Chapter 3: The Lycan King

Third Person POV 

The girl was still breathing hard when Damian pulled out of her and reached for his slacks.

He dressed without looking at her. Crossed to the window. Tapped a cigarette from the case on the sill and lit it, watching the city below… 

it was dark and quiet at this hour, his city, though most of his people had convinced themselves he was dead.

He took a long slow drag.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when her arms came around him from behind. 

She felt soft and warm but it didn’t move him one bit.

“Come back to bed.” Her voice was low and sweet. 

“And if you aren’t tired yet I don’t mind taking care of you a little longer.” The silk of her robe slipped from one shoulder as she pressed her high breast closer to his back.

“Get out.”

She stilled.

“Damian, I…”

“I said get out.”

A pause. Then … “But Damian. I love you.”

He crossed to the side table without a word, opened the drawer, and pulled out a thick roll of cash. 

Held it out behind him without turning around. She grabbed the money with both hands shouting a quick thank you as she dashed out of the room.

He put the cigarette back in his mouth.

The sitting room was dark and cool and mercifully empty when he walked through. 

He dropped into the chair by the cold fireplace and stretched his long legs out and looked at the ceiling. 

His silver hair … pale as winter moonlight, the thing that made him unmistakable to anyone who had ever seen him … fell back from his face as he closed his eyes.

The door opened.

“I just passed Miss Veronica in the corridor.” 

Lucas, his assistant, walked in already pulling a cigarette from his own pocket. 

He had worked for Damian long enough that knocking had become unimportant. 

“Couldn’t she sleep here? It’s late.”

“She got what she came for. There was no reason for her to stay.”

Lucas looked at him for a long moment.

“You know,” Lucas said, dropping into the chair across from him and lighting his cigarette.

“I am genuinely running out of options. I have gone through every brown haired woman in a forty mile radius trying to find someone you’ll actually want to keep in the room for a day and I am telling you right now…”

“Don’t.”

“The council, Damian. They are not asking anymore, they are demanding. They want a Luna. The people need a Luna. There hasn’t been one in … how long now? The pack needs balance and right now there is nothing like that. There is just you, alone, in this building, smoking and sleeping with women whose names you don’t remember by morning.” 

Lucas tapped ash onto the tray. “Pick one. I don’t care which one. Marry her and stabilize the realm before I lose what’s left of my mind.”

Damian’s eyes opened.

They were bright silver, which all Lycan’s possessed. The look on his eyes would have made a lesser wolf slit their own throat.

“You think I don’t want a mate?” His voice came out quiet. The dangerous kind of quiet that Lucas had learned years ago to take seriously. “You think I am choosing this?”

Lucas said nothing.

“The moon goddess did not see fit to give me one.” He said it flatly. “And I will not take a chosen mate.” He took a long pull of the cigarette. “There is only one person I would consider. And before you say anything … yes, I know how it sounds.”

Lucas closed his eyes briefly. “Damian.”

“She saved my life.”

“She was a child when she saved your life. From your own description she was what … ten? Eleven?”

“Which means she is not a child anymore.”

“And you have no idea who she is. You have no name, no pack, no nothing … just brown hair and a memory from seven years ago that you have somehow built an entire…”

“I will remember everything about her once I see her.” His voice was very quiet now. 

Lucas stared at him. Then he rubbed his face with one hand and let out a long slow breath.

“You will never find her,” he said, “sitting in this room.”

Damian said nothing.

“You have not left this building in months. Your subjects think you are dead … there are rumors, Damian, actual rumors that you died in the war. Which means the east is getting bolder, which means the balance is slipping, which means if you do not show your face soon we will have another seven years of conflict on our hands and all those people will die and it will be because the Lycan King was too busy smoking in the dark to…”

“Fine.”

Lucas stopped.

Blinked.

“…What?”

“Fine.” Damian leaned his head back against the chair. “I’ll go.”

The silence that followed was long enough to be uncomfortable.

“You just … agreed.” Lucas said it slowly. 

“Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Lucas stood up so fast his cigarette nearly dropped. Damian could practically see forming behind his eyes.

“Okay. The moon festival is two months from now … it’s perfect timing, all the packs will be there, oh how glorious…”

“Two months?”

Lucas stopped.

“That is too soon.”

“It is the perfect time and you just said fine…”

“I said it was fine to go. I did not say fine for two months. Two months is…”

“Two months, Damian. The festival waits for no one, not even you.”

Damian looked at him.

Lucas looked back like he had absolutely nothing left to lose. The moon festival happens once every year. It was important because it brought all the parks together in harmony. 

The honor of hosting the banquet was split among all the parks. 

And this time it was the west. He knew it was high time he showed his face to his subjects but he was just so bored with festivals like that, after seeing it for centuries without his mate.

“Get out,” Damian said.

“Gladly. I have an enormous amount of preparation to…”

“I said get out, Lucas.”

Lucas got out. Quickly. Wisely. The door clicked shut behind him and then immediately opened again just wide enough for his head.

“Two months,” he said.

The cigarette case hit the door precisely where his head had been half a second earlier.

Damian listened to his footsteps disappear rapidly down the corridor.

Then he leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling.

“I will find you,” he thought.

He took one last drag and let the smoke out slowly into the dark.