Rex POV
I close the door behind me. Lean against it.
Selene.
She called me Rex. Not "Your Majesty" or "my lord." Just Rex.
My name. The name my mother used to call me. The name my father said with pride before they burned.
No one has spoken it in twelve years. Not like that. Not with that casual defiance mixed with something almost... tender.
The sound of it still echoes in my skull, soft and sharp at once, slicing through twelve years of iron silence.
It woke something I thought long buried—something human. Something that hurts.
'She's mine.'
The thought crashes through me. Absolute. Undeniable.
Mine to protect. Mine to claim. Mine to keep.
And someone tried to kill her.
I felt it. That moment when the beast inside me roared. Something was wrong. Something was happe
