What Queens Are Made Of
1248 Words
He didn’t answer her immediately.
Not because he hesitated—because he chose his words carefully.
“Mira,” he said at last, “is noise. Beautiful noise, but still noise. There was an attraction because there should have been. She’s powerful. She’s dangerous. Wolves respond to that.”
“You kissed,” Talia said, not flinching.
He inclined his head. “Once or twice. Nothing more. I learned quickly my wolf didn’t want her. Attraction without bond is friction, not fire.”
It stung less than she expected.
Almost like she’d known.
“And Ena?” she asked quietly.
His throat moved. He didn’t look away.
“She was Casius’s sister. A Luna first before she was my queen. Gentle. Honest. She loved our people more than herself. Her idea of a crown was service, not the wearing of it.”
Talia felt the ache beneath his calm.
“She wouldn’t harm a fly,” he continued. “That’s what we thought a Luna should be. A heart, not a blade.”
“And that was the mistake.”
He nodded. “Kindness without teeth invites slaughter. My father believed he could protect my mother. I believed I could my queen as well. It wasn’t enough. Queens must be willing to kill. That’s not cruelty. It’s survival. Mercy is a luxury. A Luna who cannot slit a throat—metaphorically or literally—will die in our world.”
Talia absorbed it.
She had seen it and lived it.
“So, what I am understanding is Mira thinks she should have been your queen?”
Lucian laughed, “She thinks she should be a queen. I was just convenient.” He sighed, “Who’s? Anyone who will have her,” he said. “She loved power. Position. Crown. But beneath all that glitter, there’s nothing soft. She never wanted the burden. She wanted the throne.”
“And the line she threw out—about ‘both your men’?”
“Posturing,” Lucian said. “She wants attention, even if she has to draw blood to get it. Casius isn’t hers either. Never was.”
“And your Luna,” she managed. “Ena was… Casius’s sister.”
“Yes.”
His voice was even. His eyes were not.
“We were paired because we fit. Because the pack needed steady leadership. We loved each other, and we worked. But she was not my mate. That matters. When she died, I put the grief where it belonged. Memory, not chains. Ghosts do not get my present.”
Talia’s voice was softer. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For telling the truth. For not making me guess.”
He exhaled. Something eased between them.
“More questions?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Relief shaped the name. “Alina.”
“What about her?”
“She is Casius’s,” Talia said. “You know it.”
He didn’t deny. “I do. But she’s seventeen. At eighteen, if she wants him, there will be no mistake that it was her choice. Until then, he stands where she can see him. No closer unless she asks, and if anyone pressures her, they answer to me.”
“Good,” Talia said. “She deserves soft.”
“He knows that,” Lucian said quietly. “He remembered it the moment he saw her.”
Silence warmed. The kind that didn’t cost anything.
“Lucian,” she said, “I don’t need ceremony to tell me what I already know.”
Moonfire walked his knuckles.
“Say it because you want it. Or don’t. I will still keep you and yours safe.”
She didn’t look away.
“I accept you as my mate.”
Something in him moved like a tide—alpha, man, oath.
He cupped the back of her neck; warmth slid under her skin, not heat, light. Kaela pressed forward—
Yes.
“Then I accept you,” he said. He bent and touched his mouth to the side of her throat, where a mark would sit. He didn’t bite. He didn’t have to. Moonfire sealed instead of scorched. Her pulse jumped; the pain in her ribs loosened; the angry itch in her forearm quieted.
She gasped, fingers clutching his wrist. “That—”
“Bond,” he said, voice rough. “It moves faster when you let it.”
“I’m letting it,” she whispered.
“It never felt like this with Thomas,” she said. “A few words and our bond just lit. Just like Mom said, what happened between Dad and her?”
A thought struck her like a stumble in the dark. Her eyes widened, confusion rising.
“Is this what they meant,” she said slowly, “when they said the mate bond with Thomas was manufactured? Enhanced with the forged symbol from my father’s crest?”
Her voice cracked.
“How long was Thomas manipulating our bond?”
Tears pooled before she could stop them. Lucian brushed them away with his thumbs, steady as a promise.
“I can’t speak about what he did,” he said. “But your aunt may know. Amalia has deep knowledge of witch-work and inheritance magic.”
Talia swallowed, nodding.
“Agreed.”
She studied him, the question trembling between breath and skin.
“Lucian,” she whispered.
“You said Ena was not your fated mate. Am I? Your true mate?”
The air went still.
He didn’t flinch.
He didn’t evade.
He looked at her — the way a man looks when he stops lying to himself.
“Talia,” he said quietly, “My wolf marked you in the woods.”
Her heart stuttered.
“What?”
He brushed his thumb along her cheekbone, gentle but unshakable.
“The night you fought the rogues,” he said. “I saw you. Bloody, furious, alive. You slammed a wolf twice your size into a tree and kept moving. My wolf chose you then. I did too.”
Her eyes widened — confusion and memory colliding.
“That was before I even knew who you were,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said. “Before names. Before bloodlines. Before duty. I smelled you, felt you, and it was done.”
Kaela pushed up inside her, ears flat, tail high. Ours.
He continued, voice low, rough around the edges.
“I didn’t take your throat then because you were fighting for your life. You would have bitten me for the interruption — and I would have deserved it.”
Her breath broke on a laugh she didn’t expect.
“But I marked you,” he said again. “Not the flesh. The bond. The moment I saw you take that hit and refuse to fall, something old inside me… bowed. I had never felt that. Not with anyone. Not even Ena.”
Talia’s eyes stung. “And I didn’t feel it with Thomas.”
Lucian’s jaw tightened.
“That’s because what you had with Thomas wasn’t a mate bond. It was manufactured. Enhanced. Witchwork threading a stolen crest through your blood. It imitated fate, but it didn’t hold it.”
A tear slid down. He wiped it with his thumb, slow and reverent.
“Your real bond is here,” he said. “In this room. In the woods. In every breath between us.”
She swallowed.
“Then am I your true mate?”
- Writer
