Chapter 2: Mine

POV: Valerian

Those eyes.

Violet-grey and impossibly wide, they locked onto mine across the clearing, and for a heartbeat everything else disappeared. The rogues, the blood, the curse clawing at my insides. Just her.

Then her scent hit me.

My knees almost buckled and twenty years of iron control nearly crumbled because of a scent. Honey and wildflowers and something electric that made the hair on my neck stand up.

My chest tightened and breath caught in my throat.

No. This isn't possible.

My beast, which had been prowling through the forest moments ago demanding violence to quiet the rage, went completely still. Not the stillness before a strike but the stillness of recognition.

Mate, it whispered.

The word punched through me and my vision blurred at the edges. I'd been hunting, trying to burn off the curse that got worse every day, and then the wind shifted and brought me this. Brought me her.

The three rogues circling her didn't matter anymore. They were already dead and they just didn't know it yet.

The scarred one in human form smiled at her and said something that made her flinch. My claws extended before I realized I was shifting, partially, just enough.

I didn't think. I moved.

The black wolf bolted and I caught him in three strides. My jaws closed around his spine and the crack was satisfying and final before I dropped him.

The rust-colored one lunged at me, actually lunged, like he thought size meant anything when facing a king. I met him mid-air and my claws opened his chest. His blood was hot and his eyes went dim before he hit the ground.

The scarred one shifted, trying to escape in a smaller form, but I caught him halfway through the transformation when bones were breaking and reforming, when he was most vulnerable. My teeth found his throat and his pulse hammered once, twice, then stopped.

I let his body drop and turned back to her.

She stood at the cliff's edge with her chest heaving and eyes locked on me, on the blood covering my muzzle, on my crimson eyes that shouldn't be crimson, that were only this color because the curse was getting worse.

I took a step toward her.

My paws shook, actually shook, and two hundred and forty-eight years old, the most powerful Lycan in existence, I was shaking because a woman half my size was looking at me like she couldn't decide if I was her savior or her executioner.

Another step.

Her hands trembled at her sides but she didn't run and didn't jump. She just stood there and I could see the exact moment she stopped trying to hide the fear. It was written in every line of her body, the way she held herself too still, the way her breathing came too fast.

I forced myself to move slower, careful, like approaching a wounded animal.

She's not human, my beast observed. Not fully. Smell that underneath the fear? Magic.

I got closer, close enough to see the silver birthmark glowing through her torn dress, close enough to see dirt under her fingernails and blood on her bare feet. Close enough to see the exact shade of her eyes, grey with violet at the center, watching me like I was the most dangerous thing in this forest.

I was.

But not to her. Never to her.

I shifted fast and partial, my body reforming into something between wolf and man. Still massive and still covered in fur, but my throat could form words now.

I leaned down and brought my face level with hers.

Up close, her scent was everything and my lungs burned with it. My beast purred, the sound rumbling through my chest before I could stop it. My hands flexed and claws extended then retracted. I wanted to touch her, needed to touch her, and every instinct screamed to pull her close and never let go.

One word forced its way out of my throat.

"Mine."

Rough and raw, like I'd swallowed broken glass.

Her eyes went wider and her lips parted. I watched it happen, watched the adrenaline drain from her face, watched her skin go pale, watched her knees start to give out.

I shifted fully to human form as I caught her.

She collapsed into my arms and the impact of her weight against my bare chest nearly undid me. Her head tucked under my chin and her heartbeat fluttered against my ribs, fast and frightened and alive, so alive.

My arms locked around her, tighter than I meant to, tight enough that if she were awake she might have protested.

The purr came again, louder this time, and my beast was pleased. After twenty years of nothing but rage and bloodlust, it was pleased.

My throat closed up and my eyes burned. I blinked hard and fast, refusing to acknowledge what that meant.

She fit perfectly in my arms.

I looked down at her unconscious face, dirt-streaked and blood-smeared, her auburn hair tangled with leaves. She looked like she'd been running for her life.

She probably had been.

My jaw clenched and my fingers tightened on her shoulders, careful not to use my claws. Whoever hurt her, whoever made her run into my territory bleeding and terrified, I would find them. I would make them understand what happened when someone touched what belonged to me.

The king's true mate will either be his salvation or his complete destruction.

My breath caught. The prophecy, the same one that made me reject Saskia twenty years ago, the same one that cursed me when she died from the severed bond.

My hands started shaking again and this time I couldn't stop them.

I'd chosen wrong before, chosen the kingdom over my mate, and I'd watched her die. Watched the light leave her eyes because I was too afraid to claim her, too afraid of what the prophecy meant.

The curse took root that day and my beast grew stronger, more violent. Every year it got worse and every year I lost a little more control.

And now fate gave me another chance.

I pulled her closer and her scent wrapped around me like a lifeline. The constant rage inside me, the curse that clawed and demanded and destroyed, it quieted. Not gone, never gone, but softer.

She did that, just by existing, just by breathing against my chest.

My beast rumbled approval.

Keep her. Protect her. Ours.

But my chest was tight and my heart hammered too hard because she was human, fragile and breakable, and I was a cursed king with a beast that grew stronger every day.

What if I made the wrong choice again?

What if the prophecy came true and she destroyed everything I'd built? What if loving her meant watching my kingdom burn?

What if I destroyed her?

My arms tightened around her unconsciously, protective and possessive. She made a small sound in her sleep and I froze, terrified I'd hurt her, but she just shifted closer with her face pressing against my chest like she was seeking warmth.

Something in my chest cracked, not broke but cracked, like ice that had been frozen solid for two decades finally feeling heat.

The sensation burned through my ribs and settled behind my sternum like a living thing.

I looked down at her, at the silver birthmark still glowing on her shoulder, at the way her chest rose and fell with each breath, at the trust she showed even unconscious by letting me hold her like this.

"This time will be different," I said quietly, my voice coming out hoarse and desperate. "It has to be."

Because I couldn't survive losing another mate. The curse would consume me completely and this time I wouldn't fight it.

I adjusted my hold on her, cradling her more carefully, and her head lolled against my shoulder while her hair brushed my jaw.

She smelled like salvation.

And I'd never been more terrified in my life.