CHAPTER 17
THIRD PERSON POV
The sun was high and unforgiving, pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the mansion's room.
Lucian stood in the center of a carnage, his silk shirt splattered with crimson. At his feet lay the fifth woman of the afternoon.
Like the four before her, she had been a "gift" from Marcus—a woman from the fringes of society, someone the world wouldn't miss.
And like the four before her, she was now a dead body.
Lucian wiped his mouth with a lace handkerchief, his movements precise and cold, despite the violent tremor in his hands.
His eyes weren't red, they were a terrifying, blown-out black. "Another one, my King?"
Marcus stood by the heavy oak doors, his expression carefully neutral. He looked at the bodies strewn across the marble floor—it looked less like a dining room and more like a slaughterhouse.
"That makes five. You're feeding with a desperation I haven't seen in three centuries."
"The blood is thin," Lucian spat, his voice a low, dangerous snarl. He threw the bloodied handkerchief onto the woman's corpse.
"It tastes like ash. I drink, and yet the void only grows larger." He paced the room, his shadow stretching unnaturally long across the blood-slicked floor.
He was in a foul mood—vicious, restless, and starving after yesterday night with tat girl. He looked down at his own hands.
Every time he had latched onto a throat today, he hadn't felt the instinct to mark them.
To sink his teeth in and claim them, just as he had done to the little wolf-girl in the woods. Every time he tried, the women's bodies had failed.
They were too weak, too fragile. Their hearts gave out before the bond could take, leaving them dead on the floor.
"You're looking for a match, Sire?" Marcus asked quietly, stepping over a pool of blood to reach the sideboard.
He poured a glass of dark wine, though they both knew it was a poor substitute for what Lucian actually needed.
"Forgive the intrusion, Sire, but it is unwise to keep claiming humans. Their hearts are too brittle for your... intensity. Why not try our own species? There are many in the High Court who would be honored to—"
"Silence," Lucian commanded. The glass in Marcus's hand nearly fell, making Marcus frozen, his eyes dropping to the floor in immediate submission.
He didn't know why his King was in such a state. As far as Marcus knew, Lucian had simply gone for a hunt in the woods yesterday night and returned in a foul mood.
Scratch that, Lucain had been in a foul mode since that night in the woods and it only intensifed yesterday night.
Marcus had brought these ladies—now dead— just to satisfy his master but look what happened.
Meanwhile Lucian hadn't breathed a word about the girl. He hadn't mentioned the "wolfless" stray he'd pinned against a tree, or the way her blood had tasted like a drug he couldn't quit.
To admit he had marked a werewolf abomination—a moon worshiper in the eyes of his kind—would be a stain on his crown.
Lucian turned to the window, staring toward the Southern border, toward the lands of the Blackthorne Pack.
He could feel it. A dull throb in his dead heart that mirrored the heartbeat of a girl miles away.
It was an anchor, dragging him toward her, making the blood of these five women taste like stagnant water.
He had marked her in a moment of reckless hunger, thinking she was just a snack to be discarded. A mistake born of a centuries-long slumber.
But the bond had taken. She was a freak, a reject of her own kind, yet she had the constitution to carry his darkness without breaking.
She was the only thing that had survived his touch in years, and he hated her for it. He hated that a weak, limping girl now held the leash to his sanity.
"I do not want our species," Lucian said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper. "I want... nothing. Clear the room, Marcus. Burn the bodies. I want the scent of this failure gone."
"As you wish, My King," Marcus murmured, bowing low. "Will you be resting?"
"No," Lucian said, his eyes suddenly flashing a lethal, predatory gold as a sharp spike of terror flared through the bond.
She was running. He could feel the cold wind on her skin, the ache in her lungs, and the sheer, blinding fear of the wolves behind her.
"I'm going out. Do not follow. If anyone asks, I am hunting the Northern ridges."
"And if you do not return by dawn?" Lucian didn't answer. He was already gone, a streak of shadow passing through the open window, leaving Marcus alone in a room full of corpses.
Lucian moved like blur of shadow cutting through the frost-heavy trees of the North. He didn't run like a wolf; he didn't touch the ground.
He glided like a ghost. Every frantic beat of that heart was a hammer against his ribs. Every gasp for air she took burned in his own lungs.
He could taste her adrenaline—bitter, sharp, and delicious. Mine, his mind hissed without meaning to.
It wasn't an endearment; it was a territorial claim. He reached the edge of the Blackthorne territory, not slowing down as the bond kept screaming a high-pitched frequency of pure panic.
But as he reached the invisible line—the ancient boundary warded by the blood of the Moon Goddess—the world blurred.
Lucian slammed into the barrier with the force, sending a flash of blinding, white-gold light that erupted at the point of contact.
It wasn't fire, but it burned worse than any flame. It was pure, holy rejection. The ward—designed to keep the "Undead" from the sacred lands of the wolves—snaked across his skin like lightning.
Lucian was hurled backward, his body tumbling through the air until he smashed into the trunk of an ancient oak.
The wood splintered under the impact. He hit the ground with a low, guttural snarl of agony ripping from his throat.
Smoke curled from his chest and arms. Where the barrier had touched his silk shirt, the fabric was scorched away, revealing angry, black-charred welts across his pale skin.
The holy magic of the pack lands acted like acid on his ancient blood. He forced himself up, his skin sizzling as the healing process quickly took place, fighting against the lingering holy light.
He couldn't cross into that pack land without turning to burning into flames, although he wouldn't die but it would be much much worse than death.
Trust him, he had gone through that.
Lucian looked at the scorched grass at the border line—the physical limit of his power. He could still feel her. She was inside this pack land that was restricting him from reaching her.
The scent of her terror was so thick in his mind he could almost lick it off the air. He couldn't go to her, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't find a way.