Chapter 3

Strong hands shot out to grip my shoulders, keeping me upright. My gaze flew up, locking with a warm, familiar brown gaze.

The defensive tension drained from my limbs as I recognized my friend, Derek.

"What's wrong? You don't usually come around here." Derek's familiar, soothing tone washed over me, melting away my sudden doubts.

Lycan Gamma Derek to the Tyrant King now, was different from any other Lycan I’d encountered so far.

While many Lycans of the high ranks were aggressive and physically menacing, Derek was cunning. He distinguished himself by serving as the palace apothecary.

It was why Derek was stigmatized by the other Lycans. His knowledge of poisons and potions were overlooked in this society of warmongering expectations. I didn’t want to add to his hardship– whenever other Lycans were around, we pretended not to know one another.

But in private, we were close friends. I had seen Derek's vulnerability when the other Lycans picked on him in his youth. It was my solitary kindness and sympathy that slowly lowered his guard.

We confided in each other, and I knew he shared my hatred for this cruel, hierarchy-obsessed place. He became the only soul in the palace who knew the depth of my fear of the Tyrant King and the relentless nightmares that haunted me every night.

Remembering the sleep tonic Derek had specially brewed for me after learning about my sleepless nights, my heart softened a little. But I quickly realized that telling him about my escape plan could bring him trouble, and I couldn't do that to my precious friend.

I lowered my gaze, avoiding his eyes. "I've just been assigned some urgent tasks... I have to run now." I said in a rush, only now realizing how breathless I was. “I can’t stay here, I can’t.”

Calming down was the next challenge. But Derek cupped my face in his hands.

“Hey, it's me,” he said, voice low. “You can tell me everything. I'll protect you.”

I looked at his face, and it struck me hard that it was Derek talking. Not Gamma Derek. We had practically grown up together.

But I couldn't bring myself to drag Derek into my troubles. Yet, even as I hesitated, he had already pieced it all together from my frantic demeanor and the bundle in my arms.

"Is it because he's back? The King." He insisted on meeting my eyes, his hands firm on my shoulders. "You're running away, aren't you?"

I froze, but a distant clamor of preparations for the King's triumphant banquet snapped me back to reality. I had no more time to waste.

I quickly explained Beta Tyler's visit. "I can't stay here forever."

Derek’s lips were pressed into a thin line, as if he was deliberating what to do with this information.

At that moment, the orderly cadence of marching feet sounded from down the corridor—the Lycan guards were approaching.

I looked at Derek, my eyes begging him to understand, to let me use this last sliver of solitude to escape.

His own resolve solidified. "The palace security is on high alert. Charging out there now is a death sentence," he stated, his grasp tightening on my wrist. "You're coming with me."

The footsteps neared. I had to let his irresistible force steer me into the corner. I had no chance to speak before a damp handkerchief, reeking of something foreign and sweet, clamped over my face. My mind drifted away with each failing breath.

When I woke up, I felt weak and ill. Seren was writhing within, as if struggling. But she felt oddly distant. A flicker of unease stirred in me.

“Derek?” I called out. But then I felt there was a dull pain throbbing through my hands and up my arms.

I tried moving, only to realize my hands were restrained by handcuffs. Startled, I yanked at them. Metal clattered softly, singeing where it touched my flesh.

Not just metal, I realized with mounting panic. The cuffs were pure silver, the very metal that could kill a werewolf best.

“Derek,” I tried again, forcing myself steady. “What is this?”

We were in a different room. It didn’t smell like the castle. I had no idea how long I’d been sleeping.

“This…is an opportunity.” Derek exhaled like he’d been holding his breath all this time. “I’ve languished under Zavan’s rule for too long, waiting for a day that his Delta dogs would be too busy to notice the King’s prized pet being slipped out from under their noses.”

“His Deltas?” I said dumbly.

“He practically had you under lock and key,” Derek sneered. “I made every attempt to isolate you, get you alone so that I might finally get this chance, but there was always one of his loyals just around the corner.”

“But…why?” I pulled myself up to sit. The world rocked, and I slumped against the wall behind me.

Inside, somewhere sunken deep, Seren thrashed.

“Because I want the King dead,” Derek said bluntly. “And using a fated mate to lure him out will most certainly make things easy for me.”

“You said you would protect me,” I said, still in disbelief. “We were friends.”

Derek scowled. “You are just a low creature. I'm a pure Lycan. Whatever you thought ‘we’ were, I’ll disabuse you of it now. And you... you handed yourself over, making this easier than I ever dreamed.”

My gaze misted over. I stared, letting the tears run, finally letting it all hit me at once. I’d been had. Our private talks, the kind gestures, the soft words exchanged between us– none of our friendship was real.

Derek studied me. Then in a low, coaxing tone, he said, “But perhaps we can work together after all. You, too, want the Tyrant King dead, don’t you? Name your price. When this is done, you can have whatever you want—even your freedom.”

A folded paper envelope the size of a tea bag dropped in front of me.

“You can slip this into drink or food,” Derek, palace apothecary, said. “I’m sure you know what it does.”

The numbing void that had been left in the wake of Derek’s gutting confession was crumpling in now, burning over with utter rage.

“You would send me, a werewolf yet to fully shift, to assassinate the Lycan King?” I seethed, rigid with anger.

Seren inside me howled, teeth gnashing despite the silver handcuffs.

"I'd rather have died! Why should I suffer and be sacrificed for a fool like you?"

“Enough!” Derek roared, his wolf growling from within. He pounded the door– not out of anger, but in three rhythmic beats.

Several roguish Lycans entered, brawny and looming. They looked between Derek and I.

“All those years in servitude and you never learned submission,” Derek spat. “So these men will teach it to you.”

“Derek,” I said, drawing back.

The Lycan rogues moved forward, eyes hungry.

“No, truthfully?”

“I do want a taste of the Alpha’s mate.”

“King must be impotent, to leave this pretty thing alone all this time.”

“Come then, prized pet.”

“Derek!” I exclaimed, more desperate as they moved in.

“Study well,” Derek’s voice carried through the room, from behind the wall of hulking bodies. “If you manage to learn a few things tonight, Zavan may end up thanking me.”

I tried curling up but one of the rogues grabbed my ankle, stretching my body out for them to gawk at. I shrieked and thrashed and kicked, but they only laughed. More hands were feeling up my calves, my thighs– touches roamed over my hips.

Frantically, I called upon Seren. But the silver handcuffs lit my skin with burning. Seren stayed trapped.

I tried twisting away but the rogues only found this entertaining. Then I saw it. A way out: The envelope of poison.

Because what had I left to lose? What had I ever had at all?

I grasped it in my hand, ready to end it all in one dry swallow.

Thunk. One of the rogues farthest from me dropped to the floor. Another followed. By then I could parse the heavy clunk of boots stepping unhurried through the room.

The remaining rogues were just as startled as I was, but they barely had time to cry out by the time they realized what was happening.

The last rogue had it the worst. He fell to his knees, pulling himself into a corner to beg for his life– the same position I had been in minutes before. But it didn’t matter.

King Alpha Zavan closed two huge hands around the rogue’s skull and twisted. With a snap, the rogue went still.

Then it was just me, the Tyrant King, and the lifeless bodies between us.

He walked towards me, and it was as if my old nightmare memory were replaying once again. A looming figure walking past the carnage, to crouch down in front of me. Instead of a locket, I clutched the poison in my hand.

The figure before me merged with the one from nine years ago.

The Lycan King Zavan's voice was low and dominant as he called me, "Mate..."