Chapter 53 Lucian
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Lucian
I should not have been at the eastern perimeter.
The wound disagreed with walking. Every step pulled at the tissue the silver compound had eaten through, and the paste slowed the damage without reversing it.
I told myself this was tactical. A king assessing the extraction route Solomon had mapped.
The truth was less dignified. Solomon had mentioned Wyatt earlier. One sentence about the training schedule. And the name had festered while I sat against a tree pretending to recover.
If this was what fatherhood did to alphas, Veyndral was in trouble.
Besides, I couldn’t stay at one place for a long time and risk letting more of my thoughts run in my mind.
The guilt was worse at night. Percival’s silence where his voice used to be.
Farmon’s ruined hands by the fire. Solomon working maps beside a woman whose loyalty had complications neither of them would name.
My kingdom is my responsibility.
I got bored of politics. That was the truth of it. Two centuries of a kingdom that ran so smoothly it forgot it needed a king, and I’d grown restless. Numb. Walked through a portal because I wanted to feel anything other than the weight of a crown I’d stopped earning.
And while I was pretending to be ordinary, the Order had been experimenting on lycans in a basement forty miles from where I slept.
Fixing it was the minimum.
A rustling in the undergrowth pulled me from the spiral.
My wolf locked on the sound before my brain caught up, and then her scent hit me. Deeper than it used to be. Richer from the pregnancy, layered with the compound’s chemical residue and underneath that, the bond’s frequency at a pitch that made my chest ache and my blood run south simultaneously.
Mira emerged from the drainage tunnel’s exit point and nearly walked into me.
“Jesus.” She stumbled back a step. “What are you doing here?”
“Assessing the route.”
“You’re supposed to be recovering at camp.”
“I am recovering.”
“You’re sweating and you’re gray and you’re half a mile from camp. That’s not recovering. You’re being stubborn.”
“No. Exercise is good for recovery.”
She stared at me. Two days at the compound had stolen the color from her face again. But her spine was straight and the pregnancy had done things to her body that made my wolf lose all capacity for rational thought.
The curve of her stomach through her jacket. The way her hips had widened. The fullness in her chest that hadn’t been there before, straining against her shirt in a way that was going to get me killed if I kept looking.
My mate was growing our children and she’d never been more beautiful, and the possessiveness that rolled through me was total. Blinding.
I wanted to pin her against the nearest tree and put my mouth on every inch of new terrain until she forgot every reason she had to be angry with me.
Instead I stood there. Bleeding. Dignified.
“Solomon told you about Wyatt’s training schedule,” she said, reading my face. “Didn’t he?”
“Solomon provides operational briefings. The content is comprehensive.”
“The content is jealousy. He threw a rock at me with a note about Wyatt. And now you’ve dragged yourself to the perimeter with an open wound because your alpha brain couldn’t handle it.”
My jaw tightened at the name. Every single time.
I don’t really know the man, yes. But still, fuck Wyatt. I almost snarled at that if only Mira wasn’t staring at me.
“My alpha brain functions adequately. It simply has priorities.”
“Your priority should be healing.”
“My priority is you.”
The words landed between us. Too honest for banter. Her expression softened into a vulnerability she rarely let surface.
“Didn’t expect Solomon to be such a tattle,” she muttered.
“Wyatt is a male in proximity to our pregnant mate. That qualifies as a threat to every instinct I possess.” I held her gaze. “I recognize the irrationality. I’m here anyway.”
“All three of you. Completely insane.”
“On that point, we agree.”
We walked. Slowly, because my body demanded it and because the forest at night was the closest thing to privacy we’d had since everything fell apart.
“I need to say a few things,” I said. “And you’re not going to want to hear them.”
“That’s usually how it works with you.”
“I failed.” No preamble or measured phrasing. “As your mate. As their king. The man responsible for every lycan in Veyndral.”
She didn’t interrupt. Just watched me with those dark eyes that saw through every defense I’d ever built.
“Solomon’s father was in captivity while I sat on a throne and felt bored. Your mother died protecting a lycan my realm should have rescued.”
The wound in my chest burned with every breath but the one inside it was worse.
“And Percival’s parents. They were on the first expedition two hundred years ago. The Order killed them both.”
Mira stopped walking.
“What?”
“He found out from Farmon. Three days ago.”
Her face went through a transformation I’d seen before. Grief into horror into fury that went deeper than personal loss.
“Two hundred years.” Her voice was quiet. “This has been going on for two hundred years. Before my father or my mother. Before any of us.” Her hand pressed flat against her stomach.
“Yes.”
“And Percival grew up alone because of it.”
I watched the scope of what we were fighting settle over her in full. A legacy of violence that stretched back centuries.
“I came to the human world because I wanted to feel alive,” I continued. “Not because my people needed me. Because I was numb. And while I was pretending to be ordinary, the Order was experimenting on lycans in a basement forty miles away. I missed all of it because I’d stopped paying attention.”
“That’s not entirely on you.”
“Enough of it is.” I stopped walking, turning to face her. “I chose duty over you because I thought the crown justified it. The Order didn’t win because they were stronger. They won because their king was absent.”
“The rejection. The council’s ultimatum. I chose the crown because choosing you felt selfish.” My voice dropped. “But you are my people, Mira. You and the three heartbeats inside you. And I will spend the rest of my reign making sure I never forget that.”
The forest held its breath.
“I have never knelt,” I said. “Not as king. Not for any council, any treaty, any kingdom. Two hundred years and my knees have never touched the ground.”
She searched my face. “You’re not serious.”
I went to my knees.
The wound screamed. The forest floor was cold and damp against my shins but I held her gaze from below and let her see what a king looked like when the crown stopped mattering.
“We swore we’d never hurt you. We swore we wouldn’t repeat what Hudson did.” The words came out rough. “And then we chose a kingdom over our mate and left you alone. The reasons don’t change the result.”
Her chin trembled. The armor that had kept her alive for years, buckling.
“Get up,” she whispered.
“Not until you hear me.”
“I hear you, you idiot. Now get up before your wound reopens and I have to carry you back.”
She grabbed the front of my shirt and hauled me to my feet. Then closer. Enough that her scent flooded my senses. “You’re an idiot.”
“That has been established.”
“A stubborn, self-righteous, duty-obsessed idiot who knelt in the mud with an open wound because he heard about a sparring partner and needed to grovel.”
“Well, you don’t have to put it that way.”
“This doesn’t mean everything is back to how it was.”
“I understand.”
She grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me down to her mouth.
The kiss hit landed with every fight we had ever thrown at each other, packed into one brutal clash. Her lips crushed mine with raw fury, hot enough to scorch through the haze of pain throbbing in my chest.
My hands clamped onto her waist, hauling her body flush against me. The wound there ripped open wider, fresh blood soaking through the fabric, but I shoved the agony aside. I had ignored every damn warning since the day this woman crashed into my life, and I would not stop now.
“Your chest,” she said against my lips.
“I don’t care.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“Then I’ll bleed.”
She let out a sound, part bitter laugh and part pure frustration, then slammed her mouth back onto mine then yanked my shirt over my head and her eyes found the wound. Her fingers traced the edge.
“I did this.”
“You did what you had to.” I covered her hand with mine, pressing her palm flat against the scar. “You saved us. This wound is the price, and I’d pay it again.”
Her eyes glistened. I kissed her before the tears could fall.
I went back to my knees. Different reason this time.
My mate was standing against a tree with her stomach round with my children and nothing short of death was pulling me away.
My mouth found her inner thigh. She swore, her hands flying to my hair, fingers gripping hard enough to sting. I kissed higher. Tracing the path with my tongue until I reached the center of her, already wet and swollen.
“Please, Your Majesty,” she breathed, and the sound she made was inhuman.
I had no right to this. But she was giving it anyway, her hips tilting toward my mouth, her fingers tangled in my hair.
My tongue found her clit and she bucked.
I gripped her hips, held her steady, and worked her with long strokes followed by focused pressure, building her to the edge and pulling back until her thighs trembled.
“Lucian, if you don’t let me come, I swear to God...”
“Your Majesty,” I corrected, and gave her what she wanted.
I sealed my mouth over her and sucked, two fingers sliding inside, curling against the spot that made her scream. Her walls clenched and the orgasm hit with a force I felt through the bond, pulsing between us until my own vision blurred.
She sagged against the tree. I rose from my knees, the wound protesting violently, blood soaking through the bandage and smearing against her bare skin as I pressed against her.
“You’re bleeding everywhere,” she said, dazed.
“I told you. I’ll bleed.”