Blood Pact

Maya's POV

The silence that settled over the office after the messenger’s expulsion was so thick I could almost touch it. Smoke from the burned scroll drifted through the air, slowly dissipating toward the dark wooden beams of the ceiling, leaving behind the scent of ashes mixed with Lawrence’s aroma of pine and tobacco. I remained standing in the same spot, my hands hidden beneath the heavy gray cloak, clenching my fists to keep the trembling in my fingers from betraying the weakness the fever still inflicted on my body.

Lawrence didn’t move immediately. He remained behind the colossal dark wooden desk, his gray eyes fixed on the ashes that were finishing their slow burn across its surface. His face was a mask carved from stone, unreadable, but the rigidity of his broad shoulders revealed that his inner wolf was still stirred by the confrontation. At last, he shifted his gaze toward me, sweeping over my curves, pausing for a second at the curve of my hips before rising to meet my dark eyes.

“Don’t think for even a millisecond that I did that out of compassion, woman,” he said, his deep, rough baritone voice slicing through the air with the precision of a blade. “I have no interest in Silver Moon’s domestic drama, nor do I care about the wounded pride of a lesser Alpha who doesn’t know how to control his females.”

“Then why did you do it?” I asked, taking a step forward, forcing my voice to remain steady despite the burning in my throat. “You called me a rogue. You locked me in an icy cell. If I’m nothing but a useless nuisance, why didn’t you throw me to Hunter’s wolves and spare yourself the diplomatic conflict?”

Lawrence let out a low snort and walked around the desk with slow, feline steps, approaching me with that dangerous grace possessed only by Alpha predators. With every step he took, his overwhelming aura once again compressed the air in the room, making me feel painfully small, but I refused to step back. When he was only inches away, he extended his right hand and, with a slowness that made my skin prickle, pulled my mother’s silver medallion from the pocket of his military tunic.

He held the mystical metal between his long fingers, roughened by steel, allowing the candlelight to illuminate the engravings of the moon and the roots.

“Because of this,” he declared, his gray eyes locking onto mine with a possessive intensity that made my pulse quicken. “Hunter is a damned fool who sees nothing more than a defective servant because his mind is too small. But I know exactly what you are, Maya. This amulet isn’t a simple silver trinket. It is the key to the bloodline of the mystical healers, the only lineage capable of channeling the energy of the Heart of the Moon, the sacred relic that stabilizes the power of our empire and which the High Military Council has been trying to seize and control for the past ten years.”

A jolt ran through my stomach. The mention of my mother and the past I had been forced to forget in Silver Moon ignited a spark of urgency inside my chest.

“My mother told me it was a secret… that I should never show it to anyone,” I mumbled, feeling the mystical warmth in my abdomen react to the nearness of the medallion.

“Your mother was right to hide you. If the Council discovers that a survivor of the royal bloodline is alive, they’ll hunt you down and bleed you dry on an altar to claim that power.” Lawrence stepped even closer, completely trapping me inside his personal space. The suffocating warmth of his Lycan body met my feverish skin, and a sexual tension as thick as winter mist surrounded us. “But in my palace, the Council doesn’t rule. I do. And I’m offering you a deal, Maya.”

“What kind of deal?” I asked, holding my breath, my lips slightly parted from the lack of air. His gray eyes dropped to my mouth for a second before returning to my gaze.

“I’ll give you a royal roof over your head, clean clothes, food, and the absolute protection of my army. No Silver Moon tracker or Council executioner will lay a hand on you without me cutting off his head first,” he offered, his voice dropping to a deeper tone, almost an intimate whisper that made something inside me tremble. “In return, you’ll help me decipher the relic’s secrets. You’ll use your mystical blood to break the seals the Council has kept hidden. You’ll no longer be a prisoner in the basement, but you’ll live under my strict supervision. You’ll be mine to protect, and mine to control. Do you accept?”

I looked at the medallion in his hand. I looked at the scars across his chest, at the eyes of a ruthless king who was offering me the only real chance to survive and, eventually, to take revenge on everyone who had trampled me. I had no other choice, and my wounded pride demanded power.

“I accept,” I said firmly, pulling my right hand from beneath the cloak.

Lawrence put the medallion away and extended his enormous open palm to seal the pact. The exact moment my feverish skin touched the mystical roughness of his hand, the world seemed to explode.

It wasn’t an ordinary touch. A surge of violent golden energy, like a mystical bolt of lightning, burst from the point where our palms met. The collision of our essences unleashed an invisible shockwave that swept through the office with brutal force. The mystical pressure was so sudden and overwhelming that the enormous mystical crystal vase decorating the corner of the room exploded into a thousand pieces with a deafening crash, scattering glittering fragments across the stone floor.

I staggered backward, letting out a gasp of pain and surprise as the warmth in my abdomen roared with savage force, recognizing the bond that had just awakened. Lawrence remained completely motionless, staring at his own palm, which was still releasing thin wisps of golden smoke, his gray eyes wide with absolute shock.

Before either of us could process the impact of the bond that had just ignited between a Lycan King and a rogue, the office’s heavy oak door burst open with a violent crash. A warrior of the royal guard, his armor covered in snow and fresh blood, stumbled inside, his eyes wide with panic.

“Supreme Alpha!” the guard shouted, dropping to his knees while clutching a broken sword. “The High Council’s executioners have allied themselves with Silver Moon’s trackers! They’ve just broken through the defenses of the eastern wing, and they’re heading straight for the main tower for the girl’s head!”