MARKED BY THE MOON : BOUND TO THE LYCAN

Chapter 4 : A Human... My Mate

Lucian’s POV

My wolf had gone silent.

At first, it was subtle. Easy to ignore. A delay in instinct. I buried it the same way I’ve buried everything else, under control, under discipline.

I told myself it was temporary.

Every morning, I reached for him. Every morning, I found the same emptiness waiting for me.

No instinct pushing beneath my skin. No familiar presence reminding me I was never truly alone.

My wolf had been the voice underneath every thought I'd ever had. The instinct that sharpened my senses before danger arrived. The presence that felt the hierarchy of every room I walked into.

And now it's gone.

This wasn't supposed to happen. A wolf could be suppressed, ignored, even resisted. But it never disappeared.

And certainly not in a royal bloodline.

I have spent years mastering control. Not the kind of control that comes from discipline alone. The kind that gets carved into you.

I am Lucian Valerius.

Son of Alpha Azriel. Heir to the Royal Pack. The next Alpha …or I was, until the silence started.

I was raised to lead.

To rule. To dominate. Not to feel.

Every step, every word, every reaction. They all carry weight. Not because of who I am, but because of what I represent.

People don't see me when they look at me. They see authority. They see dominance. They feel the weight of something ancient pressing against their instincts before I've said a single word.

A future Alpha without his wolf…The thought alone was enough to destroy everything my family had spent generations building.

If anyone found out, if they even sensed it, they wouldn't hesitate to erase everything I'd spent my life becoming.

Not the council. Not even my own father.

I wouldn’t be seen as Lucian anymore. Not as their future Alpha, Just a liability, a weakling.

And in this world liabilities don’t keep thrones, they get replaced.

My claim to the throne had already been delayed for two years.

According to ancient law, the future Alpha must claim a Luna before the Moon Ceremony or forfeit his claim to the throne.

Now, I have a month to find a Luna and claim the Alpha throne… or watch it handed to Kael, my step brother without resistance.

Kael had never been reckless. He didn't need to fight for the throne. He'd simply circle, patient as a wolf that's already caught the scent of something dying, waiting for the exact moment it stops moving.

And for weeks, I had no explanation. No answers. I had considered every possibility. An attack, maybe a curse. Someone powerful enough to interfere with a royal bloodline.

None of it made sense.

Until last night.

The moment I saw her in the club, looking so pale, like she was trying to outrun reality. I should’ve ignored her. But I couldn't.

Because the second I looked at her… something moved under my skin.

My wolf.

It wasn’t loud, but it was there and it was reacting to her.

And her scent. He had caught it before I'd even decided to move toward her. Clean and faint beneath everything else in that room.

And today, the moment she walked into my office, I felt it again. My instincts locked onto her before I could shut it down, and the closer she got, the harder it became to ignore.

I walked further into the room, my steps slow, but my thoughts weren’t.

My wolf had stirred for a human. And not just that, it reached out. Pushed against the silence it had been locked in for weeks like something had finally given it a reason to move.

And I knew what that meant.

Mate.

Lycans don't bond with humans. We weren't meant to.

My thoughts were interrupted by footsteps outside the room. I caught the scent first. I already knew who it was.

Darius.

The knock came a second later anyway.

"Come in."

The door opened, and Darius stepped inside.

He moved with the same steady confidence he always had, unhurried and completely at ease.

I let him walk a few steps into the room before turning to face him.

Darius glanced around the room before meeting my gaze.

"You're awfully quiet today." He muttered.

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“I mean it." He tilted his head slightly, studying me the way he'd been studying me since I was a pup.

“You have something to say." I said. My tone made it clear I wasn't in the mood for a conversation.

He moved further into the room, stopping beside me at the window staring at the city below.

"You want to tell me what's going on?"

I didn't answer. I wasn't ready for the conversation that would follow.

"I saw you" he said. "At the training ground. You tried calling your wolf." Darius turned to face me." You couldn't."

“Choose your words carefully." I narrowed my eyes on him.

“Your wolf didn't respond,” he said, “not even a trace.”

For a moment, I didn’t speak. I felt the weight of it sit in place, because I knew exactly what he meant.

Beta Darius had been with me since I was a pup, long before I learned control, long before I became who I am now.

He'd caught me in a lie exactly twice. Both times, he hadn't said anything, he just waited until I corrected myself.

I met his eyes. “Careful, Darius.”

“I am,” he replied calmly. “That’s exactly why I’m saying this.

My fist clenched at my side, but I said nothing.

Darius took a step closer. “Your wolf doesn't go silent,” he said. “Not even when you hold it back. I've seen you keep it under control for days at a time, and it still pushed back.” He held my gaze. “This is different.”

I stepped toward him before stopping myself. The urge to force the answer out of him was stronger than my restraint.

“So what are you saying?” I asked, voice low.

“I’m saying something is wrong with your connection,” he said. “And if a wolf stops responding to its host completely…”He paused.

“The host becomes unstable.”

In my world, instability isn’t just weakness, It’s a death mark. A flaw, an abomination.

My eyes darkened.

Kael.

Just one moment of weakness and he’d take everything.

The throne, the power, my name.

I moved before I could stop myself, fisting Darius' collar and slamming him hard against the wall enough for the glass behind him to tremble slightly.

“Don’t say it like you’re certain,” I said, my voice low, and controlled.

“I am certain." Even with my hand fisted in his collar, Darius's voice remained calm.

My grip tightened. “That’s a dangerous assumption.”

"Forgive me, Prince Lucian." He didn't flinch. "I spoke out of turn. But I'd rather risk your anger than lie to you."

I hated that part of me knew he wasn't wrong. I held his collar for another second before letting go.

"That doesn't change what I saw," he said.

He straightened his shirt, unfazed, but his eyes stayed serious now.

"For a royal blood…" he said carefully, then paused slightly. "Cases like this are rare."

“Get to it.”

He exhaled once. “Either someone suppressed your wolf…or your absence of a mate bond is weakening it.”

I raised a brow slightly. “A mate.”

“Yes,” he said. “A fated mate. The bond strengthens the wolf. Without it the connection fades.”

I considered his words, then remembered the only bond I'd ever allowed myself to have.

“And Roxanne?” I asked.

Darius watched me carefully. “She broke the bond and rejected you. Maybe your wolf never recovered from it.”

“Nonsense.” My voice came out flat. “Roxanne was a choice. Nothing more. I used her for pleasure, convenience. She had no hold over me. She wasn’t my fated mate,” I added coldly. “And she has nothing to do with this.”

“Then what does?” Darius asked.

I had no answer for that. I looked back at the window. And when I closed my eyes, all I could see was her face.

She hadn't left my head since the club, no matter how many times I told myself she should have.

I wasn't planning to tell him. Yet I did anyway.

“There was someone,” I said before I fully chose the words. “A woman. Saw her in the club the other night”.

“Let me guess, you slept with her,” he said casually

“Not the point.”

That wiped the humor off his face.

“There’s something about her,” I continued, slower now. “Something I can’t place. Her scent. The moment I saw her, my wolf responded. Not to a threat, not to dominance...Just her.”

Darius' eyes narrowed.

"She came to the office today," I continued. "Interview for the assistant position. The moment she walked into the room, he locked onto her again. Stronger this time."

I turned slightly. "It hasn't responded to anything in weeks. And then—" I stopped. "Her.”

“Then you know what this is. She is your…”

“Mate”

I said it before he could. I would rather name it myself than hear him say it first.

What pack is she from?” he asked.

“Pack?” I repeated. “She doesn't belong to a pack. She's human.”

Darius stared at me for a moment. His eyes widened with disbelief. He looked at me, as though trying to decide whether he'd heard me correctly.

"Human,"

I nodded once.

"That's not" He paused before continuing. "Prince Lucian. We don't respond to humans. It isn't possible for a wolf to…"

“I know what's possible," I said quietly. "And I know what I felt. My wolf, I felt it under my skin"

"Our wolves don't respond to humans. They don't form bonds with them." His voice had lost its usual steadiness. "There's no record of it. Not once. Not in three hundred years.”

"Mine did.”

"You touched her." He studied me carefully, like he was searching for something in my face that would prove him wrong. "You were with her. And she's still alive."

I said nothing.

"Lucian." My name came out sharper now. "A wolf doesn't just sense a human. If your control had slipped even slightly, if your wolf had pushed forward during…" He stopped himself. He didn't need to finish it. We both knew what an unrestrained wolf did to human skin.

"She shouldn't have survived that."

His words left the room quiet.

I turned away slightly, my jaw tightening. “Do your investigation… Find out everything. About the silence, about who might have the ability to suppress a wolf."

“Understood.”

He nodded once and left without another word. The door closed behind him.

My eyes remained on the city, but my mind kept returning to the same impossible conclusion.

A human…my mate.