MY DESTINED MATE IS A LYCAN KING CHAPTER 4

Softly, they told me how he had been poisoned by an enemy pack some weeks back, prior to my arrival here. He had been poisoned by a rare, vicious poison derived from the black thorn flower that grew only in the south desert areas. It didn’t kill instantly. It would make him fall into a coma where his heart beat and brain activity would slow down to a point that he would be in between life and death.

The doctors tried their best in the private quarters of the king. Doctors from distant territories were brought. Nothing worked. King Hale Cross was mute and motionless, behind those heavy double doors that none of the maids could enter.

The whole area awaited impatiently whether the Lycan King wakes up or dies without even opening his eyes once.

My first week working as a maid girl was quiet hard work.

I swept floors of lengthy corridors where nobody went in, until my knees hurt due to long hours of kneeling on the cold stone floor. I changed sheets in the guest rooms where nobody slept anymore, with all the corners folded properly so that head maids wouldn’t notice anything wrong. I carried food for the physicians in the separate wing of the king.

Every time I passed by that place, I had some strange feeling in my chest, which seemed to be familiar but I have never seen the man sleeping on the other side of those corridors before.

It was one afternoon that I was cleaning the lengthy corridors outside the royal wing that I heard two head maids speaking near the window.

“Poison is weakening his heart beat daily,” the elder whispered, full of fear. “They are starting to lose hope on the physicians.”

“Without King Hale, the pack will go into chaos,” the younger whispered back. “Our enemies are waiting for this. They know that he is vulnerable. Without an heir… without him… we are doomed.”

I lowered my head and kept dusting, one hand over my pregnant belly, where the baby kicked at the realization.

That is what I had become: a nameless girl with a nameless baby girl in my womb, living in a palace where an asleep king reigned.

Life became a delicate routine.

Dawn: wake up before dawn in the cold servants' chambers; put on the gray uniform; have breakfast in silence with other junior maids who barely paid attention to me; there were a few who looked at my growing belly with curiosity or pity. A young girl called Tessa who could not have been older than nineteen finally came to talk to me on the eighth day.

“Are you the river girl? The one they rescued?”

“Yes, they call me Isla.”

Tessa watched me silently for some time. "You are lucky, you know. Nobody else from outside would have been welcomed here. Least of all, pregnant women. They didn't bring you here out of some mercy of King Hale’s but thanks to the certainty of their healers that you'd have died otherwise... And thanks to the river being ours."

"I don't feel lucky in the slightest," I admitted.

She smiled a little. "No one does. Not with our king like he is."

Later that night, lying on the bed in the servants' quarters, I put both hands on my belly, feeling the movements of my baby inside me.

"Who are we?" I whispered. "What did we used to be before the water washed everything away from us?"

Silence. One lone cry of a patrol wolf in the distance behind the castle walls.

However, after only two weeks of my work, everything changed.

My task was to bring a tray of herbal tea and cloths to those healers who had been posted outside the king’s rooms. I could feel a quiver pass through my fingers when I approached the huge double doors made of dark wood and adorned with crescent moons. There were guards on either side of the door; their expression was serious and watchful.

“Who’s this? The new girl? Isla?” one of them asked me.

“Yes,” I said.

“Put the tray on the side table. Don’t speak. Don’t stop. Don’t even peak if the doors open.”

As I put the tray down, the doors swung open to release the old healer. In that one instant before they shut again, I caught a glimpse of the chambers.

An enormous bed. White sheets. A towering figure who was motionless. Dark hair on pale pillows. The strong jawline. The rising and falling of a muscular chest almost imperceptibly.

King Hale Cross.

Some part of my forgotten heart turned on its axis.

I looked away instantly, but the image was seared into my mind forever. By the time I got back to the servant’s hallway, my hands were trembling so much that I had to hold them against my stomach.

The baby kicked harshly, almost as if angry.

“I know,” I whispered. “I felt it too.”

That night, sleep refused to come.

I lay awake listening to the soft breathing of the other maids, one hand resting on the curve of my belly where the child moved restlessly. Questions circled endlessly in my mind.

Who was I before the river?

Why did the sight of a man I had never met make my chest ache with something that felt dangerously close to grief… or longing?

And why, when I closed my eyes, did I sometimes see flashes of silver light, of a cliff’s edge, of a woman’s cruel laughter, and of a golden warmth that had once wrapped around me like a promise?

The answers stayed locked behind the wall of my broken memory.

I was Isla now.

A maid in a palace ruled by a sleeping king.

A mother to a child whose father I could not remember.

And somewhere deep inside the white silence of my mind, something dark and painful continued to stir waiting for the day it would finally wake.

The next morning arrived gray and heavy, as if the sky itself was holding its breath.

I was in the laundry room folding fresh linens when hurried footsteps echoed down the corridor. Mira, the same nurse who had given me the name Isla, appeared in the doorway, her usual calm expression replaced by sharp urgency.

“Isla. Come with me. Now.”

I dropped the sheet I was holding. “What’s wrong?”

“One of the senior attendants assigned to King Hale collapsed an hour ago. High fever. Possible infection from the poison residue. The others are either already exhausted or refuse to enter the chamber for longer than a few minutes.” She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “The head of the infirmary needs someone immediately. Someone clean. Someone steady. Someone who won’t panic.”

My heart began to race. “You mean… me?”

“You’re the only one left who hasn’t been inside that room for extended periods. And you’re pregnant your scent is milder, less threatening to a weakened Alpha. The head healer requested you specifically.” Mira’s eyes held mine. “You don’t have a choice, Isla. The king’s condition is deteriorating. If we leave him without constant care..”

“I understand,” I whispered.

I didn’t understand at all.

But I followed her.