my womb to the brim.

                It was done.

                He had anchored his seeds deep within me, yet it was already too late for the far‑reaching, life‑altering consequences of his dark game.