Yearning

Ares

She didn’t look back. She should have. Kings aren’t used to being walked away from. My wolves, who had been silently watching as we spoke, weren’t used to it either. Three of them at the tree line shifted, growling low, asking why I let a banished Omega dismiss their king. Because she wasn’t an Omega. Not anymore. Not after today. The ground where she’d stood was still cracked from her power. The air still smelled of her: sweat, fear, and something sweeter underneath. Hers. It clung to my lungs, and my wolf wanted to chase it, cage it, keep it.

“She’s in your head,” Darric said, stepping up beside me. My Beta. My oldest friend. The only one who could get away with that tone.

“She’s under my skin,” I corrected, rubbing my thumb over the spot on my wrist where I’d grabbed her. Her pulse had been there. Wild. Terrified. Alive. “In my blood, if I’m honest.”

Darric went still. “That’s worse.”

“I know.” I couldn’t scent lies, not from myself.

“Did you feel it?”

“The ground splitting? Hard to miss, my king.”

“Not that.” I turned, eyes on the path she’d taken back to the barracks. The ghost of her heat was still in the air.

“The pulse. When I said she was mine to protect. When her hand went to her stomach."

Darric’s jaw ticked.

"I felt the power spike. The rest is yours.”

It was. God help me, it was. Not a bond. Not yet. Bonds don’t form with another male’s child in the way. But my wolf didn’t care about rules. It had felt that reach, that blind, seeking warmth, and decided. Ours. To guard. To keep.

“You can’t claim her, you know,” Darric said quietly. “Not officially. Not while she carries his blood. The northern packs will call it a weakness. The southern ones will call it theft.”

“Let them.” The words came out rough. “She was Omega. She was with an Alpha who threw her out when his old toy came back. She was meant to be Luna, and they stripped that from her.”

I dragged a hand through my hair, breathing her out, failing. “I don’t want to strip her. I want to watch her take it all back. And I want to be the reason she believes she can.”

Darric studied me. “You’re gone for her.”

“I’ve been gone since she hit me and didn’t apologize.” The memory of her palm on my chest, force and fear and fire, made my mouth go dry.

“She looked at me after, like she hated that I didn’t go down. Like she hated that I liked it.”

“She’s still thinking of him,” Darric warned. “You saw her face. The baby reacted, and she went white. Guilt. Not want.”

“I know.” And that was the knife. Not the ex-mate. He was a corpse who hadn’t stopped walking. The knife was her, torn in half, thinking she owed her body’s reaction to a male who’d discarded her. “She thinks wanting safety is betrayal. She thinks if she leans, she falls.”

So I wouldn’t push. I’d just… be there. Be the ground.

I left Darric and went to the war room, but I took the long way. Past her quarters. Her window was dark, but the bond-thread that wasn’t a bond yet pulled tight in my chest. Agitated. Awake. She’d be lying there, hands splayed over her stomach, arguing with herself. With him. With me. I pressed my palm to the stone wall outside her door. Just for a second. A stupid, kingly, pathetic second. Rest. I’m here. If power could carry words, maybe it did.

“Sire.” A scout burst in when I finally made it to the war room. “Riders at the eastern border. Carrying the crest of the Stormclaw Pack.”

Her old pack. Her Alpha’s pack. My claws punched through the table. The wood didn’t matter. The thought of him near her did.

“He’s here,” I said. Not a question. The scout nodded.

“They’re asking for an audience. Saying they sniffed one of theirs here.”

 My wolf wanted blood. I wanted worse. I wanted him to see her stand, to see her choose, and know he’d made himself nothing.

“Tell them I’ll meet them at dawn,” I said. “On the training ground. Where she bled power into the dirt and didn’t break.

”My king, the council...”

“Will deal with it.” I stood. The room felt too small. I felt too big, too gone over a female who still flinched when I breathed.

“And send a healer to Lyra’s quarters. Don’t tell her why. Say it’s standard. Check her. Check… them.”

The word caught. Them. Maybe.

“If she asks who ordered it, tell her I did. She should know I worry.”

Darric came behind me when the scout left. He heard everything.

“You’re going to start a war over a female who won’t even say she wants you.”

I went to the window. Her window. Still dark.

“I’m not starting a war over her.” My reflection looked half-mad.

“I’m ending the one they started when they decided she was nothing.”

I wouldn’t touch her tonight. I wouldn’t go to her door. That wasn’t what, that was need, and she’d smell the difference. But come dawn, I’d stand between her and the male who made her believe she was lovable. And if whatever was inside her reached for me again? This time, I’d reach back. Predators chase. Alphas chase. Kings wait. I’d waited. I was done.