Chapter 4: My mate is dead??

Tyrant Luciano Zarkov:

I was never given a kingdom. I took it.

Eight hundred years ago this continent was a graveyard of squabbling packs. I started as nothing—a tyrant rogue with a blade and a wolf that refused to kneel. I gathered the unwanted: rogues, outcasts, wolves whose Alphas had already failed them. We carved our way east, then north, then south.

One by one I challenged the seven great Alphas in single combat under the moon. When I won, I drank their blood—not for ritual, but because it tasted like victory. Their packs became my provinces; their loyalty became law, enforced by public executions.

And so I built an entire nation: the Vagabond Empire, seven states bound by my will.

I arrived in this small, trembling state today because their Alpha begged on his knees. Their young were dying from a fever no healer could break. They claimed my blood—older, stronger, different—could chase the sickness from small bodies.

I let them take it.

I sat in their narrow medical wing, sleeve rolled to the elbow, watching crimson fill vial after vial while their Alpha stood beside me, head lowered until his chin nearly touched his chest. He spoke in careful, reverent sentences—thanking me again and again, promising loyalty that would outlast his lifetime.

I barely listened.

My wolf was quiet—unusually so—curled in the back of my mind, eyes half-closed, indifferent.

Then—a pinprick. Not in my arm where the needle still sat. Deeper. Somewhere that had gone quiet centuries ago.

I frowned. Shifted in the chair.

The pinprick sharpened into a slow, deliberate slice. Not my pain. Hers.

My left hand flexed without permission, fingers curling into a fist so tight the knuckles cracked.

I exhaled through my nose, told myself it was nothing—a phantom echo, an old wound remembering itself. But the pain didn’t fade. It bloomed, slow and patient, spreading like ink through water.

My wolf lifted his head. Ears flicked forward. A low rumble started in his throat—not yet a growl, just… awareness.

I set the empty vial down. The clink sounded too loud in the quiet room.

The Alpha paused mid-sentence. “Alpha Tyrant…?”

I didn’t answer.

Because then the scent arrived.

Faint—so faint I almost missed it. Blood. Lavender crushed under something heavy. Wildflowers torn open. And underneath—something small, something new, something fighting to wake up.

My spine straightened as if pulled by invisible wire. My wolf surged to his feet inside me. The rumble became a snarl.

I inhaled—sharp, involuntary. The scent strengthened just enough. My body twitched once, hard.

The Alpha took a step back without realizing he’d done it.

I scanned the room slowly: nurses frozen mid-motion, a child’s cot empty in the corner, sunlight slanting through narrow windows. Nothing.

But the scent was moving—drifting, pulling, threading through the corridors like smoke. My heart—after eight hundred years of steady, mechanical beating—stuttered. Then slammed.

*Mate.*

The word didn’t whisper. It detonated. Raw. Impossible to disagree. Furious.

I stood so fast the chair scraped backward and toppled. The Alpha flinched. “Alpha—?”

I was already moving.

Long strides became longer. Boots struck stone. The corridor blurred. Wolves flattened themselves to the walls as I passed—eyes wide, throats bared, instinct screaming submission.

I didn’t see them.

I followed the thread—fainter now, laced with copper, with fear, with the cold bite of surgical steel and sterilizing burn. It led to double doors. Sealed. Red light pulsing above like a warning heartbeat.

Voices leaked through—clipped, mechanical. “…pressure dropping…” “…keep going, the beta’s daughter needs her kidney!!”

I didn’t knock.

I drove both palms into the center of the doors. They flew inward with a sound like breaking bone.

The operating room stopped breathing.

A small woman lay open on the table—ribs parted, blood dark and spreading beneath her like spilled wine. Machines shrieked in protest. A scalpel hung suspended in a gloved hand.

Her scent crashed over me—overwhelming, complete, *hers*.

My mate.

Carved open.

Rage rose so fast it tasted like metal in my mouth.

I stepped inside. The doors swung shut behind me with a soft, final click.

“Care to explain what’s happening here?” I asked, staring at my mate lying half-dead on the table.

“Alpha Tyrant…” one of the nurses stammered and fell to the ground.

“Answer me!”

“She… she’s an organ donor. Her kidney is needed for the beta’s daughter, Helen.”

“And who gave permission for that? Did she agree to it?”

Another sharp pain pierced my chest. Her agony rushed into me all at once.

“Please… save me…” Her tiny voice reached me.

I turned to her, then back to the nurses.

A bad day to be alive.

Good thing our souls already recognized each other.

“All of you will answer to me.”

I crossed the room in three strides. My arms slid beneath her—careful, impossibly careful—even as every muscle screamed to tear the room apart.

Her head fell against my chest. Her heartbeat—weak, stuttering—pressed against my ribs like a trapped bird. Her wolf, trembling Omega just breaking the surface, brushed mine. Mine answered with a growl that vibrated through both of us.

I lifted her. Turned. Walked out.

No one moved to stop me. No one breathed.

Behind me, machines kept screaming. But the only sound that mattered was the faint, stubborn flutter of her heart against mine.

After eight hundred years… she was here.

And no one would ever hurt her again.

Not while I still drew breath.

I carried her through corridors that suddenly felt too narrow, too bright, too full of useless people who scattered like leaves in the wind. Her weight was nothing—fragile, feather-light, wrong. A mate should feel solid, warm, unbreakable. Not this. Not a broken bird barely clinging to life.

I kicked open the first empty room I found and laid her on the bed with a gentleness I didn’t know I still possessed. My hands shook as I pressed them to the ragged edges of the incision they’d made in her side. Blood seeped through my fingers—hot, accusing.

“Get healers,” I snarled at the doorway. “Now.”

Wolves scrambled. Machines were dragged in. IV lines reconnected. Someone tried to push me aside to work.

I didn’t move.

They worked around me—terrified, silent, efficient.

Her breathing was shallow. Too shallow. Her skin the color of old parchment. Malnourished. Bruised in places that had nothing to do with the surgery. Marks of neglect older than today. Years of it.

My wolf howled inside me—long, guttural, endless.

Eight hundred years.

And the one the Moon Goddess finally sent me looked like she had already been half-killed before I even arrived.

Hours passed. Or minutes. Time meant nothing.

I stayed rooted beside her bed, one hand wrapped around hers—small, cold, limp. I willed heat into her. Strength. Life. Anything.

A doctor finally approached, head bowed so low his neck might snap.

“Alpha Tyrant…” I didn’t look at him. “She’s… she’s gone.”

The words hit like a blade between the ribs.

My head turned slowly. “What did you say?”

He swallowed. Voice cracked. “Her heart stopped. We tried everything. The blood loss… the trauma… she’s dead.”

Silence.

Then something inside me cracked open.

“Nonsense,” I whispered.

The word came out soft.

Then louder.

“Nonsense!!”

The roar shook the walls. Windows rattled. Every wolf in the room dropped to their knees, heads pressed to the floor.

I leaned over her. Pressed my forehead to hers.

“You do not get to leave me,” I growled against her skin. “Not now. Not after eight hundred years of waiting. You do not die in my arms before I even know your name.”

My wolf surged—furious, desperate. Power poured out of me—raw Lycan strength flooding into her through every point of contact. I didn’t care if it burned her. I didn’t care if it killed me.

Just live.

Live.

Live.

A gasp tore from my throat. My chest arched.

“I swear to the Moon Goddess—if anything happens to my mate, I will have you all killed. Every single person in this pack!!!”