Chapter 2: The king

I had expected a monster, the kind of monster that lived in the stories my mother used to tell me before bed, with sharp teeth and claws and eyes that glowed in the dark, but when the doors of the throne room opened and Lycan king Leandro walked in, I realized that I had been wrong about everything.

The throne room had been silent before he entered, so silent that I could hear the crackling of the fires in their iron sconces and the breathing of the nobles who lined the walls, but when he walked through the doors, the silence became something else entirely, something heavier and deeper and more terrifying than anything I had ever experienced.

He was tall, much taller than any man I had ever seen, with shoulders so broad that they seemed to fill the doorway, and dark hair that fell across his forehead in waves that looked like spilled ink, and a jaw so sharp it could have been carved from stone.

But it was his eyes that stopped my heart, because they were gold, burning gold, like the sun had been trapped inside his skull and was trying to escape, and when those eyes swept across the room, every noble bowed their head, because even the bravest among them could not meet the king's gaze.

I had expected a monster, something ancient and twisted, or something that looked like the nightmares I had when I was a child and my stepmother locked me in the cellar.

But he looked like a god, a cruel god who had never been told no, a god who had never wanted for anything because everything had always been given to him, taken by him, stolen by him.

And then his gaze landed on me, and everything stopped, the world stopped, time stopped, my heart stopped, and his eyes met mine, and he gasped.

It was a small sound, barely loud enough to hear, but I heard it because the room was so silent, and everyone else heard it too, because suddenly the nobles were exchanging glances and whispering behind their hands, and the king's hand flew to his chest like something was hurting him, like something was tearing him apart from the inside.

I saw pain on his face, real pain, the kind of pain that made his golden eyes widen and his breath catch in his throat, and he staggered, just one step, but the nobles saw that too, and they knew that the king was never weak, the king was never vulnerable, but he was vulnerable now, because of me, a human sacrifice kneeling on the cold stone floor with chains biting into his wrists.

"The court will leave," he said, and his voice was low and rough, like he had been screaming for hours, and when no one moved, he repeated himself, his voice turning to ice, and the nobles fled like animals running from a forest fire, pushing and shoving and scrambling for the doors until the throne room was empty except for me and except for him.

He stood at the edge of the room with his chest heaving and his hands shaking, and he did not come closer, could not come closer, though I did not know how I knew that, I just knew it the way you know that fire is hot and ice is cold.

"You are my mate," he said, and his voice was hollow, empty, like someone had carved out his insides and left nothing but echoes. "The goddess has cursed me."

I knew what a mate was because every human knew, even the children, even the ones who had never seen a Lycan in their lives.

The Lycans believed in a sacred bond, a connection between two souls that the Moon goddess herself had woven together, and that bond was rare and sacred and unbreakable, and he was saying that it had happened with me, a human sacrifice, a nobody, a boy who had been beaten and chained and dragged across the frozen border to die.

I thought it was a trick, because it had to be a trick, because there was no way the goddess would choose me for anything except suffering. He was going to hurt me, humiliate me, make me believe something beautiful so that the breaking would be worse, so that I would scream louder when he finally tore me apart.

"You are lying," I said, and my voice was smaller than I wanted it to be, and he flinched like my words had cut him.

"I am not lying," he said.

"Then why would the goddess choose me?" I asked, and my voice cracked on the last word. "I am nothing."

He looked at me then, really looked at me, and his golden eyes burned through my skin and my bones and every wall I had ever built to keep people out. "I do not know," he said, and his voice was softer now, almost gentle, though I did not trust gentle because gentle had always been a lie. "But she did."

He took a step toward me, and I flinched because my body remembered every beating, every slap, every time someone had come close and then hurt me, and he stopped immediately, like my flinch had been a wall he could not cross.

"I will not hurt you," he said.

"All monsters say that," I replied, because it was true, because my father had said it before he locked me in the cellar, because my stepmother had said it before she raised her hand, because everyone who had ever hurt me had promised not to first.

Something flickered across his face then, pain or recognition or something else I could not name. "You are not afraid of me," he said.

"I am terrified of you," I said, and my voice was steady even though my hands were shaking.

"Then why are you not begging?" He folded his arms.

I looked at him, the monster, the king, the man who could kill me with one hand, and I thought about all the times I had begged in my life, begged my father to stop, begged my stepmother to be kind, begged the guards to loosen the chains, and none of it had ever worked, because begging did not change anything, begging only made them want to hurt me more.

"Because begging never helped before," I said.

He stared at me for a long time, and I stared back because I had nothing left to lose, because I was already kneeling on the cold stone floor with chains on my wrists and blood on my hands, and then he turned and walked away, his boots echoing on the stone floor, each step taking him further from me, and further from whatever had just happened between us.

He reached the doors and paused, and for a moment I thought he would look back, but he did not, he just stood there with his hand on the door and said, "A guard will take you to your chambers. You will not be harmed."

Then the doors closed behind him, and I was alone, kneeling on the cold stone floor with my chains and my fear and a thousand questions I did not know how to ask.

I did not understand what had just happened, not really, not in any way that made sense, but I knew that the monster had looked at me like I was the one who was broken, like he saw something in me that I had forgotten was there, like he wanted to put me back together even though he did not know how.

The doors opened again, and a guard entered, a large wolf with cold eyes and a scar across his throat, and he did not speak, he just pointed toward the hallway, and I stood up on legs that shook and followed him out of the throne room.

Behind me, the fires burned low, and the shadows grew long, and I could feel the king's eyes on my back, like it was burning through me, even though he was not there.