04 The Lycan King

Maren

The lights cut out the instant the King yelled, plunging the room into total darkness. Chaos broke out immediately — every breeder scrambled for the door, and I was caught in the stampede, knocked to the ground and stepped on as the others clawed their way out.

By the time I got back to my feet and fumbled blindly toward the exit, it was already too late: I heard the lock catch from the outside. I was trapped.

Alone in the pitch black, my fear curdled into a breakdown. Back pressed to the cold metal door, I cried and cursed every decision that had brought me to this moment — the marking that never happened, Julian, the truck, all of it.

I realized I'd almost hoped my weight would disqualify me from the King's interest tonight. Now, faced with whatever was actually in this room with me, I'd take that humiliation over this in a heartbeat.

In the dark, I felt it. Another presence. Something alive and deadly, a suffocating weight pressing against my skin.

My mind leapt straight to the only explanation that made sense: a rogue. It had to be a rogue, the only monster I knew. The threat that haunted the woods back home, that killed people from my pack, that I had always prayed I would never face alone in the dark.

My eyes fought to adjust to the absence of light. When they finally did, the wrongness of the shape in front of me hit like a punch to the gut. It wasn't on four legs. It was standing. Upright. Easily twice my height, looming over me like some nightmare of a man built to monstrous scale.

That realization did nothing to calm me. It was so much worse, because now I had no idea what I was looking at. No category for it in my mind. Just something huge and deadly and completely other.

As my sight cleared further, I took in more of it: the muzzle, the fangs, the eyes glowing red like embers. But beneath that wolf's face, a body that didn't belong. Thickly muscled, powerful shoulders, standing on two legs like something no wolf had ever been. It was breathing hard, a low groan rumbling out of its throat. I couldn't tell if it was pain or hunger. Drool dripped from its jaw onto the stone floor with a wet splat.

"Please," I begged it, voice breaking. "I won't fight. I'll go back to my pack. You never have to see me again. Please, just stay back."

It didn't listen. It kept coming, slow and deliberate, drawing out my fear with every step. I couldn't look away from those glowing eyes, those teeth, that dripping mouth.

Then it closed the distance suddenly, faster than something that size should ever be able to move. I flinched sideways instinctively, and smashed face-first into a support pole. The pain was blinding, my vision tunneling at the edges.

I crumpled to the floor, and looked up to find it looming directly over me, impossibly tall from this angle. This was it, then. This was how I died.

Instead: a soft whine. A sound that didn't belong to a monster at all. It crouched down toward me, lowering its massive head to my level for the first time, and pressed its muzzle against my cheek. Gentle. Almost impossibly gentle for something built like that.

The confusion cut through my terror for half a second. Enough to register that it still hadn't struck. It was still right over me, still close enough to kill me in an instant, but it was just nuzzling my face with its own, whining softly. Soothing and terrifying at once.

It whined again, and this time, it didn't sound like a predator at all. It sounded like something in pain. Something crying.

I was too far gone to make sense of it. I was too far gone. The head injury had my vision blurring and tunneling at the edges, my mind slipping into oblivion. I lost consciousness with the image of the creature hovering over me, unresolved, my last thought a bewildered one.

But why?

* * *

My mind returned slowly, in flashes, images blurring into each other as I tried to piece together what had happened.

I remembered darkness, and eyes glowing red in the dark. I remembered the sound of it whining, nuzzling me. I remembered the smell of wet fur, and something else, something human.

That smell brought my mind back into sharp focus, because it was here, under my nose, pressed against my cheek. I was being cradled, I realized, my head pillowed on a broad bare chest.

My breath caught, and my heart started to pound as I realized the truth. I wasn't lying in my own bed, and the body I was snuggled up against wasn't the creature at all. It was a man.

Slowly, so slowly, I tilted my head up to look at his face. 

Even in sleep, his features were sharp, aristocratic. High cheekbones, a straight nose, full lips parted slightly in unconsciousness. It took me a heartbeat to recognize him, and then my blood ran cold.

I was in the arms of the Alpha King.

The same man who'd left me for dead in the dark, who'd made no effort to save me from whatever had been locked in there with me. The same man who had been so angry he'd had me locked in the dark with something I'd thought would eat me alive.

I was in the arms of the monster who ran this place, this palace where women were stolen away from their packs to be used and discarded.

The Monster…

Fuck! I looked back at him, watching his face. Something about him felt terrifyingly familiar.

He's the beast from last night!

Fear gripped me; I immediately tried to pull back from him, but he was too heavy, too big for me to budge. I was trapped. And as I watched, I realized he was about to wake up, too — his eyelids fluttering, brow furrowing.

I had to get out of here. I had to get out now, before he woke and realized where I was, before he realized what I'd seen, that he'd lost control of his beast.

I had to escape.

* * *