SAVAGE BONDS

Chapter 1: In The Beginning

Chapter 1: In The Beginning

Nico’s pov

Moonstone Palace, Lycan Royal Family Dwelling

Eight Years Ago

"Excerpt From The Book Of Fates: Sebastian Lockhart, alpha of the proud and unfallen lycan race, will father two sons. One of them will incur the wrath of the gods and bring destruction to the land and the other will be blessed and usher in prosperity and peace. One must not live or chaos will befall the land."

***

A sharp knock shattered the fragile quiet of my room, sending my heart stammering against my ribs. I fumbled to hide my phone beneath the bedcovers just as the door creaked open. The servant barely spared me a glance.

"Your father demands your presence in the grand hall immediately."

Her voice was flat, disinterested. She didn't even wait for a response before turning on her heel, leaving the door wide open. Not that she would have cared about the draft or the fact that I still struggled to breathe on the best of days.

I swallowed the knot of shame lodged in my throat. My mother would have her whipped for the disrespect. My father would do far worse. But I was the unfortunate alpha prince — sickly, spineless, useless — and I couldn't afford to make enemies among the staff too.

By the time I forced my lungs to cooperate and made my way down the hallway, my mother was already waiting. She stood poised beneath the light of the chandelier, the picture of aristocratic grace, though the tightness between her brows betrayed her worry.

"Nico!" Her face softened at the sight of me. In the next breath, she had swept me into her arms, pressing frantic kisses to my forehead. "Happy birthday, my moonshine." Her voice cracked. "I was coming to find you when your father sent for us."

I leaned into her warmth, letting it steady my trembling frame.

"What does he want this time?" I asked, though dread already curled in my gut.

Her thumb traced soothing circles against my cheek, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. "I don't know. He usually ignores us during important nights like this."

It was the Winter Solstice — a night when the five families, the ruling heads of the mythical factions, gathered under one roof to maintain the brittle alliance that kept the world from crumbling. Lycans. Draconians. Fair Folk. Vampires. Clerics.

Once, my mother sat at my father's side during such occasions — the fierce, proud Luna of Moonstone. But that was before I was born. Before my father realized his first and only son was a sickly disappointment.

Father had all but banished me to the west wing of the house and decreed that I never show my face at important times like this because I was that much of a disgrace to him.

Perhaps he finally wanted to acknowledge me in front of the royals as his own. Maybe introduce me to their kids. I was practically friendless and the one friend I had was born out of a school project that I continued to stay in touch with.

My heart lit up when I thought about Wren. She was my best friend. My only friend. A human.

My parents would punish me if they discovered I was friends with a human. The humans were a lowly subservient breed according to them, unfit to even wait at our tables. I bet they would change their minds if they actually interacted with humans. If every human was like Wren, they couldn’t be so bad.

I was only friends with Wren because of a project to unite humans with our factions years ago. We were paired together as anonymous pen pals back in second grade and while the project was deemed a disaster, I never stopped talking to Wren and she always wrote back to me.

The thought of having even more friends filled me with joy.

“I am nothing but a forsaken queen in this household,” my mother continued, pulling me out of my thoughts. Her eyes hardened, “and it is all your father’s fault!” To me, she softened her tone, “Promise me, Nico. Promise me that you will treat your mate with respect. You will show her all the love and affection you can possibly muster.”

“I promise, mother.”

“Swear it to me,” she insisted, “swear on the styx.”

My throat burned. Swearing on the river styx was a binding pact. Those that failed to keep their promise in this lifetime will burn forever in the river Styx, their souls, burdened with the weight of their unfulfilled promise and will not go on to the afterlife. Hence, they couldn’t reincarnate.

My mother didn’t trust me to keep my own words. I had no reason to be cruel to my mate. I wasn’t even cruel to the servants that made life difficult for me.

“I swear on the Styx. I will cherish my mate with everything I have.” I whispered.

She nodded, placated for now.

"Maybe father finally wants to acknowledge me," I offered, hopeful despite myself.

Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "I have a good feeling about tonight."

Liar.

I clung to that lie like a child clutching at smoke.

The grand hall stretched wider than I remembered, every surface gleaming under chandelier light. The scent of roasted meat and rich wine thickened the air, making my stomach twist with both hunger and nausea. At the head of the table, my father sat like carved marble — tall, broad-shouldered, untouched by time or mercy.

Alpha Sebastian Lockhart.

The Moon's Chosen.

He barely acknowledged us — his own blood — but what did catch his attention was the woman seated at his right hand.

A human.

Blonde hair. Cheap perfume masking the sour stench of wine. Her laughter clanged against the silverware like a broken bell. And beside her sat a boy with golden hair and sharper eyes. He looked my age — maybe older — but something about him made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

They were in our seats.

My mother went rigid beside me.

"Alpha Sebastian," the butler announced, voice strained. "Luna Margaret and Prince Nico have arrived."

The room stilled. Conversations tapered off into hushed whispers. The live musicians fumbled to a stop.

My father's eyes finally lifted — bored, cold, dispassionate.

"Ah." He took a long sip from his goblet. "The b***h and her whelp finally decided to grace us with their presence."

The words landed like a slap, but my mother barely blinked.

"It is late," she said coolly. "There must be a good reason you summoned us."

My father only ignored her and casted his hateful eyes on me. “Come here and pay your respect to me, child.”

“My son will not go near that human creature you brought into our home!” My mother hissed, tugging me back behind her.

His lips curved. Cruel. Amused. He turned to the human woman beside him, running a lazy finger along the curve of her wrist.

"This is Delilah." He didn't bother to look at my mother. "Your new Luna."

The air left the room — left my lungs — in a sickening rush.

My feet grew cold and hushed silence spread throughout the entire room. Even the live band that was playing stopped their music.

A human luna? It was unheard of.

Members of the royal court were already snickering and making snide comments, all at our expense. At my mother’s expense. By dawn, news will spread of what just happened. How the great Margaret Gallahan had fallen from the alpha’s grace and been replaced as Luna… by a mere human.

My mother's grip tightened painfully on my arm. I could feel the tremor running beneath her perfect composure.

"You expect me to bow to that?" she spat.

"You will address me properly, Margaret," he drawled. "And you will show your successor the respect she deserves."

The room rippled with snickers. A public humiliation — orchestrated for his amusement.

I thought my mother would scream or shift or tear the whole room apart with her bare hands — but she didn't.

Instead, she reached back and tangled her fingers with mine.

It was the smallest act of defiance — but I felt the weight of it like a vow.

“How dare you say that when our son is right here?”

“That weak spawn of yours is no son of mine.”

Cold ice replaced all the blood in my veins. I couldn’t feel my limbs.

He continued. “The goddess probably saw the disaster already happening thanks to your weak genes and spared me a lifetime of disgrace. I knew Delilah before I made you my queen and as fate would have it, our dalliance blessed her with a child I knew nothing about. A son, Margaret. She was pregnant with my son before you even conceived that weak thing you call mine. Adrian transformed a few months ago and Delilah was scared out of her wits. She had tried to reach me ever since and we only just reconnected a few days ago. I thought now would be a good time to introduce them to the other families. Seeing as they are mine, they will lack nothing and you will show them the respect they deserve.”

My mother stumbled back, like he had physically struck her. This was a slap to the face of the Silverstone pack princess but my father was far from done.

Turning to me, he announced. “Today is your eleventh birthday, is it not?”

“I- It is, my king.”

“And have you had your first transformation?”

“Not yet.”

He shook his head with disgust, “defected. That’s what you are. A defected and cursed breed, fragile and weak like the fates foretold.”

“Perfect!” My mother shrieked, covering my ears before he was even done and cocooning me in her arms, “my son is perfect! And we have had enough of your vicious tongue for tonight. We will be retiring to our rooms now.”

She snatched my arm and began to walk out of the room but an uncertain voice calling out to us stopped us in our tracks.

Delilah staggered toward us, wine sloshing in her glass. Humans didn’t have the capacity to hold their wine as much as our kind did, much less a functioning alcoholic like Alpha Sebastian Lockhart. What was father thinking?. Up close, the false warmth in her smile curdled.

"Oh, you must be the little prince," she cooed, reaching out as if to pat my cheek.

I flinched back. "I'm Nico."

Her smile sharpened. "You're the one causing all this fuss."

Her hand drifted lower — brushing against my neck — and her voice dropped so only I could hear.

"If I were your father, I would've snapped your frail little neck the day you were born."

My heart stopped.

The c***k of my mother's palm across Delilah's face shattered the room.

Gasps. Scraping chairs. The scent of blood.

Delilah staggered, clutching her split cheek. My father rose from his seat — slow, deliberate — and for one terrible moment, his eyes locked on me.

"You will beg her forgiveness," he said, voice like velvet stretched too thin.

My mother stood taller.

"I will beg nothing from a human."

He smiled — that cold, dead thing that meant ruin.

That night, the royal court gathered to watch us punished.

They shackled me to a pillar, forcing me to watch as they stripped my mother bare and handed her over to men. Human men. My father made certain the punishment fit the crime.

I shut my eyes, but the sounds would follow me into every lifetime after this one — her screams, the wet slap of flesh, the drunken laughter.

“Watch, you snivelling bastard.” My father snapped at me. “Look and see how haughty women are punished for their stupidity they mistake for pride. And when she’s done, it’ll be your turn to take your punishment.” Something about it made him smirk with delight.

I refused to look.

My mother's pride was her death sentence.

Mine was not looking.

By the time they dragged her broken body back to me, she was silent. Her hair matted with blood. Her eyes fixed on something far away.

Hatred unlike anything I had ever known suddenly washed over me, splintering ice and fire across my chest.

I hated them. I hated them all.

My mother never apologized.

Neither will I — not when I burn this palace to the ground.

Not when I bury every single one of them.

Not when I kill them all.