LYCAN KING REBORN

Chapter 4: The Throne

Lyra led me deeper into the Forbidden Forest.

The deeper we went, the more dead the forest became. The black trees grew taller, their branches reaching like claws. The ground was covered in thick black moss that swallowed sound. Even the air felt heavy, hard to breathe.

But for me, it felt like home.

My new Lycan bloodline made the forest feel familiar. Every step I took, the moss glowed faintly red under my feet, then faded. Fenrir was calm now, no longer restless, like a wolf who had finally returned to his territory after being lost for years.

"How far is the throne?" I asked. My new shadow clothes did not get dirty from the moss.

"Not far," Lyra said. She walked ahead, her white hair glowing slightly in the dark. Her shadow dress did not make any sound. "But you must be ready, my king. What you will see there has not been seen by any werewolf for a thousand years. Since the fall."

"What falls?"

"The fall of the Lycan Kings," she said. Her voice became sad. "A thousand years ago, the Lycan Kings ruled all werewolf packs. Not like alphas who rule one pack. The Lycan King ruled all packs. There were twelve great packs, and they all bowed to the Lycan throne. Then the twelve alphas betrayed the king. They used silver blessed by witches to poison him during a feast. They killed the queen, killed the royal guards, your parents among them, and hunted all royal blood children. They said Lycans were monsters, too powerful, too dangerous. Then they divided the world into twelve packs and called themselves alpha kings."

So that was the truth. Not rogues. Not war. Betrayal. Just like what Jax and Selene did to me, but on a larger scale.

"Alpha Magnus was one of the descendants of those twelve alphas," Lyra continued. "That is why he knew to hide you. That is why he sealed your memories and kept you weak. If the other alphas knew the last Lycan blood was alive in his pack, they would destroy his entire pack to kill you."

"Then why did he not kill me as a baby?" I asked.

"Because your mother put a protection spell on you before she died," Lyra said. "If anyone with alpha blood tried to kill you before your bloodline awakened, the spell would kill them too. He could only keep you weak and hope you never awakened. He made you an omega so no one would ever suspect."

We walked for another ten minutes in silence. Then the trees opened up.

I stopped and stared.

In front of us was a huge open space, a perfect circle a hundred meters wide. No trees grew inside the circle. The ground was made of black stone, smooth and polished, with giant wolf runes carved into it, glowing faintly red.

And in the middle of the circle was a throne.

It was not a chair. It was a throne made of black bone and silver, twenty feet tall, with the skulls of giant beasts built into its back. Swords and spears were stuck into the stone around it, broken, rusted, left from the last battle a thousand years ago.

But the throne was not empty.

Sitting on the steps around the throne were wolves. Not alive. Stone statues of wolves, but life size, each one in full battle armor, kneeling with their heads bowed, their weapons in their hands. There were fifty of them.

"The royal guard," Lyra whispered, kneeling down on one knee as soon as we entered the circle. "The fifty Lycan warriors who refused to kneel to the twelve alphas. They were cursed by the witch who helped the alphas. Turned to stone, sleeping, until a true Lycan King returns and wakes them with his roar."

My heart beat faster. Fifty Lycan warriors. If what Lyra said was true, one Lycan warrior could kill ten alpha wolves alone.

And they were all kneeling to this throne, waiting for me.

"How do I wake them?" I asked.

"Use your new skill," Lyra said. "The King's Roar. But not the weak version you used as a test. Use it with all your rage, all your pain from the last ten years, all your anger for your parents. Let the forest hear that the king is back."

I walked to the center of the circle, in front of the throne. I looked up at the giant bone throne. It was empty, waiting for me for a thousand years.

For ten years I had knelt in front of others. In front of Alpha Magnus, in front of Jax, in front of Selene, in front of every warrior who thought I was trash.

Now it was time for others to kneel to me.

I closed my eyes. I thought of my parents being stabbed in the back. I thought of ten years sleeping on a thin mat behind the kitchen. I thought of Jax kicking me in front of five hundred wolves. I thought of Selene's disgust, her words, "Don't touch me, Omega." I thought of the silver necklace still in my pocket that I never got to give her.

All that humiliation, all that pain, all that rage, I gathered it into my chest, into my throat.

Fenrir stood up inside my soul, his black fur standing on end, his red gold eyes burning.

Together, we opened our mouths and roared.

The King's Roar at forty percent bloodline.

The sound was not like a wolf howl. It was deeper, louder, like thunder mixed with the roar of a lion and the scream of a storm. The black stone under my feet cracked. The dead trees around the circle shook, and black leaves fell.

The roar spread out in a visible wave of red silver power, hitting the fifty stone statues.

For one second, nothing happened.

Then cracks appeared on the first statue.

The stone fell away. Black fur appeared. Silver armor shone.

One by one, the fifty royal guards broke out of their stone prison. They stood up, tall, huge, each one seven feet tall in their wolf form, their eyes glowing red gold like mine. They looked at me.

I was still roaring, my body shaking from the effort. Blood came from my nose from using so much power at once.

The fifty Lycan warriors, who had been sleeping for a thousand years, all dropped to one knee at the same time, their right fists hitting their chests, their heads bowed low.

"King," they all said at once, their voices deep and rusted from a thousand years of silence, but powerful enough to make the air shake.

Fifty Lycan warriors kneeling to me. Kael, the omega servant.

I stopped roaring, breathing hard, my body covered in sweat. But I stood straight.

Lyra was also kneeling now, her head bowed, tears in her golden eyes.

"Welcome home, my king," she whispered.

I walked slowly to the throne and touched it. The bone was warm, alive. The moment I touched it, more knowledge flooded my head.

[Lycan Throne Recognized Royal Blood: Forty Percent]

[Throne Skill Unlocked: King's Territory]

[Effect: Within one hundred meters of the throne, all Lycan power increases by fifty percent. All werewolf alpha power decreases by fifty percent.]

[Second Gift Unlocked: Lycan Army Command]

[You can now command the fifty royal guards with a mind link.]

I turned around and sat down on the throne. It was big, too big for a normal werewolf, but perfect for me.

The moment I sat, the entire circle lit up. The wolf runes on the black stone glowed bright red, shooting light into the sky. The dead forest for a mile around glowed.

Every werewolf pack within a hundred miles would have felt that power spike. Alpha Magnus would have felt it. Jax would have felt it. Selene would have felt it.

They would know something ancient had awakened in the Forbidden Forest.

Let them feel fear, I thought.

Lyra walked up the steps and stood beside the throne, like a queen should.

"What now, my king?" she asked softly.

"Now we train," I said, my voice echoing from the throne. "You said ten days. For ten days, I will train with fifty guards. I will learn to use the Bone Sword, to use the King's Roar, to use this throne power. On the tenth day, we will walk out of this forest."

"And where?"

I looked toward the direction of the Silver Moon pack, where the mate ceremony hall still stood, where they were probably still celebrating my banishment.

"We will go back to Silver Moon," I said, my red gold eyes glowing. "And I will show them what happens w

hen you throw away a Lycan King like trash."

The fifty guards roared together, answering my promise.

The training begins.