Alle Kapitel von THE LYCAN KING’S SCARRED PRIZE: Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 20

Before he could stop me, I stepped out from behind the pillar.The whispers began instantly. The high-society wolves parted like a sea of red and gold, their eyes boring into me as I walked down the long, marble center aisle toward the raised pedestal. The midnight-blue silk of my dress swept against the floor, the low-cut neckline exposing the violent, throbbing claim-mark Dominic had left on my skin. I kept my chin high, my spine rigid as steel.Every step felt like a march to the executioner’s block, but I refused to let Jaxon see me flinch. As I passed him, his eyes narrowed, his smug smile faltering slightly at the absolute lack of fear on my face.I stopped in front of the pedestal. The Moonstone was a jagged, raw crystal, pulsing with an eerie, blinding white light that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. The air around it was thick with ancient, oppressive power.“Elena of the Northern Wilds,” Councilman Vance intoned, stepping up to the edge of the dais, his heavy silver

“He is the son of the man who burned our world to ash, Princess,” the leader, Kaelen, said, his voice echoing like dry autumn leaves scraping against tombstones. “The Vega lineage is a cancer. His father didn’t just slaughter our warriors; he took our children. He threw them into the pits. For twenty years, we have lived like rats in the dark, waiting for the blood of the Destroyer to wake up. And now that you are here, your first act cannot be to shield the prince of our executioners.”The five masked warriors behind him didn’t lower their crossbows. The glowing purple tips of the poison-tipped bolts remained locked onto Dominic’s chest.Dominic’s breathing was shallow, a wet, rattling sound that tore at my chest. His skin was cold, covered in a slick, toxic sweat as the black veins of the silver poisoning crept higher up his throat, dangerously close to his jawline. He was slipping away, his consciousness fading into the dark, yet his fingers still weakly twitched against the snow,

“Burn them,” Jaxon commanded, his voice a flat, soulless hiss that cut through the thick smoke. “Burn every single parasite in this hole.”The twelve elite executioners didn’t hesitate. They adjusted their heavy, reinforced iron gauntlets, and with a synchronized, mechanical roar, the nozzle valves of their weapons hissed open. Torrents of pressurized liquid silver erupted from the tanks, cutting through the darkness like streams of brilliant, blinding white lightning. It didn’t look like fire; it looked like molten star-matter, sizzling with a toxic, consecrated heat that instantly vaporized the oxygen in the room.“Princess, move!” Kaelen screamed.With a final, desperate burst of rebel loyalty, the scarred elder threw his body directly into the path of the incoming torrent. The liquid silver hit his chest flat-on. A sound like a branding iron plunging into cold water echoed through the chamber, followed by a scream of pure, unadulterated agony that rattled my teeth. In a matter of

The fresh, pulsating mark on my neck didn’t feel like a sacred bond anymore. It felt like a brand of liquid fire, searing through my flesh, poisoning my veins with the thick, suffocating weight of a monstrous lie.I stumbled backward, my boots slipping on the slick ice floor of the cavern, my hands flying to my throat as if I could physically rip Dominic’s claim out of my skin. My breath hitched in my chest, a choked, horrified sob caught in my windpipe. I stared at the man I had just given my blood to. The man whose warm weight had just been hovering over me. The man whose Lycan beast was now irrevocably spliced into the very fabric of my soul.“Dominic...” The name tasted like ash on my tongue. My voice was a fragile, trembling whisper that cracked against the frozen stone walls. “Tell me he’s lying. Look at me and tell me it’s a game.”Dominic didn’t look at me.He stood frozen in front of me, his massive back rigid, his shoulders taut as steel cables. The brilliant, triumphant gol

Time did not slow down. It shattered.The supersonic hiss of Gideon’s bowstring was a death knell echoing through the icy ravine. The heavy, jagged arrow—forged from pure, consecrated silver—sliced through the freezing mist like a streak of white lightning, its trajectory locked dead-center onto my forehead. My void magic was completely spent, curled like dead smoke inside my frozen veins. I couldn’t raise a shield. I couldn’t even blink.I was dead.But Dominic was already moving.He didn’t have the strength to intercept the arrow with his claws. His poisoned muscles were too sluggish, his reflexes delayed by the residual acid of the wolfsbane. So, he didn’t try to catch it. He simply threw his entire, massive frame backward, slamming his chest flat against mine, twisting his body to wrap around me like an iron vault.A sickening, wetthudresonated against my collarbone.Dominic’s body violently convulsed against mine. A sharp, breathless shriek of agony was torn from his throat as th