Chapter Eight
1061 Words
Lucian
The cliffs were supposed to be empty.
That was the only reason I came here.
After the rogue attack along the northern ridge, the last thing I needed was a crowd of warriors hovering while I stitched myself back together. The rogues had fought dirtier than usual—no strategy, no honor, just reckless brutality. One of them had caught me across the shoulder before I tore his throat out. The wound was deep, muscle split open and still bleeding steadily down my arm.
Pain I could handle.
Witnesses, I could not.
The wind at the cliffs was sharp and clean, stripping the metallic scent of blood from the air. It steadied me. Grounded me. I rolled my shoulder once, jaw tightening as the torn flesh protested.
That was when I noticed her.
She stood near the edge of the cliff, far too close for comfort. At first, she was nothing more than a silhouette against the fading sky—slight, unmoving, almost ghostlike.
Then she took a step forward.
Too close.
Every instinct in me sharpened.
Not because I recognized her.
Not because I sensed the bond.
But because I knew that posture.
I had seen warriors stand like that before battles they didn’t expect to survive.
She wasn’t admiring the view.
She was considering the fall.
The wind shoved against her fragile frame, and for a moment I thought it would carry her over. Instead, her knees buckled and she stumbled backward, collapsing onto the rocky ground several feet from the edge.
Relief flickered through me before I could suppress it.
I should have turned around then. Whatever battle she was fighting wasn’t mine.
But when she lifted her head and our eyes met, something held me there.
Her gaze wasn’t wild or hysterical.
It was exhausted.
Not weak—endured.
Like someone who had been surviving for so long she had forgotten what living felt like.
She pushed herself upright with visible effort. Even from a distance, I caught the faintest trace of something wrong in her scent.
Wolfsbane.
Not fresh.
Not weaponized.
Lingering.
Threaded through her like it belonged there.
My Lycan stirred uneasily.
She noticed my injury almost immediately.
“You’re bleeding,” she said, voice rough but steady.
I didn’t answer. I was too busy studying her.
She was pale beneath the dirt on her skin. Her movements were sluggish, like her body was fighting against itself. There were faint marks on her wrists—old bruising, not new.
Instead of retreating from me, she stepped closer.
That alone told me she didn’t understand who I was.
Or she simply didn’t care.
When she reached me, she hesitated only briefly before lifting her hand toward my shoulder.
I almost stopped her.
Almost.
Her fingers brushed my skin.
And the world detonated.
Heat surged violently up my arm, racing through my veins and slamming straight into my chest. My breath locked as something ancient and primal snapped into place. Sparks crackled where our skin touched—not imagined, not metaphorical—real energy.
I caught her wrist instinctively as her knees threatened to give out.
My Lycan roared inside me.
Mate.
The word struck with such force it nearly staggered me.
But it didn’t make sense.
She didn’t smell right.
A mate’s scent was unmistakable—rich, intoxicating, impossible to miss. She smelled like suppression. Like someone had layered poison over her natural essence until it dulled.
And yet the bond did not lie.
The longer I held her, the stronger it became.
Her pulse fluttered wildly under my fingers. Her eyes widened in recognition, and something in her expression told me she had felt it too.
She knew.
My gaze narrowed as realization began to settle. Beneath the wolfsbane, beneath the artificial weakness, there was something else.
Something rare.
Lycan.
It was faint, but it was there—coiled tight, restrained, suffocated.
My grip tightened without meaning to.
She swayed again, clearly struggling to stay upright. The bond wasn’t the only thing overwhelming her. Whatever had been done to her had weakened her badly.
“You’re being poisoned,” I said quietly.
“I know.”
No denial. No surprise.
Just quiet acceptance.
Rage bloomed in my chest, sudden and violent.
Who would do this to their own?
She tried to gently pull her wrist from my grasp, pride flickering despite her condition.
“I can help with your shoulder,” she said.
Even now.
Even barely standing.
She was offering to help me.
A strange, almost disbelieving breath left me. She was stubborn. I could see it in the lift of her chin despite her trembling limbs.
“You can barely stand,” I pointed out.
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t.
But she stepped closer anyway, lifting her hand again.
The sparks were just as intense the second time her fingers pressed against the torn muscle of my shoulder. Her breath hitched softly, and I watched realization fully anchor inside her.
She had known before I did.
That unsettled something deep in me.
“How long?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed faintly.
“How long have they been suppressing you?”
The wind howled around us, tugging at her hair, threatening her balance again.
“Long enough,” she whispered.
That was all she would give me.
It was enough.
Something cold and resolute settled into place inside my chest.
Whoever had dulled her scent.
Whoever had kept wolfsbane in her system long enough to make it feel normal.
Whoever had let her stand alone at the edge of a cliff thinking death was easier—
They had made a mistake.
Because now she wasn’t alone.
She swayed again, her strength finally giving out. This time I didn’t hesitate. I stepped forward and caught her fully as her knees buckled, pulling her against my chest before she could hit the ground.
She was far too light.
Her body fit against mine like it had always belonged there.
Mine.
Not as possession.
As inevitability.
She stirred weakly against me, fingers instinctively clutching the front of my shirt as if grounding herself.
Beneath the weakness, beneath the poison, I could feel it now.
Power.
Ancient.
Sleeping—but not extinguished.
And whoever thought they had successfully buried it was about to learn exactly what it meant to threaten something that belonged to me.
- Writer
