Bound To The Ruthless Lycan

Chapter 4 : The Public Claim

Cassandra’s wrist thrashed in my grip, her pale skin turning a blotchy, mottled red under my fingers.

For three years, I had washed the chamber pots of the lords who sat in this hall. I had memorized the exact cadence of their footsteps, the subtle shifts in their postures when they were drunk, and the cruel, easy arrogance of women like Cassandra who thought power was measured by the weight of their silk skirts.

They thought a servant was invisible. They forgot that invisible things see everything.

"Release me, you wretched beast!" Cassandra shrieked, her voice cracking across the silent hall. She tried to pull back, her gold threaded sleeve tearing slightly at the seam, but I didn't budge an inch.

"You dropped your paper, Lady Cassandra," I said, my voice dropping an octave, carrying with a quiet, lethal calm that cut clean through her panic.

I didn't look at the elders staring down from the High Council benches. I didn't look at the hundred armed warriors holding their pewter mugs in stunned silence along the oak tables below. I kept my eyes locked onto Cassandra’s watery blue irises until the rage in them flickered into the first sharp edge of doubt.

Before she could speak again, a heavy hand descended onto my shoulder.

Damon’s touch through the red velvet of my dress was like a hot iron branding my skin. His broad frame stepped into my side, his shadow instantly swallowing both Cassandra and me. The sheer pressure of his alpha aura rolled off him in a suffocating wave, heavy with the scent of crushed pine and ozone, forcing three of the older council members on the dais to take an involuntary step backward.

"You heard my Luna," Damon growled. His voice was a low, rolling rumble that vibrated through the stone steps beneath my boots. "The paper is worthless. The decree is trash."

Cassandra’s father, Lord Vane—a hawk-nosed man with silver hair and a cloak lined with black fox fur—stepped forward from the council line, his boots thudding against the marble. His face was twisted in a scowl of pure fury.

"My King!" Vane barked, his hand resting heavy on the pommel of his sword. "You bring a kitchen servant up the steps of the High Seat and expect the Bloodmoon lords to bow? She carries no dowry! She brings no spears! Her father was slain as a traitor, and her pack is a scattered remnant of beggars living in the southern marshes!"

"Her father was murdered by her uncle," Damon corrected, his grip on my shoulder tightening just enough to anchor me, though he didn't pull me behind him. He left me standing at his side, shoulder-to-shoulder on the top step. "And the spears she brings are the ones currently marching under the Silverwood crest—spears that will belong to this crown the moment we clear the rats out of the southern border."

"This is madness!" Lord Vane spat, glaring at me with open disgust. "The elders will not sanction this union! If you reject my daughter for a nameless orphan, the western clans will withdraw their tribute before the full moon!"

A murmur of agreement rippled through the lower tables. Swords clinked against leather belts. The air in the room grew tight, sour with the threat of mutiny.

I felt the muscle in Damon’s arm tense under my hand. I knew how he ruled—with iron, blood, and absolute violence. In three seconds, he would draw the heavy broadsword at his hip and take Lord Vane’s head off to settle the argument. It was how Lycan Kings handled dissent.

And it was exactly what Cassandra’s father wanted: a bloodbath on the dais to prove Damon was an unhinged tyrant unfit to lead the southern alliance.

I took a step forward, breaking Damon’s hold on my shoulder, and looked Lord Vane straight in the eye.

"You speak of tribute, Lord Vane," I said, my voice ringing out across the stone rafters, clear as a silver bell.

The hall fell dead quiet again.

Vane sneered. "Be silent, slave."

"Three weeks ago," I continued, ignoring his insult entirely as I stepped down one marble stair toward him, "a shipment of forty iron crates left your western armory. They didn't go to the King's frontline outposts in the east. They went south, through the Blackwood Pass—a road controlled exclusively by Baron Logan’s scouts."

Vane’s face went instantly pale, the red flush draining from his cheeks like water down a drain.

"I spent three years scrubbing the grease off the council's private strategy tables," I said, taking another step down, my red velvet dress sweeping against the stone. "I know which lords pay their tribute in iron, and I know which lords sell their surplus steel to my uncle under the table. You want a Luna with a dowry, Lord Vane? How about I present the High Council with your ledger of illegal weapon sales to the men who slaughtered my family?"

A collective gasp echoed through the lower tables. Lord Vane’s hand trembled against his sword hilt, his mouth opening and closing like a landed fish, but no words came out.

Beside me, I heard the faint, raspy sound of Damon catching his breath.

I turned back toward the throne, my chin raised high, looking at the five grey-robed elders of the High Council. "My bloodline is pure. My claim to the South is absolute. And if any lord in this hall wishes to challenge my right to sit beside the King, let him draw his steel now."

Silence hung over the Great Hall, heavy and unbroken. Not a single warrior moved. Not a single blade cleared its scabbard.

Damon didn't wait for the elders to recover their speech.

He closed the distance between us in two long strides. Before I could read his intent, his heavy right hand reached out and cupped the back of my neck, his long fingers tangling into the tight braid at the base of my skull.

My lungs seized. The moment his bare skin pressed firmly against mine, that violent, wild jolt of heat erupted again, burning straight down my spine into my chest.

Damon pulled me against him until my chest collided with the iron scales of his tunic. He didn't ask for permission. He bent his head down, his dark golden eyes flashing into a wild, jet-black obsidian, and buried his face into the side of my neck, right over the pulsing vein beneath my jaw.

His teeth grazed my skin.

A sharp, gasping cry caught in my throat as his sharp fangs pierced the surface—just enough to break the skin, just enough to draw a single drop of my Pureblood.

The scent of crushed pine and winter snow exploded into the air of the hall, thick, sweet, and suffocating. It was a scent so potent that two warriors in the front row dropped to one knee, their inner wolves bowing instantly to the undeniable, ancient aura of a Pureblood Luna.

Damon pulled back slowly, his tongue dragging over the tiny puncture wound on my neck to seal the bleed. His face was flushed, his dark eyes fixed on mine with an intense, possessive hunger that made my stomach turn to water.

He turned toward the stunned hall, his arm wrapped around my waist, pinning me flush against his side.

"She is marked," Damon’s voice boomed, a deep, terrifying snarl that shook the dust from the rafters. "She is Luna. And anyone who questions her blood will answer to my blade."

Lord Vane backed away down the steps, his head bowed, dragging a pale, silent Cassandra with him into the crowd.

Damon leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, his breath hot against my flushed skin.

"Well played, My Princess," he whispered, his voice dark and rough. "Now the real war begins."