Wolfless Omega, Claimed by Prince Lycan King novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Not Yours to Give

Lyla tries to claim the circled name, Halvard offers Hesper as the pack's gift, and Hesper sets her own terms before leaving with the King; at the Court gates his wolf tears loose and lies down across her door.

Nobody in the hall breathed.

The King's words hung over two hundred bowed heads.

Then white silk rustled at the front, and Lyla got up off her knees.

She came down the aisle with her train dragging rose petals, her hand already out.

"Your Majesty. I'm Lyla Moreland."

She dipped into a curtsy so low her veil touched the floor.

"I think there's been a mix-up with the shirt. We were at the Academy at the same time."

Evander looked at her.

"You were a first year," he said. "At the graduation dinner you poured a glass of red wine over your sister's head."

Lyla's smile stuck.

"I don't remember that."

"I do. You laughed and said it was the only color she'd ever get." He turned his eyes back to me. "She sat through the whole dinner in it. She didn't leave."

I had forgotten that.

I had forgotten anyone saw.

Lyla's cheeks went blotchy under her makeup.

My father pushed himself up from the front row and came forward, still bent at the neck.

"Majesty. Forgive my daughters. This is a shock to all of us."

He stopped beside me and put a heavy hand on my shoulder.

"If the Crown has an interest in Hesper, the Moreland pack would be honored. Let her be our gift to the Court."

His fingers dug into my collarbone, right above the scar.

I reached up and lifted his hand off me.

"I renounced you four minutes ago," I said. "I'm not yours to give."

My father's eyes went flat.

Behind the King, one of his guards made a sound that could have been a cough.

Evander's mouth moved at one corner.

"She's right," he said. "I heard it from the steps."

"And I'm not yours either," I told him.

The hall made a small collective noise.

The King of every pack on the continent tilted his head at me.

"No?"

"You didn't look at me once in four years at the Academy."

"I looked at you every day for three of them."

He said it plainly.

My face went hot.

"Then you can explain that," I said. "In the car. If I get in it."

"What are your terms?"

"I come to Court as a guest. Not a claim, not a gift, not a pet. I sleep in my own room."

"Done."

"You don't touch me unless I ask."

His jaw worked once.

"Done."

"And you tell me why you waited eight years."

Something closed in his face.

"Two out of three," he said. "The third one tonight, if you'll let me drive."

I should have said no.

I looked back at the hall instead.

At my father with his ring hand clenched. At Lyla in her ruined smile.

At the punch bowl with my pendant on the bottom.

"I'm getting my coat," I said.

It was a navy wool coat with a torn lining, and I'd bought it at a church sale.

Evander held it open for me.

The guards fell in around us, and we walked out into the snow.

Behind us the hall exploded into noise.

Then Lyla's voice cut through it, high and frantic.

"Wait! Your Majesty, wait!"

I looked back.

My sister was running across the gravel in her satin shoes, the train bunched in her fists.

My ex stood alone under the arch of white roses with his mouth open.

Lyla got to the second car as its door shut in her face.

"I'm a Moreland too!" she shouted at the tinted glass.

The cars rolled out.

She stood in the headlights with snow landing on her veil.

I watched her get smaller in the side mirror.

I did not feel bad about it at all.

The car was warm and smelled like leather and pine.

Evander sat on the other side of the back seat, a careful foot of space between us.

"You were engaged," he said, after a mile.

"Seven years."

He turned his head.

"Seven years engaged. And no wedding?"

"He wanted me to shift first. He said he wasn't marrying a woman who might give him a litter of nothing."

The driver's eyes flicked up to the mirror.

Evander's hand tightened on his knee until the knuckles went white.

"Is he the one in the white bow tie? Standing alone at the altar?"

"That's him."

"Good," he said. "I hope it snows on him."

I laughed before I could stop it.

It came out rusty.

He looked at me.

"You owe me an answer," I said. "Why the heart? Why now?"

He opened his mouth.

Then he shut it, and his hand went to his ribs, low on the left side.

"Give me a minute," he said, very quietly.

Sweat stood on his forehead in the cold car.

"Are you sick?"

"No." His breath came short. "He's never this loud."

"Who?"

The car slowed. Iron gates swung open ahead, lit gold, carved with wolves.

The Lycan Court.

Evander shoved his door open before we stopped.

"Stay in the car," he said through his teeth.

He got three steps into the snow.

Then his back bowed and his suit split down the seams.

I had watched wolves shift my whole life. I had never watched one like this.

He came apart and came together huge.

A silver-gray wolf, bigger than any in my father's pack, steam rising off his coat in the floodlights.

The guards at the gate froze with their hands on their belts.

The wolf circled the car once. Twice.

Then he lay down in the snow across my door, his head on his paws, and whined.

It was a thin, broken sound.

One of the gate guards whispered it.

"I've served him six years. He's never done that for anyone."

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