All Chapters of Bound To The Lycan King : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

LUCIEN'S POV "The northern pack lost six members to the last rogue attack," the elder said, his voice grim across the table. "We need reinforcements before winter, Your Majesty.""You'll have them." I kept my tone level, even as my mind kept drifting somewhere it shouldn't have, back toward the ballroom, back toward her.Something is wrong.Tairn's voice cut through my thoughts, sharp and sudden."What is it," I muttered under my breath. His voice sharpened further, urgent in a way I hadn't heard from him in years. I feel magic in the palace.I straightened. "Magic?"Aylin. The name hit me like a blow. We need to find Aylin. Now."I'm on it." I was already on my feet, not bothering to apologize to the elders before striding out of the hall, senses stretched wide, reaching for her scent the way I had a thousand times before.Nothing.I couldn't sense her at all.I found Kaelen near the refreshment tables. "Kaelen. Have you seen Aylin?""She said she needed the restroom." He frowned,

"Why?" The word tore out of me before I could stop it. "What have I ever done to deserve this?"Nerissa only watched me, arms crossed, unmoved."I have never done anything to you." My voice shook, but I kept going. "I've stayed quiet. I've never opposed a single thing you've said, and I don't even have the power to. So why? What could possibly justify this level of hatred?""You ruined everything." Her voice cracked through the room like a whip. "You came from nowhere and destroyed years of planning. You washed away dreams I've held onto my entire life. Flushed them down the gutter like they meant nothing. You are the reason I've become this. I never wanted to do this. And here I am, doing the exact thing I swore I never would, because of you.""What did I do?" I stared at her, genuinely lost. "I didn't know you existed until months ago. What could I have possibly taken from you?""Shut up." Her eyes flashed. "You took Lucien away from me.""Lucien was never mine to take." Something b

AYLIN'S POV Pain had stopped meaning anything specific a long time ago.It started with my nails, one by one, wrenched away while I screamed until my throat gave out. Then came the blade, tracing thin, deliberate lines across my skin, precise enough that I understood she wasn't trying to kill me quickly. She wanted this to last."Please." My voice had worn down to almost nothing. "Please, stop."Nerissa only smiled and pressed something cold and crackling against my side, and my whole body convulsed, a scream tearing out of me that didn't even sound human anymore.I lost track of how long it went on. Long enough that time stopped feeling linear, stretching and collapsing in on itself with every fresh wave of agony. Long enough that my body finally gave out from underneath me, the world tilting sideways, darkness swallowing the room whole.And then, silence.I opened my eyes to silver trees.She stood in front of me, radiant as always, and I didn't even try to hold myself together thi

LUCIEN'S POVThe healers' wing had never felt this cold before.I paced its length until my boots wore a path into the stone, Aylin's body still on the bed behind me, wrapped in bandages that did nothing to ease the dread sitting in my chest. She hadn't stirred since the moment she collapsed."Seraphine." I turned on her the second she stepped out. "What is going on?""I don't know yet.""What do you mean you don't know?""Exactly that." Exhaustion pulled at her voice. "Her body isn't responding the way an injury should. It's not the wounds. Something deeper is happening, something I've never seen before. There's a conflict inside her, and I can't name what's fighting what.""Is she dying?""No, I don't know." Her eyes softened. "But whatever this is, her body's fighting itself. Magic, maybe. I need more time to understand it.""Time isn't something I have." My voice cracked. "I can't lose her again.""I'm doing everything I can, Lucien.""Try harder."She fixed me with a look sharp e

LUCIEN'S POV The reports on my desk painted a picture I could not understand. They were overwhelming even for me.Rogue attacks had resumed across three separate territories, all within the same week, all carrying the same signature. Villagers found with injection marks on the arms of the dead, toxins we hadn't identified were found in their system. The rogues left behind no organs entirely, precise incisions where kidneys, hearts, sometimes entire sections of tissue should have been. Rogue did not do that, they were not that thorough.Someone was harvesting my people.I dropped the report onto the pile beside it, pressing both palms flat against the desk. What could anyone possibly want with werewolf organs and most especially, Why would rouges be doing this?The question circled without landing anywhere useful, and beneath it, quieter but louder in the parts of me that mattered, sat a name I couldn't push away.Aylin.I'd moved her into my own room after the threat arrived on my de