Chapter 5: The King's Embrace

Tana's POV

"Mate."

The word hung between us. It felt holy and scary at the same time.

I stared at him. My mouth was dry. My heart was beating so fast I thought he could hear it.

After everything in the last two days—after Philip, after Veronica, after my mother’s cold look and the guards throwing me in the dirt like trash—this man stood in front of me and said that word.

That impossible word.

"No," I whispered, shaking my head slowly. "No, that's... that's not possible."

He took another step toward me, and instinctively I took one back. My injured leg screamed in protest, and I winced, nearly losing my balance. His hand shot out immediately, reaching for me, but I held up my palm to stop him.

"Don't."

My voice came out sharper than I intended, but I couldn't help it. The last man who had looked at me with that kind of intensity had destroyed me completely. I wasn't going to let that happen again.

He stopped. Just like that, he stopped. He didn't push. He didn't insist. He simply stood there in the silver wash of moonlight, his chest rising and falling steadily, those deep blue eyes watching me with a patience that felt almost unbearable.

Up close, he looked almost unfairly good.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a jaw that looked carved from stone. His dark hair was a little messy, and he had small cuts on his arms from the fight. But he didn’t seem to notice them at all.  

He only seemed to notice me.

"I won't come closer," he said, his voice deep and calm. "Not until you're ready."

I let out a shaky breath.

"I'm not going to be ready. Ever."

I swallowed hard, wrapping my arms around myself.

"I don't know you."

"My name is Zander Cane," he said simply.

The name hit me like a cold wave. Zander Cane. I had heard that name before. Everyone in every pack had heard that name. The Lycan King. Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack, the most powerful, most feared, most respected pack in the entire country.

My legs almost gave out from under me.

"You're..." I blinked. "You're the lycan king?"

He tilted his head slightly, as if the title were something he wore loosely, like an old coat.

"I am."

I didn’t think. My body moved on its own.

My knees bent from years of pack training. I bowed, even though sharp pain shot through my hurt leg.

"Your Highness, I —"

"Stop." His voice was firm but not unkind, and then his hands were on my arms, warm and steady, lifting me back to my feet before I could protest.

"Don't do that."

I straightened, startled by the contact, and found myself looking directly into his eyes. This close, they were even more striking. A deep, rich blue, the kind that made you feel like you were looking at something vast and ancient.

"You don't bow to me," he said quietly, his hands still loosely holding my arms.

"Not you."

I didn't know what to say to that. I didn't know what to do with the warmth of his hands or with the way my wolf, who had been silent and wounded inside me since Philip's rejection, was suddenly pressing herself forward with a low, desperate whine. She recognized him in a way that my broken heart was refusing to.

I stepped back out of his hold, putting distance between us.

"I appreciate what you did," I said carefully, glancing at the black wolf lying lifeless on the ground a few feet away.

"You saved my life. And I... I'm grateful." I pressed my lips together. "But I'm going to reject you."

Silence.

He looked at me for a long moment, not with anger, not with the cold contempt Philip had shown me, but with something closer to quiet surprise.

"Why?"

The question was so simple, so honest, that it cracked something open in my chest that I had been desperately trying to keep sealed.

"Because nobody wants me."

The words came out before I could stop them, raw and trembling at the edges.

"I was supposed to get married yesterday. My mate… my first mate… left me at the altar. In front of everyone."

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I wiped it away quickly, furious at myself.

"He chose my sister. He rejected me publicly, and then he had me banished from the pack."

I let out a short, broken laugh.

"So you see, whatever the moon goddess thinks she's doing right now, she's made a mistake. I'm not someone worth choosing. I'm not someone worth anything."

I expected him to look uncomfortable. I expected him to reconsider, the way people always did when they realized how much damage had already been done to me.

Instead, Zander Cane slowly lowered himself down onto one knee in front of me.

My breath caught.

He looked up at me from that position, this powerful, legendary Lycan King kneeling in the dirt of the woods as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

"Tana." He said my name like he had always known it. "What was done to you was cruel. And whoever did it to you was a fool."

His voice was steady, unwavering.

"But I am not him. And I will not reject you. I will not banish you. I will not leave you standing alone in the rain."

My lips trembled. I pressed them together hard.

"You don't know me," I whispered.

"No," he agreed. "Not yet. But I want to."

He rose back to his feet, unhurried.

"You don't have to accept me tonight. You don't have to trust me tonight. All I'm asking is that you let me get you somewhere safe. Your leg needs to be looked at."

I looked down. The cut on my leg had been bleeding slowly, the fabric of my dress stained dark around it. My healing was sluggish, a cruel side effect of being a rejected, packless wolf. It was humiliating. A reminder of everything I had lost.

As if he could read my thoughts, Zander's jaw tightened slightly.

"Being without a pack is slowing your healing. That ends tonight."

"I can't just join your pack," I said, frowning.

"You're not joining my pack." He looked at me steadily.

"You are my mate. The Silver Moon Pack already belongs to you."

The words settled over me like something heavy and warm, and I hated how much a part of me wanted to believe them. I had heard beautiful words before. I had trusted them, built my entire future on them, and watched them collapse into ash on the floor of a church while everyone stared.

I looked away from him, into the dark of the trees.

"What if I hurt you?" I asked quietly.

"What if I'm already too broken to be what you need?"

He was quiet for a moment. Then, gently and without any force at all, he stepped closer and opened his arms.

He didn't pull me in. He didn't reach for me. He simply made the space available and waited.

I don’t know how long I stood there, fighting it.  

It felt like forever.

My wolf was whimpering. My chest hurt so badly it felt unbearable.  

I was so tired.  

Tired of being strong.  

Tired of holding myself together.  

Tired of pretending I wasn’t completely broken.

And so, slowly, I stepped forward and let him fold his arms around me.

The moment he did that, something inside me broke.

All the tears I’d been holding back since yesterday came rushing out at once.  

Since the altar. Since my mother slapped me. Since the guards threw me to the ground.

I pressed my face to his chest and sobbed.  

Ugly, shaking sobs that took over my whole body.

He didn’t shush me.  

He didn’t tell me it would be okay.  

He just held me. One hand rested on the back of my head, steady and warm.

  

He didn’t move, like a wall nothing could knock down.

I cried until I had nothing left.

When the shaking finally slowed, I pulled back, embarrassed, wiping my face with the back of my hand.

"Sorry," I muttered.

"Don't be," he said simply.

I looked up at him. In the moonlight, there was no judgment on his face. Only a quiet, steady certainty that both frightened and comforted me in equal measure.

"I'm not promising you anything," I said, my voice still rough from crying.

"I'm not asking for promises tonight," he replied.

I let out a slow breath.  

My leg throbbed. My heart ached.  

But under all of it, something small and stubborn flickered to life.  

It felt, even though I knew better, like the smallest start of hope.

"Okay," I said at last. "Take me somewhere safe."

For a second, a small smile crossed Zander’s face.  

It didn’t last, but in that moment it changed everything.  

He looked less like a king and more like a man.

He stepped to my side, and without asking permission, he slipped one arm carefully under mine to take the weight off my injured leg.

"The Silver Moon Pack isn't far," he said. "I've got you."