All Chapters of The Lycan King's Forbidden Mate: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

POV: Valerian"I need to be alone."The words come out harsh and cold, everything I'm not supposed to be with her.Aria reaches for me. "Valerian, let me help...""You can't help." I step back from her touch. "No one can.""That's not true...""I killed your family, Aria." The words are acid on my tongue. "Your aunt, your cousin, the baby that would have been YOUR BLOOD. How can you even look at me?""Because I love you...""Don't." I hold up a hand. "Don't say that right now. Not when you've just learned what I am.""I already knew what you are!""You knew the surface, not the depths."I turn away from her, from Saskia's portrait, from the ghost room that holds too many secrets."Where are you going?""Away from you, before I destroy you like I destroyed everyone else."I leave her standing there, crying.The bond screams at me to go back, to hold her, to fix this.I try to block it out, muting the connection as much as possible. It's like holding your breath—possible but painful, an

POV: ValerianThe moment we're alone, the guards dismissed and the door finally closed behind us, I'm kissing her again.Desperate and hungry, making up for days of self-imposed distance.She kisses me back just as fiercely with her hands fisting in my shirt and pulling me closer.When we finally break apart, I rest my forehead against hers."I'm sorry," I breathe. "I'm so sorry.""Show me." Her voice is steady and challenging. "Prove it."I pull back and look at her, really look.Her eyes are bright with unshed tears and her jaw is set, determined.She's not going to make this easy.Good. I don't deserve easy."How?" I ask."Stop running, stop hiding, let me see you. All of you." She cups my face. "The good, the bad, the parts you think will scare me away. Everything.""What if it's too much?""It won't be.""You don't know that.""Yes, I do." She kisses me softly. "Because I'm not going anywhere. No matter what you show me, no matter what you think you are, I'm staying."Something i

POV: ValerianI carry her.Unconscious and limp in my arms, still glowing faintly with residual power.She used too much and burned through her reserves. Her body isn't trained to channel that kind of energy."Is she..." Rykker starts."Alive, barely." My voice is tight. "Clear the way. NOW."Warriors scatter and the ride back to the Keep is the longest twenty minutes of my life.Through the bond, I feel her, weak and flickering like a candle in wind.Hold on. Just hold on.We reach the Keep and I carry her straight to the healing ward.Kova is already there, takes one look, and starts barking orders."Lay her there. Everyone out except the Alpha."Warriors file out and Rykker hesitates at the door."I'll stay here," I tell him. "Handle the cleanup at the border."He nods and leaves.Kova works, checking Aria's pulse, her breathing, her temperature."She's stable," Kova says finally. "Exhausted. Her body's never channeled that much power before. It's like running a marathon when you'v

POV: AriaI wake to darkness with my head pounding and my mouth dry, the taste of chemicals coating my tongue.Chloroform. I recognize it from the sweet, sickly scent still clinging to my clothes.Memory floods back in sharp fragments: the ambush, Valerian going down hard, hands grabbing me from behind while a cloth covered my face.Bane orchestrated this.I try to move but can't manage more than a twitch. My wrists are bound above my head with cold metal biting into skin, and when I pull against the restraints, fire races through my arms.Silver chains. They burn not like fire but like ice and acid combined, searing into my flesh. Silver is poison to wolves, even half-wolves like me.The room around me is stone, cold and damp, and it smells of mold and old blood that's seeped into the walls over years.A cell. Deep underground if the absolute silence is any indication."Welcome home, niece."The voice comes from the shadows, deep and cultured and fundamentally wrong in a way that mak

POV: AriaThe third night is worse than the first two combined.Blood covers everything now: the floor, the walls, dripping from the blade in steady rivulets.The blood mage carves deeper this time with deliberate precision. Runes across my ribs, my stomach, my thighs where the skin is thinnest and most sensitive.Each cut burns with dark magic seeping into the wounds like acid.I can't scream anymore because my voice is gone. Only rasping gasps escape as the blade cuts again and again and again.Bane watches from outside the circle with his arms crossed and his lips curved in satisfaction. His teeth are visible in what might pass for a smile."Almost done, little niece," he says like he's doing me a favor.The chanting builds around me with words in that dead language, corruption given voice and form.My chest feels like it's tearing apart, not from the cuts but from something deeper.Where Valerian lives inside me, where our bond has existed since the claiming, something fundamental