تسجيل الدخولZeus’s POVThe morning training yard was a violent mess of kicked-up dust, breathing, and the ringing clash of steel.I was going full throttle, pushing my body to the limit.Brutal physical exhaustion was the only weapon I had left to drown out the constant, relentless howling of my inner wolf.I was sparring bare-chested with Marcus, the cold morning wind biting at the sweat running down my back.We moved with insane wolf speed, our practice blades blurring through the chilly air as we traded bone-jarring blows.To anyone watching from the perimeter walls, it looked like a fight to the death. To us, it was just another casual business meeting.I parried a thrust from Marcus's blade, the steel shrieking as I spun around him."What is the status on relocating Kelsey’s family from the Lowland Village to Fullcrest?" I asked, breathing hard through my teeth.Marcus grunted, ducking low to dodge my sweeping roundhouse kick. His boots dug deep into the dry dirt as he sprang back up."The m
Kelsey’s POVI woke up with the bright morning sun blinding my eyes and a dull ache in my lower back.The sheets beneath me still carried that faint, lingering smell of rain, wild pine, and embarrassment.I spent the first ten minutes just lying there flat on my back, staring up at the carved dark beams of the high ceiling.My brain kept replaying the image of King Zeus, the terrifying two-hundred-year-old ruler of this territory, losing his footing and face-planting onto my mattress while holding my bedsheets to his nose.A loud, sudden snort escaped my mouth before I could stop it.The bloodthirsty, monstrous Lycan King that the whole kingdom whispered about was actually an awkward, bumbling weirdo in the dark.My tiny moment of peace lasted for approximately four seconds.The double doors of my bedroom swung wide open without a single knock, the wood smacking against the inner wall with a bang.Enter my brand new problem.A young Lycan woman marched into the room holding a stack of
Zeus’s POVI speed-walked down the private corridor like I had just barely survived a deadly ambush.My boots hit the stone floor in fast, furious strides, my mind internally screaming at myself the entire way back toward my study.I was a two-hundred-and-forty-year-old Lycan King. I was the conqueror of three brutal border wars, a ruler who had brought entire enemy packs to their knees with a single growl.And I had just face-planted straight into a human girl’s mattress while aggressively sniffing her pillow.Inside my skull, my inner wolf was rolling on its back, howling with hysterical laughter.Shut the hell up, I snarled at my wolf, my face burning with a ridiculous heat.The great conqueror, the wolf wheezed in my mind, utterly useless. Defeated by a sheet and a startled jump. She caught you red-handed, you fool."I was running security checks," I muttered out loud through clenched teeth, aggressively rubbing the back of my hand over my face to scrub her lingering lavender scen
Kelsey’s POVI had spent the last three hours staring at the dark wooden beams on the ceiling, trying to force myself to sleep.It was a total failure.I tried counting sheep in my head, but by the time I hit two hundred, I was just annoyed that the imaginary sheep were jumping over an imaginary wooden fence.Then I tried tossing and turning, rolling from one end of the giant mattress all the way to the other edge. The sheets were cold, then they were too hot, then the pillows felt like giant rocks under my head.I just could not sleep no matter what I did.I even sat up in the dark and tried talking to myself in a soft, boring voice, hoping I would bore my own brain into shutting down."Okay, Kelsey, just close your eyes," I muttered to the empty walls. "Think about grass. Think about dirt. Think about Maya knitting that ugly grey sweater."Nope. Not even a tiny yawn.My eyes were wide open, and my brain was running at full speed.Finally, I tossed the blankets aside and swung my bar
Chapter Seventeen — Such A CreepZeus’s POVThe clock on the wall of my study ticked past two in the morning, and I was losing my mind.I sat at my new desk, staring down at a stack of border patrol reports that might as well have been written in a foreign language. I had read the exact same sentence about western supply wagons five times, and not a single word had registered in my brain.I tossed the parchment down, leaning back in my chair and rubbing both hands over my face.I couldn't focus. I couldn't work. I couldn't sleep.The worst part was her scent.It was drifting through the stone walls, sweet, and impossible to ignore. Rain, wild lavender, and sharp pine. But it wasn't just there; it was growing stronger.When she first walked into the palace four days ago, her scent was light, like a faint breeze. Now, it was so intense, filling up my private hallway and wrapping around my senses like a physical rope pulling at my chest.Why was it heightening like this? Was it because he
Kelsey’s POVI sat on the edge of the velvet bed, staring down at my hands.My mind wouldn't stop racing. Ever since Doctor Varian told me my blood was adapting to the King's energy, everything felt wrong. Knowing that something unnatural was shifting inside my body was messier to deal with than I cared to admit.I held my hand up to the sunlight filtering through the window. It looked ordinary. Smooth skin, short nails, no sign of claws or fur.I was human. I knew I was human.So why was my body starting to betray me?I hated that I couldn't stop checking my own skin like a paranoid lunatic every time my pulse spiked. But I couldn't help it. I couldn't help that I was terrified of waking up one morning and realizing whatever was in my veins had erased the girl who left Oakridge.Over the last two days, the changes had become impossible to ignore.Back home, I had good eyesight, but now I could distinguish individual water droplets on the leaves across the yard. I could hear the guard







