"Kyllian!" she snapped lightly, her hand gripping his now. "Breathe!" She stood straighter, her posture suddenly commanding. "You are the king... you must be strong. A king is a god, he doesn’t make mistakes. The moment he makes mistakes, he stops being a god."
She paused and her voice softened. "You are strong. My husband surely knew that, and he was a god until the end. He made no mistakes."
Kyllian looked away then.
"I shouldn’t have married Jane," he finally admitted.
"Oh..." Ravena released a sigh and gave him a knowing look that said she had seen it coming from miles away.
"My dear boy. I know."
"Of course I knew," she said, almost amused. "You stood next to her during the bonding ritual like she was a document you were being forced to sign. You didn’t smile. You didn’t look her in the eye. I thought you might cry. If that’s not a red flag, I don’t know what is." .com
A short, dry laugh escaped Kyllian’s lips despite himself.
"I know you didn’t want to," Ravena continued gently. "But we cannot stay too long without an Alpha King. The kingdom needed a stabilizer. And a king needs his Luna."
"I had my Luna. You handed her over to the enemy."
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The hurt was there, carved into every line of his face. He looked at Ravena with the heaviness of betrayal, from a mother figure, someone who had always claimed to have his best interests at heart. Now, all he could see were choices made without him, sacrifices plotted in back rooms.
Ravena sighed heavily.
"I’m going to tell you something today that my husband told me," she said finally. "It cannot leave this room."
Kyllian narrowed his eyes. f r\eew,eb novel.c(o)(m)
"Maybe then," she added, "it will give you some peace."
Kyllian leaned forward, a spark of impatience flaring in his chest. "What is it?"
"You may not know it, but Damien saved your life too when he marked Luna."
"What are you saying?"
He had come here broken. Forced to marry a woman who only used to warm his sheets, denied the one person who made the world feel less like a battlefield. And now she was telling him that the man who had stolen that person... had saved him?
"It doesn’t make sense."
"Luna was dying," Ravena said softly. "The only way to save her was to mark her. But marking her came at a price. Marking her meant his death."
"He is a dead man walking, Kyllian. He has a few months to live."
A strangled silence stretched between them. Kyllian swallowed, hard. He looked away as if ashamed to let her see the war on his face.
"So he made a deal," he finally said. "He saves her, he gets her."
Ravena didn’t respond. There was nothing more to say.
Kyllian chuckled. With the sharpness of irony. The sound was brittle and cracked. "Everyone in this kingdom would have laid down our lives for Luna. Every single one of us. If I had been given the choice, I wouldn’t hesitate."
"We would have our princess now, ruling us," he said, the grief naked in his voice. "Not an Alpha who has no idea what to do."
"But no... you and the king, you made the choice for all of us. You gave her away."
Ravena stared at him, quiet.
"You really did love her," she said, almost like it surprised her now to hear how deep it went. "Not just as your mate. As your heart."
Kyllian didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. His silence screamed what his mouth refused to say. He thought it was obvious how he felt about her, how he still feels. Even now, after everything.
He had tried to bury it. Gods knew he had tried, under Jane’s warm hands sometimes. But grief had roots, and his had wrapped tightly around the ghost of a love he never stopped watering.
"I understand you feel betrayed," Ravena said gently. "But fate dealt us a bad hand. We had to find our way through it by begging even people we are wary of."
She placed a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t relax either.
"She’s coming. She’s coming here as a representative of Blood City. Our own princess. How am I supposed to act around a woman that I still love?"
"Like a king, Kyllian," Ravena said firmly. "Like a god."
"A god with a broken heart. That’s one for the books."
Ravena ran a motherly hand down his back. "Now go be with your wife and don’t worry about the coronation. I have it all handled."
He hesitated a second longer, then gave her a grateful glance, his throat thick with unspoken emotion. "Thank you, your highness."
"Kyllian!" she chastised automatically.
"I’m sorry. I can’t stop," he chuckled again, a little sheepish, a little boyish. It was the first genuine laugh he’d had in days.
"Then I’ll have to retrain you, King or not," Ravena said with a wink.
Sage Veyron sat at the round obsidian table with the other members of the clandestine order.
"The princess is pregnant," Veyron announced.
"That is good news," Member One said cautiously. His form was barely visible, only the glint of his ring catching the light. "But how does that concern us?"
The murmurs began immediately. Veyron could almost hear the shifting of ideas in their minds.
"We have to protect her," Veyron said.
Member Two finally leaned back in his chair and chuckled.
"And why," he said with a tilt of his head, "do we have to get involved in that? We already extended protection to Royal Concubine Seliora."
"The palace is keeping the news under wraps until they can spin it for the kingdom to hear, but Seliora is currently imprisoned."
"What?" gasped Member Three. "Treason! She carries the royal heir!"
Veyron turned his gaze to her.
"There is no royal heir," he said slowly. "At least, not from her. She lied out of desperation, I believe."
(We made it once more to the power ranking. We are currently No. 50. Can we take it to 30? We all know the reward. Extra Chapters.)