The Last Blue Lycan

The Bully Princess

Zara had never touched Kael without whipping him.

That was the rule since they were kids. Zara, Alpha Moros the second's only daughter, 17, black eyes, black hair oiled to shine, beautiful in the way a knife is beautiful. When she were eight, she ordered Kael to be her horse. He was Omega house's smallest boy. She rode him around the courtyard until his knees bled and then whipped him because he was slow.

When she were twelve, she had her friends hold him down and cut his hair with a dagger, laughing at his ice-blue eyes. "Demon trash."

When they were fifteen, she saw Elara healing his broken lip behind the statue and told her father Elara was wasting Seer magic on a half-caste. Elara got locked in the temple for a month.

Zara had never touched Kael like a girl touches a boy.

Until two days before the Blue Moon.

Kael was scrubbing the bottom step of the Alpha House. It was the worst job; the step where Zara's guards spat. He was on his knees, rag in hand, trying not to think about the contest, trying not to think about the fact that in less than 48 hours he would have to touch the real dagger and six archers would aim at his heart.

A shadow fell over his bucket.

Expensive perfume. Too sweet.

"Half-caste."

Kael didn't look up. He knew that voice. He kept scrubbing.

A bare foot, soft, with gold toe rings, stepped onto his hand, pinning his rag to the stone.

Zara. She was dressed not in her usual warrior leathers, but in a thin offering dress, white, that all unmarried girls wore before the Blue Moon. Her black eyes were lined with kohl. She looked down at him like he was something she found under her bed.

"My father says any male can attempt," she said loudly, so the guards at the door could hear. "Even Omega trash like you."

Kael tried to pull his hand out. Her foot pressed harder. Her toenails were painted black.

"Let me go, Princess."

"Look at me when I speak to you, scrap."

He had to. If he didn't look at a pure-blood when spoken to, he could be whipped.

He looked up. His ice-blue eyes, tired, bloodshot from training behind the temple every midnight with Elara, met her black ones.

Something flickered in Zara's face. Surprise.

When they were kids, Kael was skinny, dirty, easy to disgust. Now, after eight nights of hanging from temple arches and lifting stones with Elara sitting on his back, his shoulders had broadened. His jaw was sharper. His wet shirt clung to ropey muscle. And his blue eyes - which she had always called demon eyes - glowed faintly in the shadow of the Alpha House.

He wasn't handsome like Black Wolf boys. He was... different. Like the Stone King in miniature.

Zara's foot slowly slid off his hand and up his wrist. A caress disguised as dominance.

"You've grown," she said, her voice dropping, sweetening. The guards were watching now, grinning. They thought this was going to be another humiliation. "I heard you have been training behind the temple. Getting strong for the contest."

Kael's blood went cold. How did she know?

"Omega boys talk when they drink," she whispered, leaning down, her white dress falling open just enough. She was 17 and had been taught by her mother how to make boys stupid. "They say you've been meeting someone behind the temple every midnight. A Seer girl with a white streak."

Elara. Kael stood up, forgetting he was supposed to stay kneeling. Water dripped from his hands.

"Don't," he said, low.

Zara smiled. She had him. "Don't what? Don't tell my father that his precious Seer's daughter has been sneaking out to train a half-caste to pull the sacred dagger? That is blasphemy, Kael. That is death for her. Unless..."

She stepped closer. Too close. She smelled like jasmine and wolf. She placed her soft, manicured hand on his chest, right over his heart, where Elara's gold-blue hand had been last night.

"Unless you are nice to me," she breathed. "The contest winner marries me. I get to choose if I like him. My father says even an Omega could win and become Crown Alpha. Imagine you as a Crown Alpha. You could have this." She pressed herself against him. Her lips brushed his ear. "Kiss me, half-caste. Here. In front of everyone. And I won't tell my father about Elara."

It was a trap. Kael saw it with perfect clarity. If he kissed Zara, Alpha's daughter, in front of guards, it would be seen as an Omega assaulting a Princess. He would be executed. If he pushed her away, she would tell her father about Elara's midnight training and Elara would be executed for treason.

Behind the kitchen pillar, Kael saw a flicker of brown cloak. It was Elara.

She had come to bring him leftover bread, like she did every day after training. She was frozen, holding the bread, watching Zara press against Kael, watching Zara's hand on Kael's chest, watching Kael's hands hovering, not touching, not pushing.

Elara's face went white, then red.

Zara saw where Kael was looking. She turned and saw Elara.

Perfect. Zara raised her voice, loud, theatrical. "See, Seer girl? Your half-caste doesn't want your weak gold light. He wants a real Princess. He wants black eyes, not failed Seer eyes."

Elara didn't move. Her hands clenched the bread so hard it crumbled.

Kael finally shoved Zara off him, gently but firmly. "Don't drag her into this. Your issue is with me."

Zara's fake sweet smile vanished. Rejection, in front of guards, in front of Elara, was worse than any insult.

"You dare push me?" she screamed. The knife-beautiful face twisted. "You filthy demon-eyed scrap! You think you're good enough to touch me?"

She raised her hand and slapped him. Hard. With all her strength, nails out.

The crack echoed off the Alpha House.

Kael's head snapped sideways. A red mark bloomed on his cheek. He didn't hit back. He couldn't. If he hit Alpha's daughter, he died.

The guards laughed but Elara didn't.

Something in Elara snapped.

For eight nights, she had watched Kael get stronger. For ten years, she had watched Zara whip him, ride him, humiliate him. She had healed every cut Zara gave him. She had had a crush on him since she was ten, and she had just watched the girl who tormented them both try to seduce him to embarrass him, then slap him when he refused.

Elara dropped the bread and stepped out from behind the pillar, and her brown eyes - her failed Seer brown eyes - turned solid ice-blue.

Solid, blazing, Blue Demon blue. The same blue as Kael's. The same blue as the dagger's pulse. The same blue as the Stone King's tears.

A wave of cold air exploded from her, so cold the puddles around Kael's bucket froze instantly.

Zara's hand, still raised for a second slap, froze mid-air. Literally froze. A sheath of clear ice, thin but unbreakable, covered her fingers, her wrist, locking her hand in a fist.

Zara screamed. Not in pain in terror. "MY HAND! MY HAND!"

The guards drew daggers, shouting, "SEER MAGIC! DEMON MAGIC!"

Kael stared at Elara, blood dripping from where Zara's nails cut his cheek.

Elara stared at her own hands, at her blue eyes reflected in Zara's frozen ice, at the power that had come from nowhere and everywhere.

Her white streak was glowing. Kael whispered the truth he had been hiding for eight nights, finally out loud:

"Elara... you're..."

Elara looked up at him, terrified, blue eyes blazing, tears freezing on her cheeks.

"What am I, Kael?"

And from the balcony above, High Seer Theron, who had come running at Zara's scream, saw his daughter's blue eyes and dropped to his knees, whispering the forbidden name he had hidden for eighteen years:

"Seraphine..."