Chapter 2 Marcel

I am Marcel Deveraux, the king of the lycan kingdom. In less than a week, my castle will be full of every unmated lycan in the country and their parents. In less than a week, it will be full of men and women seeking their mates. 

This is a yearly occurrence for all lycans once they turn eighteen. The emergence of one’s lycan and the ability to find the other half of our souls is a big deal to our kind. At least it is for most lycans. 

For me, it is just another year of simpering females hoping to become the queen of all lycans. I am over a hundred years old, and I have become jaded from not finding my mate. Every year that passes and I don’t find her, I lose a little more of my sanity.  

I dread this gala and everything it signifies. I dread all the match-making mamas trying to shove their daughters in my face. The social-climbing vipers. All they want is the chance to have their daughters become my queen.  

That won’t happen. 

Not now. 

Not ever. 

The only woman who will become my queen will me my true mate. Not some forced or arranged marriage for the sake of an heir. That is what my advisors have been trying to get me to do for the last five years. All for the sake of the kingdom. 

However, this year feels different for some reason. The closer it gets to the day of the gala, the more unsettled my lycan, Luc, is becoming. It is as if he knows something that I don’t, and every time I ask him what has him so on edge, he retreats to the back of my mind and refuses to speak to me. 

It is the first time in my life that he has ever done this. We have been pretty much perfectly in sync since he awoke when I was sixteen. He is so much a part of who I am, and to have him so agitated like this makes me agitated too. 

I stand up from my desk chair, then walk the few steps to the large floor to ceiling window behind my desk. This past week has been taxing, and I can’t wait for the night of the gala to be here already so that I can move on to more important things. I run a hand through my thick black hair in frustration as a knock on my office door breaks me out of my thoughts.  

“Enter,” I call out to my secretary, Elias, who is probably waiting nervously on the other side of the door. 

Elias, who was also my father’s most trusted confidant, became my secretary when I ascended the throne. He is a nervous nelly sort of man, but he means well. Most of the time, at least.  

The door opens and I watch as Elias enters my office. His salt and pepper gray hair is cut short but always seems to stick up in patches, as if he is constantly pulling at it with his nervous energy. His blues connect with mine, and by the grim look on his face, I know instantly that I will not like what he came to tell me. 

“What is it, Elias?” 

He fidgets with something in his hand, then looks down at what I can now see in his hands. It is a plain brown envelope. A sense of unease slithers down my spine as Elias crosses the room to where I am standing.  

“This was in the mail today. There is no scent on it, and it is addressed to you. I opened it, of course, and there is nothing threatening on the paper itself. It is the message within that is the problem.” 

“Give it to me, and I will determine if it is a threat or not.” I hold my hand out and wait for him to place the envelope in my waiting hand.  

Elias nods his head, then hands me the envelope. The sense of dread I had when Elias entered my office intensifies as my fingers close over the smooth envelope. It is such a light object, and it feels odd to have such a heavy feeling go through me.  

“You may leave now, Elias.”  

“But, your highness…” 

I cut him off by holding my free hand up to indicate that I want him to stop talking. Then I flick my hand in a dismissive gesture. He nods his head, then rushes out of the room. Once the door closes behind him, I walk back to my desk, toss the envelope onto the glossy surface, then sit down and just stare at it. 

This isn’t the first time that I have gotten threatening letters over the years. It is, however, the first time I have gotten one that is so light and nondescript. Whatever was in that letter spooked Elias, well, more so than normal.  

Before I can open it, there is another knock on my office door. I sigh in frustration, then irritation as I look up at the door when it opens without invitation. I glare at the uninvited guest, but she just smiles at me and sashays across the room until she is standing in front of my desk. 

Camille, my sister Aimee’s best friend, made her intentions clear years ago that she wanted to be my queen. I told her then, like I do almost every year since she first set sights on me, that the only way she would be my queen is she turned out to be my true mate. She turns eighteen in a few days, and I hope that we are not mates. 

She is hoping that I am.  

I can’t stand her.  

“Marcel,” she practically purrs as she sits on the edge of my desk. She leans forward and flashes me her barely concealed cleavage.  

Camille is dressed in a pale pink, skin-tight dress that is too short and exposes way too much of her cleavage. Her pale blonde hair is curled to perfection, at least that is what Aimee always tells me when she has her hair done up the same way. Camille’s makeup is too much for my taste. 

She is trying too hard to impress me. News flash, her efforts only disgust me. One would think she would have gotten the message by now. Sadly for me, she is more persistent than anyone I have ever met. 

“What have I told you about my office, Camille?” I growl at her as she reaches a manicured hand out to touch mine. 

She bats her mascara-coated eyelashes at me and ignores my question. “My birthday is in a few days, baby. You know what that means, right? I want to go over the details of my coronation ceremony with you.” 

Luc growls loudly in my head, causing me to wince in pain. That is the loudest he has ever reacted to her before. My lycan dislikes Camille just as much as I do. 

“There will be no coronation for you, Camille.” 

“We are mates, Marcel, I can feel it.” 

I stand up from my seat, then slam my hands down on the desktop. “Get this through your head, Camille. You and I are nothing to each other until the Moon Goddess says otherwise. This is the last time you will come into my office or any of my private rooms uninvited. The next time you do, I will have you locked in the dungeons for a month, or better yet, I will have you banished from the castle altogether!” I thunder out at her. 

She flinches back, and her eyes instantly fill with tears. I am not fazed by this at all. This has become a monthly occurrence in the last year, and I am immune to her tears now. I pray to the Moon Goddess that this little fool is not my mate. 

She is NOT our mate, Luc growls. If she were, we would have felt it by now.  

How do you know that?  

I just know. She feels wrong and I have never liked her. If she were our mate, I would feel it. She isn’t, and you know it, Luc states in a matter-of-fact tone. 

“You will act differently once you learn the truth that I already know. We are mates, Marcel, and the sooner you accept that, the better.” She screams at me as her tears ruin her overdone makeup. 

“I am the fucking king here and you will listen to what I have to say. Get out of my office and do not let me see you again until the gala. If I do, you will not like the consequences you will face.” 

I mindlink the guard who should have been on duty at my office door to get his ass in here to escort her out. A second later the door opens, and a young man enters looking sheepish. I give him a stern look as he walks up behind Camille.  

“Get her out of my office. As of now, she is banned from this floor and as well as the royal living quarters. As for you, you are on patrol duty for the next three months.” 

“But Marcel, I have a lunch date with Aimee later, you can’t ban me from her rooms!” Camille whines. 

“I just did, and you better be grateful that I am not banning you from the castle altogether. Now get the fuck out of my fucking office right now!” I yell at her. 

She bursts into tears as the young guard drags her out of my office. 

Once they are both gone, I call my sister through our family mindlink. Get to my office now. It is time we have a long overdue chat about Camille. 

What happened? Aimee asks quietly. 

Just get to my office immediately. I tell her sternly. 

My sister Aimee is much younger than me. She just turned nineteen last year. My mother thought she was no longer fertile after all these years of me being an only child. Lycans remain fertile until we reach the last fifty years of our lifespan. My parents are close to that point. So, my sister was a total surprise baby.  

My father had his heir and didn’t want more children, so he was giving my very unsuspecting mother something in her morning and evening tea to prevent pregnancy. That was until my mother suspected something was wrong and went to the royal physician to have some tests done. 

She stopped drinking the tea my father gave her after she got the test results back, and a few months later got pregnant with my sister. My father was shocked, but when she told him she knew about the tea, he had nothing more to say.  

They now sleep in separate bedrooms and are mates in name only. He helped her raise my sister, and they put on the loving couple act for my sister until she was old enough to know what was really going on between them. Now, they are just two strangers living in the same place but are not together. 

My father has a mistress and is as discrete about is as possible, even though he knows that my mother is aware of it. She has a companion too, and doesn’t care that my father knows. She told me once that all the love she felt for my father died on the day she found out that he was drugging her to prevent more pregnancies. 

I give my sister leeway on all her bad behavior because of our parents, but I am done with that now. She needs to stop scheming with Camille to make her my queen. The two of them are becoming a menace, and I am done with it.  

My sister is a princess, and I can’t ban her from the castle, but I will make sure that Camille no longer has access to the royal floors. I make a note on a piece of paper to have the elevator codes changed for those floors and the one for my private quarters and offices. 

I look up from my desk when I hear a timid knock on my door. “Come in, Aimee.” 

The door opens, and my sister cautiously walks into my office. Her blue eyes are wide as she closes the door behind her. I don’t blame her for being scared. I am beyond pissed off that Camille came to my office again today, and I know Aimee let her in the elevator. 

The two of them have been conspiring for the last year to get me to want Camille the way she wants me. It hasn’t worked yet and it never will.  

“Sit,” I command Aimee. 

She walks to one of the two chairs in front of my desk and takes a seat. She looks down at her lap, and the motion causes her raven-black hair, a trait we both get from our mother, to fall over part of her face like a curtain. Guilt and fear are coming off her in waves. 

“Today is the last day that I will deal with you and Camille scheming to make her my queen. She is banned from the royal quarters, my private floors, and this office from now on. If I catch her, or if any of the guards or servants catch her in any of those locations again, she will be permanently banned from the castle and grounds. This is the end of your shit, do you understand me, Aimee?” 

“She just wants you to love her like she loves you. Why do you have to be so mean to her?” Aimee asks as she bravely lifts her head to look me in the eye. 

I let out a frustrated growl. “We have been over this before, Aimee. I will take no mate but my true mate. Camille is not my mate.” 

“How do you know? She isn’t even eighteen yet and hasn’t gotten her lycan. Maybe she is your mate, and you are just too stubborn to see it.” 

Before I can stop him, Luc pushes to the front of my mind and speaks through me. “That disgusting woman is not my mate. I know this and have known this since she arrived at the castle years ago. Heed me well on this little girl, I will not take this disrespect anymore!” he roars at Aimee, then he recedes to the back of my mind. 

Once in control again, I watch Aimee’s eyes go wide in horror. I know Luc would never hurt her, but I can feel his irritation like a living thing in my mind, beating at me like a force I have never felt from him.  

My lycan has had enough of their shit, and he wants them to know it.