LYCAN KING REBORN

Chapter 8: Regret

The walk back to the Forbidden Forest was silent.

My five guards, Rook and the four others, said nothing. They had seen kings do what I did many times before, walk into an enemy hall and make them kneel with just eyes and voice. To them, it was normal.

To me, it was the first time in twenty years I had breathed without someone standing on my chest.

We reached the edge of the Forbidden Forest in forty minutes. The moment we crossed the black moss line, the shadow cloaks Lyra gave us faded away into smoke. Their one hour time was done.

I felt my full fifty two percent bloodline return, no longer hidden. The forest responded, silver flowers blooming where I stepped.

Lyra was waiting at the black stone circle, sitting on the steps of the bone throne, her white hair glowing in the dark. The other forty five guards stood in a circle around the throne, alert.

When she saw me, she stood up and ran to me. She did not hug me, she checked my body with her golden eyes, looking for wounds.

"You are not hurt," she said, relief in her voice. "I felt your roar from here. You used King's Roar on the alpha heir."

"I did," I said. "He knelt. In front of five hundred wolves."

Lyra smiled, proud. "Good. Then they know now. Silver Moon pack will not sleep tonight."

We walked back to the throne. Rook told Lyra and the other guards what happened in the hall, how I caught Jax's sword with two fingers, how I broke it, how I made five hundred wolves kneel.

The forty five guards who stayed behind roared and hit their chests.

"King! King! King!"

I sat on the bone throne. The throne recognized my return and gave me more information.

[Bloodline Growth From Dominance: Fifty Two Percent to Fifty Five Percent]

[Making an alpha heir kneel in his own pack is a king act. Bloodline increases.]

[New Gift: Memory of First King - Sword Form One]

Knowledge flooded my head, a sword fighting style from the first Lycan King, how to use the bone sword not just as a sword, but as an extension of my roar.

Fifty five percent. Three percent just from one act of dominance.

Lyra felt it and placed her hand on my arm.

"You see? A Lycan King does not grow stronger by sitting and meditating like a monk. He grows stronger by dominating, by making others kneel, by taking what is his. The more packs that bow, the stronger you become."

"I told them seven days," I said. "I will take the Silver Moon in seven days."

"Seven days is enough," Rook said. "In seven days, with daily training and daily dominance trips to nearby small packs, you can reach seventy percent. At seventy percent, even Alpha Magnus with twenty guards cannot stop you."

Small packs. That was a good idea. Around Silver Moon, there were three small packs, each with less than a hundred wolves, each paying tribute to Silver Moon.

If I made them bow first, my bloodline would grow faster.

But tonight, I was tired. Not body tired, my Lycan body healed fast. My mind is tired. Seeing Selene again, seeing Magnus, seeing the hall where I was rejected, it brought back ten years of memories.

Lyra seemed to understand. She sent the guards away to patrol the forest edge.

"Sleep tonight, Kael," she said softly, sitting on the arm of my throne again. "Tomorrow we train harder."

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep on the throne. The bone throne was not comfortable like a bed, but it was warm, and it hummed with old power that made my wolf Fenrir feel safe.

In the Silver Moon pack, no one was sleeping.

Selene sat in her room, still in her white Luna dress, but the dress was wrinkled now. The crown that Magnus was supposed to place on her head was on the table, untouched.

Her hands shook.

In front of her eyes, she kept seeing Kael's eyes. Not the dull gray omega eyes she knew for seven years, but red gold eyes with silver rings, glowing, powerful, looking through her like she was nothing.

She had laughed at him three days ago. She had called him omega trash and told him not to touch her.

Now he had caught Jax's sword with two fingers and made Jax kneel and vomit blood.

"How?" she whispered to her reflection in the mirror. "How did omega Kael become... that?"

Her wolf Luna, who had been silent since the rejection because she was ashamed, finally spoke.

He was never omega, Selene. His smell was hidden. You rejected a king.

"No," Selene said, shaking her head. "No, he was omega, everyone knew he was omega for ten years, he slept behind the kitchen—"

He slept behind the kitchen because Magnus made him, Luna said, her voice sad. Did you ever ask why Magnus adopted a random omega boy and treated him worse than a servant? Did you ever think? No, you only thought of Jax.

Selene stood up and paced. Her white dress felt heavy.

Jax had come to her room after the ceremony failed, angry, his knees still shaking.

"That omega used witch magic!" Jax shouted. "When my father finds the witch, I will kill Kael myself!"

But Selene saw Jax's hands shaking. Jax was afraid. For the first time in her life, she saw fear in Jax's eyes, fear of Kael.

Kael, who used to bring her small moonflowers he picked behind the kitchen, who used to write her notes saying she was his world, who she rejected in front of five hundred wolves.

Now Kael had five giant guards with red eyes who called him king.

She walked to her window and looked toward the Forbidden Forest. From her window, she could see the dark line of the forest in the distance. Three days ago, she thought Kael was dead there, eaten by rogues. Tonight, she knew he was alive there, on a throne.

A thought came to her, a thought she hated.

Did I make a mistake?

She pushed the thought away quickly. "No, Jax is the alpha heir, he will be the alpha king, Kael is... Kael is..."

But she could not finish. What was Kael now? Not omega, that was sure.

She took off her white Luna dress and put on simple sleep clothes, but she could not sleep. She kept seeing red gold eyes.

In the alpha house, Alpha Magnus was not sleeping either. He sat in his private office, drinking strong wine, his peak alpha hands shaking.

He had not told anyone the truth for twenty years. That Kael was not a random orphan. That Kael was the son of the last Lycan royal family, the bloodline his own grandfather helped kill a thousand years ago.

He thought sealing Kael's memories and raising him as omega servant would keep the secret safe forever.

Now Kael was alive, with Lycan guards, with red gold eyes.

Magnus opened an old wooden box he kept locked. Inside was a silver dagger, the same dagger he used to stab Kael's father twenty years ago, and a letter from the council of twelve alphas.

The letter said: If royal blood ever awakens, kill it immediately, or all twelve packs will burn your pack to ash to stop it.

Magnus had tried to kill Kael by throwing him into the Forbidden Forest, hoping rogues would do it, so his own hands would stay clean and the protection spell would not kill him.

But rogues did not kill Kael. The forest made him king.

Magnus drank more wine.

In seven days, Kael said he would come back with fifty guards.

Fifty Lycans. Against one pack.

Magnus knew his pack would not survive.

He had to call the council of twelve alphas tomorrow. He had to tell them the last Lycan King had returned.

Even if it meant his own pack would be punished for hiding Kael for ten years.

Better punished than dead.

Back in the Forbidden Forest, I opened my eyes on the bone throne. Lyra was still beside me, her hand on my chest, helping my bloodline grow while I slept.

"Fifty five percent," she whispered, feeling me wake.

"Tomorrow, we will make the three small packs kneel," I said.

"And in seven days, we will take the Silver Moon," she said.

I nodded,

my red gold eyes glowing in the dark forest.

Seven days until I become alpha of my own pack. Seven days until Selene sees what she rejected.