The Forbidden Lycan King The Wolf Couldn't Reject

Louisa I did not sleep at all. I spent the whole night hoping, just for once, I could get a few good hours. The clock says four in the morning. Time to get up, and I feel no better than when I lay down. I pull on my running clothes and go. The woods are beautiful this early. The coming sun gives a soft light. Birds are starting their songs, and the night animals are going home. Fog hangs between the trees, making everything feel thick and real. I stop at my usual place, the cliff by the old waterfall. It is ten miles from the pack house. People only come here for ceremonies now, which is a pity. It is too pretty to be ignored. They call it the Jade Waterfall because of all the green. A bright, living moss grows over the whole cliff face, all sixty feet of it. The water below is so clear you can see every green stone at the bottom. In the right light, the whole thing looks like it is carved from jewel stone. The water comes down soft and steady. It is a good place to think. I close my eyes. I stretch. I try to breathe and push my thoughts away. Just as I start to sit, the world goes quiet. A cold feeling walks down my back. My eyes move fast, looking everywhere. From this tree to that one, from this bush to that rock. The forest is telling me something is not right. Warning lights flash inside my head. Fear climbs up my bones. ‘Well, morning to you, too..’ I send the thought to her before she can finish. I need scouts at the Jade Waterfall… Now. ‘Louisa, what is the matter?’ ‘I do not know, but..’ ‘Yes. I feel it.’ In less than ten minutes, about twenty-five scouts are with me. They feel the strange pressure in the air as they get close. Our Alpha gets there soon after, her mate beside her in his wolf shape. We are all nervous, but I am the worst. Even as a human, no one listens to the forest like I do. Our Alpha speaks first. “This thing is not just in Louisa’s head. Everyone can feel it. Pair up. Search the woods from the north side. Keep talking to each other.” The scouts run into the trees with a howl. My Alpha turns to me. ‘You should come back with us, Louisa. You have a big day.’ “If you do not mind, Alpha..” She makes a low sound. “If you do not mind… Maya… I will stay a bit longer. Maybe I can figure this out.” Maya, our Alpha, is the old Alpha’s daughter. She is also my best friend. We have known each other since we were small. We know every secret. But now that she leads, that knowledge feels too close. It does not even feel right to use her name. She looks at me, worried. “Please be careful. You are one of our best fighters, but you still can not change form. Whatever is out there is strong enough to bother all of us.” I look down. She lets out a breath. The fact that I can not shift is my biggest problem. Any good wolf can do it by age twelve. I am twenty-three and still can not reach my wolf. Sometimes I wonder if I am even a real werewolf. I watch Maya struggle to get on her husband’s back. She hates riding him like this, but she is so pregnant he will not let her walk. I help her up. He stands slowly and nods to me, a silent thank you. Maya squeezes my hand before they leave. When they are gone, I take off my shoes. I kneel and push my hands into the dirt. I breathe deep, and I begin. My skin prickles everywhere as I open myself to the woods. The wind starts to move again, pushing away the heavy silence from before. I empty my head. I focus on what I feel. The wetness of the air going into my lungs. My hair moving with the wind. Every hair on my body standing up. Five minutes pass. Then fifteen. Then thirty. I find nothing. Whatever was here is gone now, and the bad feeling went with it. I let out a long breath, pick up my shoes, and start walking back to the pack house barefoot. I am almost at the tree line, the pack house in view, when the wind pushes at my back. I stop walking. I do not need to turn around to know. I lift my head and breathe in. The smell is clear. Blood. So much blood. I ran back to the pack house and to my room. The blood smell was strong, but I could not tell whose it was or where it came from. After a fast, hot shower, I put on my work clothes and grab my bag. I go straight to the pack clinic, not stopping to eat. I walk into the clinic feeling tense, like something could break at any second. I am getting paranoid. “Hey, Iris? Are we expecting anyone?” Iris, our head nurse, looks confused as she checks the papers. I see she has straightened her long dark curls today. Her mascara is perfect around her blue eyes. She is in her forties, a beautiful woman with warm dark skin. “No, doctor. It looks quiet for now.” I can not help but look over the whole emergency room, just to try and calm down. This nervous feeling will not leave. It is like I brought the blood smell from the woods with me. I think I smell it everywhere. Maybe I am just wound up because of today. It is a day that changes everything for me. Today is Dr. Kingsley’s retirement party. That means today, I become the Head Doctor of the clinic. Our pack is the biggest of the main packs in the country. It makes sense, since we watch the southern border with lycan land. Werewolves and lycans made peace over forty years ago. Their lycan King offered the treaty. Before that, the two kinds were always fighting. For land, for mates, for food… for fun? Lycans love to fight, even with each other. The clinic takes care of every wolf in our pack. As Head Doctor, I will have to run everything, even the paperwork. To be honest, I do not feel ready for that at all. I have been sleeping maybe four hours a night just worrying about it. I do my normal rounds for the rest of the morning, getting things ready for the party. Dr. Kingsley is one of the most important people in my life. We worked hard to make this day special for him. He took me as his student when no one else saw any use for me. I was only twelve, but I was already learning surgery basics. Even that young, I could handle the hard stuff. I finished high school early and got right into medical school, where I was first in my class. And yet, here I am, facing this new thing and feeling so anxious I could scream. It is after five. Everything has been calm. I am ready to hand my patients to the next shift, eager to get this party started and finished. I think about reaching out to Maya, but she finds me first. “INCOMING!” She shouts in my mind. Before I can ask, I hear noise outside. A hurt werewolf crashes through the emergency room door, carrying another wolf who is not moving. I run to them. Nurses who were already in party clothes come to help. We put the unconscious wolf on a bed, and he shifts to human form. The other wolf falls down, and we get him onto another bed. Dr. Kingsley comes out of his office at the noise. “Louisa, take Finn. Iris, get the defibrillator ready. Clara and Leo, prepare an operating room.” I have never heard his voice so urgent. I begin checking Finn’s signs. Was he not on scout duty today? Weren’t they both? He seems to have a head injury. His whole body is shaking with shock. We need to see if he is bleeding inside. The sick dread I have felt all day comes back, hard and fast, as Maya speaks in my head again. “Louisa, we need every healer you have. Get your team ready. Ten hurt wolves total. And three lycans.” “Lycans?! Did you say lycans?!” In the next five minutes, eight more wolves arrive, some a little hurt, some very bad. And I smell the three lycans right away. Two of them are carrying a third who is not moving. It is obvious he is almost gone. I point them to a bed. They put him down and then collapse next to him from tiredness. I tell the other doctors and nurses to care for the wolves, to help the ones who are fading first. But I see they are afraid to go near the lycans. Most of the wolves have bad scratches, but they will live. What the f**k happened? I turn all my attention to the badly hurt lycan. For a second, I feel like I can hear his heart slowing down inside my own chest. I check his signs as a nervous nurse hooks him to the machines. When I put my hand on his head to lift his eyelid, I feel a spark under my fingers. What is that? All at once, his eyes open. It makes me jump and sends our heart rates flying. He stares right at me. A man this close to death should not have eyes that see so much. He says something too quiet to hear. I lean closer. He says it again, just as the machine lets out a long, flat sound. His heart has stopped. My own head is spinning. Did he just say… ‘mate?’