The Beta's Challenge
The world swayed as his stride carried me deeper into the forest. My fists still ached from striking his chest, but Ciaran's grip never faltered. His arm was a band of steel, pinning me against a heartbeat that thudded steady, unbothered, as if carrying me was effortless.
The Lycan King.
My mate.
The words tangled like a curse in my head, impossible to separate from the raw fire simmering through my veins. Every thud of his heart against mine deepened the tether, and the bond whispered of surrender. It wasn't gentle. It demanded. It clawed at me, urging me to melt into him, to accept the fate written in fire and blood.
I hated it.
I hated him.
The hush of the trees broke with a snarl.
Figures emerged from the shadows, stepping between the trees with the ease of predators who owned the night. Wolves shifted into men broad shoulders, scarred chests, their eyes reflecting torchlight. They came in a line, their movements practiced, purposeful, the weight of their hostility thick in the air.
At their head walked Kael Thorne.
He was taller than most, his body corded with muscle, his dark hair cropped close. His lips twisted into something between a sneer and a smile, though nothing about his expression was warm. Kael's gaze swept over me like I was dirt stuck to his boots before settling on the King who carried me.
"King." His voice dripped disdain, though his head dipped in a mock bow. His words tasted like poison even wrapped in respect. "Funny, isn't it? The great Ciaran Duskbane brought down by a half-breed."
Ciaran didn't stop walking. His silver eyes glowed like twin moons as he adjusted me higher against his chest, ignoring Kael as though he were a buzzing insect. His silence was heavier than words, a dismissal sharp enough to cut.
Kael's jaw ticked. Rage flickered across his face at being so easily disregarded. He stepped forward, his boots crunching against leaves, his wolves shifting uneasily behind him. "She doesn't belong to you." His gaze slid to me, sharp and poisonous, spitting venom in every syllable. "She doesn't belong anywhere."
Heat flared in my throat, burning to be spoken, but I bit my tongue before my words betrayed me. I wouldn't give Kael the satisfaction.
Ciaran's voice broke the night like a blade. "Say that again."
The clearing held its breath.
Kael chuckled, though the sound was brittle, a poor mask for the unease that tugged at the edges of his bravado. "She's human-born. Weak. Dirt under our paws. You'd crown yourself with filth?"
The air shifted.
It was like the forest itself had drawn a sharp inhale.
One moment, Ciaran stood before him, the next his hand was clamped around Kael's throat, lifting him clear off the ground. The Beta's boots left the earth, his body dangling in the Lycan King's grasp as though he weighed nothing. The crack of bone, the strangled gasp, silenced the clearing.
"I decide what belongs to me," Ciaran said, his voice low, lethal, vibrating with restrained fury. His eyes glowed brighter, molten silver, until the night seemed to tremble around him.
Kael clawed at his grip, his face reddening as his legs kicked uselessly. The wolves behind him stood frozen, torn between instinct to defend their Beta and the knowledge that even a hundred of them would die under the King's wrath.
Still, even as his airway closed, Kael's eyes burned with defiance. His voice rasped out between gasps, each word dragged like glass over stone. "She… will… ruin you."
Something inside me flinched at his words.
They weren't just venom. They were prophecy.
Ciaran's jaw hardened, the muscle twitching as though every instinct in him screamed to crush the man into silence. Instead, he threw Kael down like refuse. The Beta hit the ground hard, coughing, clutching his bruised throat. The impact rattled through the earth, but none of the wolves dared move. Not one stepped forward.
The King turned back to me, his hand sliding with quiet certainty around my waist, anchoring me against him as if to remind the world who I belonged to. The touch burned, searing and possessive, both a brand and a warning.
My stomach twisted, rebellion writhing in my chest, but the bond sang louder, wrapping me tighter in invisible chains. It pulsed with every beat of my heart, every breath he stole by simply being near.
"You see now?" His voice was quieter, but sharper, a whisper that carried the weight of an executioner's axe. His silver eyes locked on mine, unblinking, unrelenting. "They would tear you apart. With me, you live."
I forced the tremor from my voice, scraping together shards of defiance. "With you, I'm a prisoner."
For the first time, something flickered in his gaze an echo of pain, fleeting and fragile, gone as quickly as it appeared. His face shuttered, the mask of a King snapping back into place. "Better my prisoner than their corpse."
The words sliced through me.
A truth I didn't want to face.
He carried me past the cowed wolves, his stride steady, his presence commanding, leaving Kael's ragged coughing behind us. The Beta's hatred clung to me even as the forest swallowed him from sight. My nails dug crescents into my palms, fury choking me, threatening to spill.
But beneath the fury, beneath the terror, beneath the wild storm of emotions tearing me apart… a seed of truth rooted its
elf.
He was right.
And that terrified me more than anything.