The Lycan King’s Broken Mate
The Dark Lord’s words toll through me again and again like cracked old bells foretelling an unknown doom: “Your blood fills with them. And soon…”
But “soon” has not yet come.
My body writhes on the altar; my muscles seize as if every cell were fighting what is being forced to be born through me. An inner fire consumes me—the residue of the magic that tore through the borders of my flesh in translocation, still sparking along my spine like some corrupted life-force. A dull ache throbs beneath my ribs, stabbing now and again, and my belly seems to live a life of its own: something moves beneath the skin, pulses, grows.