Chapter 114: Sovereign’s interest.

Chapter 114

The mahogany desk in the King’s private office was buried under a mountain of heavy parchment, each sheet bearing the wax-pressed seals of the various Lesser Houses.

Lucian sat behind the desk, his frame silhouetted against the fluorescent bulbs above. He was dressed in a sharp black shirt and dress pant. A stark contrast to the blood-soaked ruin he had been twenty-four hours ago.

To the world, he was the Sovereign restored. To the Council, he was their invincible monarch who had hosted a gala so magnificent it had quieted the whispers of rebellion for a generation.

The letters he was scanning were filled with fawning praise. They spoke of his “unmatched grace,” the “Blood ritual” and how pleased the Council was to see their King back at the height of his power.

Lucian’s lip curled in a silent, bitter sneer as he tossed a letter from council onto the pile.

They were happy. They were satisfied. They had no idea that their King had spent the previous night on his knees in the dirt, choking down the bitter blood of a beast just to keep his stance upright.

The heavy double doors of the office groaned open, and the familiar step of Marco broke the silence.

Lucian didn’t look up immediately. He kept his gaze fixed on a map of the unholy territories, though the ink seemed to swim before his eyes.

“How is she?” Lucian asked, his voice a gravelly rasp that betrayed the exhaustion he was trying so hard to mask.

He didn’t need to specify who. In this house, in his heart, there was only one ’she.’ Marco came to a halt a few feet from the desk, his hands clasped behind his back.

“She is… transformed, my lord. Clara’s reports did not exaggerate. The rift energy has stabilized within her. Her vitality is higher than I have ever seen it.”

Lucian finally lifted his head. His eyes were no longer the wild, bleeding crimson of the forest hunt, but they held a dark, hollow depth that spoke of a different kind of pain.

“Did she eat?” he pressed, his fingers drumming a restless pattern against the mahogany.

“She took the fruit,” Marco replied simply. “And she was… amused by the gesture.” Lucian felt a small, painful pinch in his chest at the word amused.

He could almost hear her laugh—that light, human sound that used to press on his nerves. He desperately wanted to go to her. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to cross the mansion, to tear down the doors of the master suite, and to pull her into his arms until the bond stopped fraying.

He looked down at his own hands, which were steady now, but he could still feel the phantom itch of his fangs.

“I cannot go to her yet, Marco. Not while the thirst is this erratic. If I lose control again—if the animal in me takes over while I’m in that room—I will lose her forever. Not to the blight, but to myself.”

Marco remained silent for a long moment, watching the King struggle with the one enemy he couldn’t execute: his own nature.

“She is wearing your clothes, my lord,” Marco said softly, a subtle observation that he knew would pierce Lucian’s armor.

“She is surrounding herself with you, even while you keep yourself in the dark.” Lucian’s jaw tightened so hard he felt the bone creak.

The thought of Isabella draped in his silk, waiting for a man who was too afraid of his own shadow to face her, was a torture worse than anything the Council could devise.

“The gala was a success,” Lucian said, abruptly changing the subject as he stood up, his tall frame casting a long shadow across the room.

“The Lesser Houses are satiated. For now, they would remain quiet” He walked toward the window, looking out toward the East Wing. “But what is a kingdom, Marco, if the King is too ashamed to stand beside his Queen?”

Marco felt the air leave his lungs as if he’d been struck. He had served Lucian since he awakened, anticipating every tactical move and political maneuver, but those last two words—his Queen—was unbelievable.

He didn’t move, yet his posture stiffened into something rigid and defensive. “Sire” Marco began, his voice tight, “you cannot mean that. To keep her here, to protect her as your fated… that is one thing. But a Queen?”

Lucian didn’t turn away from the window. He remained a dark silhouette against the moonlight, his silence more deafening than a shout.

“She is not of our kind,” Marco continued, the words tumbling out with a rare, desperate urgency.

“She is a wolf. Worse—she is a Lycan. The history of the supernatural is written in the blood our two species have shed against one another. There is no precedent for this. No record in a thousand years of an unholy sharing a bed with a creature of the moon.”

When Marco had first learned that the Fates had tied Lucian to a shifter, he had been shaken to his core, but he had rationalized it.

He assumed Lucian would do what any sensible King would: keep her as a hidden treasure, a secret weakness tucked away in the deepest corner of the mansion where the Council’s eyes could never find her.

He thought Isabella would be a shadow, a ghost in the King’s life. But to give her a crown? To stand her beside him before the Lesser Houses? It was madness.

“The Council is satisfied right now because they believe you have returned to your peak,” Marco pressed, stepping closer to the desk, his hands trembling slightly with the weight of his worry.

“If they discover you intend to elevate a Lycan—the very thing they are bred to hate—they will not just rebel. They will burn this kingdom to the ground to ’purify’ it.”

Lucian finally turned, his crimson eyes glowing with a dangerous heat that made the shadows in the room dance.

“Do you think I care for their ’purity,’ Marco? Do you think I value the opinions of parasites who would have picked my bones clean if I hadn’t woken up?”

“I think you value her life,” Marco countered bravely. “By making her Queen, you are putting a target on her back that no amount of guards can protect her from. You are inviting the world to kill her.”

Lucian walked back to the desk, leaning his palms against the mahogany and looming over the maps of his territories.

“She is already a target. She is already a monster in their eyes, just as I am a monster in hers. But I felt the shift in the bond, Marco. I felt her power stabilize.”

He looked at his captain, a chillingly calm expression settling over his gaunt features. “She isn’t just a wolfless anymore. She is something the world hasn’t seen yet. And if I am to be the King of the Unholy, I will not do it with a ghost by my side. I will do it with the woman the Fates gave me, or I will not do it at all.”

Marco bowed his head, his heart heavy with the realization that Lucian wasn’t just tired—he was resolute.

The King was willing to gamble the entire Unholy Realm for a girl wearing his charcoal silk shirt in the room across the courtyard.

“The Council will demand a formal introduction eventually,” Marco whispered. “They will want to see the woman who has captured the Sovereign’s interest.”

Lucian’s eyes flickered toward the East Wing. “Then let them prepare.”

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