Lorraine’s POV
They moved slowly, thodically. Like I was a package, or a prisoner. The sharp edge of the blade never left my skin, not even when I stumbled once and nearly fell. The warrior behind tightened her grip and shoved forward.
The group parted, and that’s when I saw him.
Their leader.
He was tall, towering, really. His presence alone could silence a room. His shoulders were broad, encased in thick, dark armor, with crimson lines etched in the steel like war markings. His hair, a deep, rusty red, was slicked back but wild at the ends, like it couldn’t be tad no matter how hard he tried.
And he didn’t just look old, he looked powerful.
The kind of old that ca with ti-earned wisdom and a lifeti of spilled blood. The kind of old that had fought in wars and buried empires. His aura scread Lycan, not just any lycan, but a powerful one. His scent was thick, dominant, and terrifyingly. There was sothing brutal about him. Sothing beastly.
My instincts scread at to bow. But I stood my ground.
"What’s going on?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady. "What do you want with ?"
He didn’t respond at first. Just stared at with sharp hazel eyes that didn’t blink. They felt like razors, peeling away my skin to look at what was beneath.
Then, in a deep, gravelly voice, he spoke, his tone was unshaken and commanding. "What are you doing so close to the hideout?"
I froze.
They know about the hideout?
My thoughts raced. Who the hell were these people? Were they Crimson Hunt reinforcents? Another faction? Or sothing else entirely?
My lips parted to answer, but before I could get a word out, the man’s eyes shifted to the female warrior holding the blade against my neck.
"Just kill her," he said coldly. "And let’s be done with it."
My heart slamd against my ribs.
What.... what?
The female warrior didn’t hesitate. Her grip shifted. I felt the blade tilt....
This is it.
Everything in scread.
But everywhere suddenly beca colder.
It was like the wind itself had held its breath, the air turning sharp, like shards of ice slicing through the trees. The ground beneath my feet.... it vibrated. Not gently. No, violently, like the very earth was warning us of sothing ancient, sothing furious, sothing coming.
And then it happened.
The cold tal that had been pressed against my neck just monts ago, was gone. Not dropped, not pulled back. Gone. I gasped as blood sprayed, not my blood, the blpod was from the warrior whose hand had been holding the blade. The blade and the hand fell to the ground together, like discarded props in a nightmare.
There was a wet, aty thud as the body crumpled, and I felt it before I saw him.
A presence.
A storm.
Him.
Kieran.
I didn’t need to turn, I felt him in my bones, in the snarl of my wolf, in the way my heart began to hamr in my chest like it was trying to tear itself free to run to him.
He stood just a few feet away, drenched in shadows and rage, his eyes burning with that deep, terrifying crimson. Not just red. Not blood. Crimson like vengeance, like wrath had been carved into his very soul and set ablaze.
"If anyone touches her," Kieran’s voice ca, low and cold like a promise from death itself, "be prepared to die a grueso death."
His voice wasn’t raised, but it shook everyone. Even the spears lowered slightly. The calm in his fury was the most terrifying part, it was the calm of soone who had already decided what to do, and how painfully he would do it.
The man who had ordered my death, the one with red hair and thick muscles packed into his Lycan fra, turned to Kieran with a sudden gleam in his eye. Recognition flickered through his rough, hardened features.
"My prince," he breathed, stepping forward as if reuniting with a long-lost comrade. "You’ve returned."
Kieran’s expression shifted, still dark, still dangerous, but a hint of familiarity sparked through it. "Cassian Graves" he said, his voice curling into sothing rough with old mory
You know him? I wanted to ask, but the shock wouldn’t let speak. The others just watched, equally stunned.
Then, there were footsteps, rushed, heavy. I turned in ti to see Astrid bursting out of the hidden underground door, Magnus right behind her, followed by Varya.
Varya froze. Her breath caught. "Father!" she scread, and in the next heartbeat, she ran, ran like a child who hadn’t seen her parent in decades, and threw her arms around the red-haired man who had just commanded my death.
My jaw dropped.
What?
He embraced her tightly, one arm wrapping around her with surprising gentleness. I watched as the stone-faced killer from a few seconds ago softened into sothing more human, if only for her.
Cassian Graves
He wasn’t just so warrior. He wasn’t just soone who’d served the crown. He was the Royal Lycan Physician. Varya’s father.
And clearly... Kieran had known him well, very well.
I blinked, completely disoriented by what had just happened.
Monts ago I was about to be killed. Now I was standing in the middle of a family reunion between an ascended Lycan prince, his childhood guardian, and a powerful and unfeeling Lycan female
What in the Goddess’s na was going on?
Varya clung to him like a daughter who hadn’t seen her father in years. And maybe she hadn’t. Her tough armor cracked right in front of us, her hands trembling where they clutched his tunic, her face buried in the shoulder of the sa man who, seconds earlier, nearly ordered my death.
Cassian Graves
The Royal Lycan Physician.
This was the man
Then one I heard was responsible for taking care of Kieran’s mum, the Alpha Queen
The sa man who had pumped wolfsbane into the Alpha Queen’s veins. The man who had served under Kieran’s father. I’d heard whispers about him, his brilliance, his coldness, the way he knew the anatomy of a wolf better than anyone alive. But standing here, in front of the giant of a man, the myth suddenly felt terrifyingly real.
He wasn’t just a physician. He was a warrior. He was a tactician. And, apparently.... he was Varya’s father.
Magnus was the first to break the silence. "What the hell are you doing here, Cassian?" he asked. "This is a war zone. You left the castle. You never leave the castle."
Varya’s father released her gently and turned to face Kieran.
"I ca with the Alpha King’s Elite Guard," Cassian said, his voice deep, rich, grating, like gravel soaked in authority. "To retrieve our King. And escort him ho."
Then, without warning, he dropped to one knee.
"...To escort the new Alpha King to his throne."
And the mont the words left his mouth, everything else began to fall into place like dominos in a storm.
Cassian didn’t have to shout the command. Just a single word
"Attention."
The sound that followed was unlike anything I had ever heard.
Dozens of booted feet stomping in unison.
Blades drawn and pointed toward the ground.
Bows lowered.
Eyes down.
And then, Cassian’s voice carried through the woods like a royal decree carved in stone.
"Pay your respects to Kieran Valerius Hunter, the rightful heir to the throne of Lycans, the ascended wolf, bearer of the Lycan Sigil, son of Ronan the Just, the Alpha of the East, the Alpha of the West, the one who has earned the loyalty of warriors, scholars, and even the moon itself."
"He who now stands as King of the Four Councils, Lycans, Elites, Nobles, and Ferals. The King of the Werewolf Kingdom."
My breath caught in my throat.
The mont he said it, King, I realized it wasn’t just a title.
It was a truth we had all been orbiting around since the beginning.
Magnus was the first to kneel, his face unreadable, a soldier pledging himself to his superior.
Astrid followed him, slowly, without hesitation. There was pride in her eyes, but also fear, a fear of what ca next.
Varya knelt next to her father, her eyes shimring with emotion I couldn’t na.
Then one by one, the rest dropped.
Dozens of the Elite Guard, every warrior dressed in red and black. Survivors from the underground erged into the clearing, so limping, so dazed, but they too fell to their knees in reverence.
And I was the only one left standing.
I felt it imdiately, every eye on . But it didn’t matter. Because the only gaze I cared about.... was his.
Kieran.
His dark crimson eyes stared into , deep, bottomless, unreadable. Not like before. Not even like when he ascended. Sothing in them had changed.
Not colder.
Not warr.
Just... otherworldly.
And still, I couldn’t look away.
The wind danced between us, silent, watching. The moon bore down like a witness, casting its light across his silver-streaked hair and the solemn crowd around him.
My heart clenched.
I rembered the nights in his villa. The way his arms wrapped around when I thought I was alone in the world. The way he’d stood before when every other person had abandoned . The way he once whispered my na like it was sacred.
Now, he was a king.
And I.... I was just a girl who loved him.
I took a breath. Slow. Trembling.
Then, quietly.... I knelt.
My knees touched the earth.
My head bowed.
And I whispered the words with the others, letting them echo from my soul
"Kieran Valerius Hunter..."
"The Alpha King."
"Long may he live."
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