Lenaleia

For six years, I was Hazel, girlfriend to the future Alpha, Julian. I thought we had forever, a cherished place in our werewolf pack, even as a human. Then Mate Hunt night ripped it all away. I woke up lost in the forest, only to find Julian with her – his true fated mate. His words hit harder than the forest floor: I was just a 'placeholder.' Six years together, and he tossed me aside, his fingers bruising my throat as he growled that I meant nothing. My world, my heart – shattered.

Left for dead, freezing and injured, a different kind of predator found me. A colossal black wolf, eyes glowing gold, big enough to swallow me whole. But instead of tearing me apart, he curled around me, a warm, terrifying shield against the biting cold. For a moment, I felt safe.

That safety vanished when my pack, my family, found us. The Alpha who raised me, Maxen, didn't see a survivor. He saw a disappointment. Turns out, he’d only taken me in hoping I’d magically become a werewolf like my mother – the fated mate who’d rejected him. When I couldn't shift, he cast me out, branding me an omega, the pack’s punching bag.

Now, I'm less than nothing, surviving on scraps and enduring their cruelty. What they don't know, what I don't know, is that my monstrous protector is no ordinary rogue. He's Lykos, the wolf of Kael, the Lycan King. And Lykos has decided I am his fated mate – a human. Kael is furious, but his wolf has a will of its own, dragging the King himself towards my abusive pack.

My old life is over. My only ally is a creature of legend. And the most feared Lycan in existence is on his way. Is he coming to save me, or is the King's arrival just another nightmare waiting to begin?

A King’s Curse, A Wolf’s Claim

The ointment burned like liquid fire against my skin. I bit my lower lip to keep from crying out as Sera's cool fingers spread the thick, pungent cream across the raised welts that crisscrossed my back.


"Almost done," Sera murmured, her voice infuriatingly calm. "Try to breathe through it."


"Easy for you to say," I hissed through clenched teeth. "It feels like you're rubbing acid into my skin."


I gripped the edge of the small camper table until my knuckles turned white. The burning intensified, sending waves of heat radiating across my back. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.


"The pain means it's working," Sera said matter-of-factly. She applied more of the greenish paste to a particularly deep scar that ran from my right shoulder blade to the middle of my spine. "These marks will be gone by morning."


"What the hell is in that stuff?" I gasped, flinching as another surge of heat pulsed through me.


Chapter 44 - A Question of Fate