The Lycan King's Return

Chapter 2

The night of the shifting ceremony still clung to him like a shadow.

At dawn, when the palace woke to birdsong and the bustle of servants, Aedric lingered in his chambers, unwilling to face the world outside. His body felt heavy, not with exhaustion but with shame. Every breath carried with it the memory of firelit faces, expectant eyes, and then—disappointment.

He had gone into the woods as a prince. He had come back as a boy.

The pack hadn’t hidden their whispers. They’d filled the clearing like the air itself, curling around him as he stumbled back without fur, without fangs, without the golden fire of a wolf in his veins.

The Alpha King’s son, wolfless.

The goddess has turned her back.

He should be marked as an omega.

Even now, in the quiet of his chamber, those words echoed as if they’d been carved into stone

A knock startled him. Cassian’s familiar face poked through the door, followed by Leo’s grin and Miri’s cautious eyes. For a heartbeat, hope flickered—maybe they would laugh it off, tell him it was just a bad dream.

But they didn’t.

“Morning,” Cassian said, too bright, too casual. He crossed the room, tossing a training sash onto the bed. “We thought you’d want company.”

Leo’s grin wavered when Aedric didn’t smile back. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “The kitchen’s got honey cakes. We could sneak a few.”

Miri lingered at the threshold, quiet. Her gaze brushed Aedric’s face, sharp and searching, before dropping to the floor. “Are you… okay?” she asked softly.

Aedric’s throat tightened. Their voices weren’t cruel, but they weren’t the same. They were careful, tiptoeing as if he’d become something fragile overnight. Something broken.

“I’m fine,” he lied, his voice flat.

The silence stretched. Cassian cleared his throat, muttered something about practice, and led the others out. The door clicked shut, leaving Aedric alone with the sound of his own unsteady breathing.

The pack buzzed with life when he finally stepped outside, but the air felt different. Wolves paused mid-step when he passed, conversations dropping into whispers that were not nearly soft enough.

“…cursed, that’s what it is.”

“…never seen anything like it.”

“…the goddess turned her face from him.”

Aedric kept walking, each word a stone in his chest. The training grounds were worse. Pups who had shifted only hours ago strutted proudly, their wolves strong and eager. Warriors clapped their shoulders, praising their strength.

When Aedric appeared, silence cut through the field like a blade.

He turned away before anyone could meet his eye.

That evening, his father summoned him.

The Alpha King stood tall in the council chamber, his presence filling the space like a storm contained. Around him, the elders sat in a crescent, their faces carved from stone.

Aedric braced himself for rebuke, for fury, for shame. But when his father’s gaze fell upon him, it held none of those things. Only a strange, steady calm.

“You did well, son,” the King said.

Aedric blinked, confusion knotting his chest. “I failed.”

“No.” The King’s voice was firm. “You did as the Moon willed. Some wolves are late to answer her call. It is rare, but not impossible. I believe you will shift when you are eighteen.”

A murmur rippled through the council.

One elder leaned forward, fingers drumming against the table. “With respect, Your Majesty, we cannot know that. A wolfless heir weakens the line. The people—”

“The people will hold their tongues,” the King cut in, his voice sharp as steel. “He is my son. He is still the heir.”

Uneasy silence followed. The council did not argue further, but their tight jaws and furrowed brows spoke louder than words. They weren’t convinced. They weren’t pleased.

But they clung to that sliver of hope. Eighteen.

Aedric stood there, heart pounding. The words should have comforted him, but instead they twisted deeper into his ribs. Hope was not the same as certainty.

Two Years Later

Aedric now eighteen, sat in the library, surrounded by towers of books. The air was cool, tinged with parchment and dust, the silence broken only by the rustle of pages. He should have found comfort here, among records of herbs, medicine, and healing. At least here, knowledge was steady and reliable—unlike the wolf that had never come.

He dragged a hand through his dark hair, eyes skimming a section on moonwort and its uses in treating fever. He’d read it before, memorized it even, but the words blurred together. His mind wandered, unbidden, to the faces he avoided each day.

The stares. The smirks. The pity.

Friends who had once filled his days with laughter had drifted away, one by one. He was still the prince, still the Alpha’s son. No one dared mock him outright. But silence was sharper than any insult, and distance cut deeper than claws.

He had been seventeen when his father ordered him to join a border patrol. Rogues had been sighted, and though Aedric was wolfless, the King insisted he learn the ways of the warriors.

The night air had been sharp, the forest alive with cricket song. Aedric had kept pace on human legs while the others padded ahead in wolf form, their eyes glowing like embers in the dark. He’d felt clumsy, out of place, his boots sinking into soil where paws should have left prints.

When they paused at the border ridge, he caught the low voices of two warriors carrying across the wind.

“Why send him at all? He’ll slow us down.”

“Hush. He’s the prince.”

“Prince or not, he’s wolfless. What good is he if rogues come? He can’t scent, can’t run, can’t fight.”

Aedric had frozen, his chest burning with something colder than anger. They hadn’t meant for him to hear, but their words had carried clear.

That night, he said nothing. He marched with them back to the palace, silent, his ears ringing with those whispers.

He blinked hard, the library’s shelves snapping back into focus. His stomach twisted as though he’d just returned from that ridge. The humiliation was just too much.

Sometime last year, he’d gone to the gymnasium to meet Miri, who insisted on sparring with him even though he no longer trained formally.

On his way in, a group of girls clustered near the steps, their laughter sharp as shattered glass.

“Poor thing,” one said, not bothering to lower her voice. “Imagine being his mate.”

Another giggled. “I’d rather the goddess leave me unmated than curse me with him.”

“Cursed is right. Whoever ends up with him will live half a life—bonded to a boy with no wolf.”

Their words pierces him deeper than any dagger could.

Miri hadn’t asked why his smile looked thin that day, or why his strikes lacked strength. She must have known. Everyone knew.

Aedric’s hand curled into a fist. He set it down hard against the table, the sound echoing off the shelves. No one was there to hear it. That was just as well.

But silence was no shield.

Sparring had been unbearable from the start. Without a wolf, he lacked speed, strength, and instincts. But he’d tried—at least at first.

But that day, his opponent was another trainee, a broad-shouldered boy who’d only recently shifted. They circled, exchanged blows. Aedric dodged one strike, then another, but the boy’s grin widened.

“Come on, prince,” he sneered just loud enough for those nearby to hear. “Show us what your invisible wolf can do.”

The next strike sent Aedric sprawling. The laughter that followed was worse than the bruise blossoming across his ribs.

That had been the last time. After that, Aedric stopped attending sparring altogether.

He exhaled shakily, dragging himself back to the present.

The library stood silent, waiting. Books surrounded him, offering their quiet knowledge, their safe company. Here, no one mocked. No one whispered.

He picked up the tome again, tracing the faded ink of a drawing—moonwort’s curling leaves. Wolf medicine. That, at least, he could learn. If he could not fight, if he could not lead with claws or fangs, then perhaps he could heal.

But even that thought rang hollow.

Because deep inside, no matter how many books he read, no matter how many whispers he tried to silence, one question gnawed at him:

Had the goddess truly cursed him?

Or had she simply forgotten him?

His gaze slid to the tall windows where the afternoon sun spilled through, dust motes swirling in golden shafts of light. Beyond those panes, life moved on without him. He could almost hear the clash of steel in the training grounds, the excited chatter of young wolves preparing for their first patrol, the distant howls rising in unison as the pack celebrated victories that were no longer his to share.

He pressed his palm against the cool wood of the table, grounding himself. He told himself he didn’t need their laughter, their approval, their careless strength. Yet the hollow ache in his chest whispered otherwise.

He had been born to lead. Instead, he had been reduced to silence.

There were nights he dreamed of what might have been.

He dreamed of the moonlight splitting through the canopy on the night of his first shift. Of heat filling his veins, of bones reshaping, of fur bursting across his skin. He dreamed of the howl that never came, the pack lifting their heads to join him in song, pride and belonging weaving him into the fabric of them all.

But the dream always fractured. He always woke sweating, empty, with only the phantom echo of a wolf that had never stirred.

And each morning after, the memory of real whispers weighed heavier than any dream.

Aedric leaned back in his chair, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. His thoughts dragged him unbidden to that conversation he’d overheard between two healers when he was still a boy, barely old enough to understand the gravity of their words.

His mother died because of him.

It wasn’t the birth, it was the power inside him. Something unnatural tore her apart.

He had never asked his father if it was true. He didn’t dare. But the words had stayed, festering like a wound that refused to close. If his wolf had not come because of that power, if his mother’s life had been the price for his existence, then what kind of curse lived in his blood?

The pack feared it in silence. The council doubted. His peers mocked. The girls prayed the goddess wouldn’t bind them to him.

The door to the library creaked, dragging him from his thoughts. A young servant slipped inside, carrying a tray of bread and cheese. She placed it carefully on the table without meeting his eyes.

“From the kitchens, my lord,” she murmured, voice barely above a whisper.

He opened his mouth to thank her, but the words withered. She left before he could speak, the door shutting softly behind her.

It wasn’t cruelty. It was distance. Even kindness felt like obligation now.

The bread sat untouched. His stomach was too knotted to care.

He turned back to the book before him. The chapter detailed mixtures of wolfsbane in controlled doses, remedies for fever and agitation. His eyes traced each line, but his mind wandered again—this time to Miri.

Miri, who still greeted him with the same steady tone, who still treated him as though nothing had changed. Yet even she could not bridge the gulf that had opened between him and the others. When he joined her, their old friends shifted uncomfortably, their conversations halting. Leo avoided his gaze. Cassian excused himself with flimsy reasons.

Miri never said it aloud, but even her eyes carried pity.

And pity was the one thing Aedric could not bear.

The candle beside him guttered as the evening deepened. Shadows stretched across the shelves, and the silence pressed heavier. He closed the book with a soft thud, staring at the sigil of the Moon Goddess embossed on its cover.

“What do you want from me?” he whispered into the quiet.