Claimed by the Beastly Lycan King

7: Blood on Silk

I had not heard a single thing. And that terrified me the most, not the bird, not the ribbon, but the silence. Whoever had come into this room had moved so quietly that I had sat on that bed, walked to that desk, stood at that very window, and felt nothing.

My hand was still pressed over my mouth when I turned and screamed for the guard.

He was through the door in seconds, then stopped dead when he saw the windowsill, his face going white.

"Get the King,"

Then, he ran.

Ronan arrived so fast, I was not sure he had even been sleeping. He came through the door still pulling his coat on, his gold eyes sweeping the room once before landing on the bird, and something in his face shifted so completely it almost frightened me more than the dead thing on my windowsill.

"Who has been in this room?" His voice was quiet, that terrible, controlled quiet that meant something underneath it was not controlled at all.

"Nobody, that is the problem, nobody came in, I was here the whole evening."

He crossed to the window, looked at the bird without touching it, then looked at my gown hanging on the wall, at the clean cut along the hem where the ribbon had been taken, and his jaw locked so tight I heard it.

"Clear the entire east wing," he said without turning around, and even though he said it at a normal volume, the guard outside shot down the corridor like he had been thrown.

Within minutes, the whole wing was in chaos.

The doors were banging, servants being pulled from their quarters, guards posted at every staircase and corridor entrance, while Ronan stood in the middle of my chamber directing all of it with the same cold, clipped precision he probably used on battlefields, then sat on the edge of my bed, and watched him tear the palace apart over a dead bird left on my windowsill.

Nobody had ever done anything like that for me before. I hated that it made my chest feel strange.

He interrogated every servant personally, standing in the corridor outside my room while they were brought to him one by one, asking the same questions in that same quiet voice, where were you? Who did you see? What did you hear? And every single person either genuinely did not know anything or that was the most convincing liar I had ever watched.

By the time the last servant was dismissed, it was well past midnight, and we still had nothing.

Ronan came back into my room, rubbing the back of his neck, looking for the first time like a tired man. "Whoever did this knows this palace better than my own guards do."

"Wonderful," I muttered, "very reassuring."

He looked at me sharply, then something in his expression loosened just slightly, almost like he wanted to say something but could not find the words for it.

"You are sleeping in the room connected to mine tonight," he said instead.

"I am not."

"Kaelira."

"I said I am not, Ronan, I am not going to let whoever did this chase me out of my own room."

He stared at me for a long moment, then exhaled slowly through his nose. "Fine, but I am putting a guard inside the room, not outside, but inside."

I opened my mouth to argue, then looked at the windowsill, then closed my mouth.

"Fine,"

The next morning arrived heavy and strange, the east wing still locked down, whispers running through every corridor like water. I could feel the tension in the air the moment I stepped out of my room.

The great hall was buzzing with noise when I passed through it after breakfast. There were more people than usual, unfamiliar faces, travel- worn clothes, a delegation from somewhere standing near the far doors waiting to be received.

I did not recognise any of them at first. Then one of them turned around, and my feet stopped moving completely.

Tyren Ashford stood twenty feet away from me in the Lycan King's great hall, cleaned up and stiff- backed in formal pack colours, here as part of a delegation, here in this palace, here in front of me after everything.

He saw me at the same moment. Then his face did something complicated and painful that I did not want to look at, so I looked away immediately and started walking in the opposite direction.

"Kaelira." His voice hit the back of my neck like a cold hand.

So I kept walking.

"Kaelira, please."

I turned a corner into a side corridor and had almost convinced myself I was free when his footsteps caught up, and his hand closed around my arm, gently, nothing like the way he had grabbed my wrist at the ceremony, but I still pulled free like he had burned me.

"Do not touch me."

"I know," he said quickly, stepping back, both hands raised. "I know, I'm sorry, I just, I need you to hear me out, please, just two minutes."

I stared at him, this boy I had loved for seven years, standing here looking genuinely wrecked, and felt almost nothing except a tired, hollow anger.

"Two minutes," I said flatly.

He exhaled as I had just given him something precious. "Your stepmother came to my father three weeks before I rejected you. She told him that if I claimed you at the ceremony, she would destroy our family, she had debts my father owed her. The documents, things that could ruin us, I was eighteen, that is why I panicked. I did what she said, and I have hated myself every single day since."

I looked at his face while he spoke, and the worst part was that I believed him. I could see it, the guilt sitting in every line of his face but believing someone and forgiving them were two completely different things.

"You spat at my feet." I said quietly, "in front of everyone."

He flinched hard, "I know.

"You called me delusional, you said you kept me close out of pity."

"I know, Kaelira, I was scared, I went too far, and I am so sorry."

"Being scared does not make you less of a coward, Tyren."

He looked like I had slapped him, and I turned to walk away because I had nothing else to say, when a sound stopped me cold.

Then, there was a low, animal sound from somewhere behind us both.

I turned slowly.

Ronan stood at the entrance of the corridor, completely still, his gold eyes fixed on Tyren with an expression that made every hair on my body stand up; his nostrils were flared. He had caught Tyren's scent on me, on my arm where he had touched me, and the beast looking out through his eyes right now was not interested in conversations or explanations.

He walked toward us, and the corridor felt like it shrank with every step he took.

"Ronan," I said carefully, "this is not what it looks like."

He walked straight past me like I had not spoken.

Tyren barely had time to step back before Ronan's hand closed around his throat and lifted him clean off the ground in front of the entire court that had gathered at the corridor entrance, watching with wide, horrified eyes.

"Ronan, stop!" I screamed.

Instead, Ronan's hand tightened around Tyren's throat, and Tyren's legs kicked helplessly in the air, his face already turning a deep, ugly red, and every single person watching had gone completely silent as if they were holding one collective breath.

"Ronan, stop, please, he is not worth it!" I grabbed his arm with both hands, pulling with everything I had, but his arm did not move an inch; it was like trying to move a stone wall with my bare hands.

Ronan's gold eyes slid to me slowly, and what I saw in them made my stomach drop completely, because it was not anger looking back at me anymore; it was something older and darker and far more dangerous than anger.

"Ronan," I whispered, "if you kill him right now, in front of all these people, you will never be able to take it back."

His grip did not loosen.

Ronan leaned in close to Tyren's ear and whispered something so quietly that only I could hear it, and whatever he said made every drop of blood drain from Tyren's face instantly.