Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
KORRAN
The first thing Korran registered was warmth, then feminine curves pressed against his chest, and the intoxicating scent of rose and rain filling his lungs. His bear rumbled with deep satisfaction, a contentment he’d never experienced settling into his bones as consciousness slowly returned.
My mate. Safe in my arms where she belongs.
Tess lay curled against him, her silky brown hair spilled across his arm and her breathing deep and even.
The morning light filtering through his chamber windows caught the delicate curve of her jaw, the sweep of dark lashes against her cheeks, and Korran felt something fierce and protective surge through his chest.
She asked for my comfort, the safety only I could give her.
The memory of last night crashed over him—those three bears emerging from the shadows like death incarnate, the lead attacker charging straight for Tess with lethal intent.
The terror in her green eyes as she’d realized no human could survive what was coming for her had nearly driven his bear into a killing frenzy.
He’d shifted without conscious thought, abandoning strategy for pure instinct.
Nothing mattered except putting his body between those attackers and his mate.
The bears hadn’t been from his clan—their scents were wrong and their fighting style unfamiliar.
Someone had sent them, someone who knew Tess was here and wanted her investigation stopped permanently.
They threatened what’s mine.
His jaw clenched as he remembered the satisfying crunch of bone beneath his claws, and the way the attackers had fled once they’d tasted his superior strength. He should have pursued them, demanded answers about who’d sent them and why. But Tess’s safety had taken precedence over everything else.
And when they’d returned to the estate, when she’d looked at him with those wide green eyes and asked to stay with him—his bear had practically purred with triumph.
She’s beginning to understand. We can protect her. We’re what she needs.
The logical part of him tried to reassert control, reminding him of all the reasons he should resist this connection. The mate bond theory. His father’s deteriorating condition. The political necessity of choosing Seraya to stabilize the clan.
But with Tess sleeping peacefully in his arms, her body fitting against his like she’d been made for him, those arguments felt increasingly hollow.
Especially after the way she’d responded to his touch two nights ago, the way she’d kissed him with desperate hunger and welcomed him into her body like she’d been waiting for him her entire life.
If the mate bond theory is wrong…
The thought sent electricity racing through his veins.
If Varix’s decade-long narrative proved false, if his father’s illness had nothing to do with loving a human mate, then Korran’s last resistance would crumble.
He could finally tell Tess what she was to him, could claim her properly and damn the political consequences.
First, we need to test those vials.
Sunlight had strengthened while he’d been lost in thought, and Korran realized with a start that they’d slept far later than intended. His internal clock, honed by years of military discipline, told him it was well past dawn—closer to mid-morning than he’d ever allow himself to sleep.
I was too comfortable. Too content with my mate in my arms.
His bear had been utterly satisfied, finally able to hold and protect what belonged to them without interference. But now urgency crashed over him as he remembered their mission.
“Tess.” He sat up carefully, not wanting to startle her but knowing they couldn’t delay any longer. “I need to go talk to my father about the booster.”
She stirred against him, her body stretching languidly in a way that made his bear rumble with renewed interest. The sight of her in nothing but that scrap of lace—her bra barely containing her curves, her panties riding low on her hips—sent heat flooding straight to his groin.
Stay. Claim her properly. Mark her so everyone knows she’s yours.
His bear surged forward with primal demand, but Korran forced himself to focus. They had stolen vials hidden in his mini-fridge and a dying king who needed to avoid Varix’s “treatment” until they could determine its true composition.
“I’ll go to my guest suite and get ready,” Tess said, her voice still husky with sleep. “Meet you in the foyer?”
“Perfect.” The word came out rougher than intended as she sat up, the movement causing her hair to tumble around her shoulders in waves that caught the morning light. “I’ll be down soon.”
He forced himself to move, crossing to his walk-in closet with determined strides. He pulled on dark trousers, a white shirt, and his boots—the familiar routine of dressing helping him regain some semblance of control over his body’s reaction to waking up with his mate.
Just tell Father he wants to delay the treatment. Don’t mention the stolen vials or Tess’s suspicions about Varix.
Simple enough. Buy them time to analyze the immunity booster’s composition and either prove Varix’s credibility or expose something far more sinister.
Korran had just finished dressing when rapid footsteps echoed in the corridor outside his chambers. His bear immediately went on high alert, recognizing the urgency in those approaching steps.
Something’s wrong.
He rushed toward his chamber door and opened it before they could knock. Gabrielle stood in the doorway, her usually composed features stricken with grief and panic. Behind her, Orric’s rugged face was grim with barely controlled emotion.
Korran stepped into the corridor, pulling his chamber door closed behind him with deliberate precision. The last thing he needed was for anyone to discover Tess in his private chambers, especially when Gabrielle’s stricken expression and Orric’s grim demeanor suggested catastrophic news.
“Tell me.” The command emerged as a low growl, his alpha authority bleeding through despite his attempt at restraint.
Orric’s blue eyes met his without flinching—a testament to their decades of friendship and shared battles. The man had never been one for gentle delivery or political maneuvering, preferring brutal honesty to comforting lies.
“The king is dead.”
The words hit Korran like a punch to the sternum, stealing the breath from his lungs and sending his world tilting sideways. His bear roared in denial.
“What?” The single word cracked like a whip, disbelief and rage warring in his chest. “That’s impossible.”
Father was weak, yes, but we had time.
“Your father passed around dawn,” Orric continued, his voice steady despite the devastation in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Korran. I know you weren’t prepared—“
“His health was declining, but not—“ Korran’s voice broke as reality crashed over him like an avalanche. “This can’t be happening. He wasn’t that close to—“
“Maybe he suffered some kind of medical emergency,” Orric offered quietly. “Something unforeseen that—“
But Korran barely heard him. His father was gone. Dead. And they’d been so close to answers, so close to potentially saving him. The cruel irony of it sent fury blazing through his veins.
Without conscious thought, he was sprinting down the corridor and down the grand staircase toward his parents’ chambers. His bear demanded to see, to confirm, to understand how this could have happened so suddenly.
“Korran, stop!” Orric’s voice cracked like a command as heavy footsteps pounded behind him. “Your father isn’t in his chambers anymore.”
The words hit him like a physical barrier, stopping his headlong rush toward answers that weren’t there. He spun to face his oldest friend outside his parents’ chambers, his hands clenched into fists that could crush stone.
“What do you mean he’s not—“
“The queen called Varix immediately after she found him dead,” Orric explained, his own breathing slightly labored from the sprint to catch up. “Varix took him away already to prepare his body for the viewing and funeral ceremonies.”
Varix has my father’s body.
The thought sent ice flooding through Korran’s veins, followed immediately by molten rage.
Varix—the healer Tess suspected of deception, possibly even sabotage—now had complete control over King Voran’s remains.
Any evidence of what had truly killed his father could be destroyed, manipulated, or hidden forever.
“This can’t be happening.” The words tore from his throat as his carefully constructed world crumbled around him.
I failed him. I trusted Varix when I should have pressed harder for answers. I let politics and duty blind me.
“Where’s my mother?” The question emerged as a snarl, his protective instincts spiking to dangerous levels. If Varix had indeed harmed his father, the healer posed a threat to Queen Lysia—
“She’s with Varix right now,” Orric replied carefully, clearly reading the violence building in Korran’s expression.
My mother is alone with him. With the man who might have murdered my father.
Terror unlike anything he’d ever experienced crashed over him. His mother—his brilliant, strong mother who’d endured decades of prejudice and political maneuvering—was vulnerable and grieving in the presence of someone who might mean her harm.
“Where are they?” The demand came out barely human, his bear pressing so close to the surface that his voice carried an inhuman rumble.
“At the medical facilities, obviously,” Orric said. “But Korran, you need to—“
But Korran was already moving, racing toward the foyer. His world had narrowed to a single, desperate focus: reach his mother before anything else could go wrong.
He burst into the grand foyer to find Tess waiting exactly where she’d promised, dressed in practical clothes and ready for their planned day in the lab. Her green eyes widened as she took in his wild appearance—no coat, hair disheveled, barely leashed violence radiating from his frame.
“What’s going on?” Her voice carried that sharp intelligence he’d come to crave, immediately recognizing that something catastrophic had occurred.
“My father is dead.” The words felt like glass in his throat. “He died this morning.”
The color drained from her face, her scientific mind immediately processing the implications. “No, that can’t be. We were so close to saving him—“
“Well, it’s too late.” The brutal dismissal tore from him before he could stop it, his emotional shields slamming into place as grief and rage threatened to overwhelm him completely. “You might as well just go home now.”
Pain flashed across her features—hurt at his callous dismissal, frustration at the lost opportunity to help. But Korran couldn’t let himself be weakened by the mate bond when his mother needed him.
He pushed past her toward the door. The stolen vials in his mini-fridge seemed pointless now—what did testing immunity boosters matter when the patient was already dead?
The winter air hit him like a dagger as he burst through the estate’s front entrance, but he barely noticed the cold biting through his shirt. Within seconds, his SUV started with a roar, and he was speeding toward town before the engine had fully warmed.
If Varix has hurt her, if he’s used her grief to manipulate or harm her, I’ll tear him apart with my bare hands.
Minutes later, the medical facilities appeared ahead, their glass and steel structure gleaming in the morning light like a testament to all his failures.
He’d trusted this place, these people, to save his father.
Instead, King Voran was dead, and his body was in the hands of someone who might be responsible.
Korran abandoned his SUV in the parking lot and charged through the building’s entrance, his bear’s enhanced senses immediately detecting the familiar scents of his mother, Varix, and—unexpectedly—Malvek.
He found them in the lobby, and relief flooded through him as he confirmed his mother was physically unharmed.
But emotionally—Queen Lysia looked broken in a way he’d never seen before.
Her usual regal composure had cracked completely, tears streaming down her face as she stared into nothing with the hollow expression of someone whose world had just ended.
Her fated mate is gone. The other half of her soul.
The sight of his mother’s devastation sent fresh rage coursing through his veins, but also a terrible understanding.
This was what happened when you loved someone completely, when you opened yourself to that level of vulnerability.
This was why he’d spent years resisting the mate bond, why he’d tried to choose duty over desire.
This is what loving costs. This is what I was trying to avoid.
But his bear snarled in disagreement, remembering the feel of Tess in his arms, the rightness of holding his mate through the night.
“Mother.” He crossed to her side in three quick strides, his hands gentle despite the violence still coursing through his system. “I’m going to take you home. I’ll handle all the funeral arrangements.”
She didn’t speak, just nodded as fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. In all his thirty-four years, Korran had never seen his mother—his brilliant, strong, unshakeable mother—look so fragile.
He turned to face Varix and Malvek, his expression promising violence if either man had contributed to his family’s suffering. “I’ll be in contact soon about the ceremony details and succession arrangements.”
Succession. I’m about to become king. And according to tradition, I need a mate to assume full royal duties.
The political implications crashed over him like another tidal wave. Malvek would push harder than ever for him to choose Seraya. The council would demand stability and traditional alliances. And Tess—his beautiful, brilliant mate—would probably be heading back to Earth by tomorrow.