Chapter 8 - The King’s Exile
Kyle flinched as if he had been struck with a whip.
“Meera, let me explain—” he started, his voice thick with pain as he tried to push himself up from the dirt, but the silver bolt in his shoulder made him hiss through his teeth, his knees buckling.
“Explain what?” Meera stepped back, her hands trembling violently as she pointed her utility knife at the ruler of forty packs. “That you played with me? That you watched me pour my heart out to a stray animal while you laughed behind my back? That you pitied the pathetic, branded Omega living in the woods?”
“It wasn't pity!” Kyle shouted, his voice ringing with a fierce, royal authority that made the surrounding trees seem to shiver. He forced himself up onto one knee, ignoring the blood pouring down his arm. “From the moment I smelled you in this forest, my soul recognized you! I stayed because I couldn't leave you! I healed your brand because I couldn't bear to watch you suffer another second of pain!”
“And you couldn't tell me?” Meera’s voice cracked, tears finally overflowing and streaming down her face, hot and furious. “You let me confess my deepest humiliations to you! You let me cry over a coward who tore my life apart while you sat there in fur and kept your royal secret safe!”
Kyle opened his mouth, but no words came out.
He had spent his entire life ruling by decree, commanding armies, and crushing enemies with absolute certainty. He had never learned how to beg. He had never learned how to lay his armor down without a fight.
And looking at the fierce, unbroken pride in Meera’s eyes, he realized he didn't know how to fix this.
Meera lowered the knife. She didn't look at him with gratitude. She didn't run into his arms to accept her fated mate.
Instead, she stepped back toward her cabin, her expression carved out of absolute, freezing ice.
“Get off my property, Your Majesty,” she whispered, her voice dead and hollow. “And don't ever come back.”
Kyle froze. The command hung in the damp night air, backed by the undeniable weight of the rejected bond.
He was the Alpha King. He could have forced her. He could have shifted, picked her up, and carried her back to his palace by sheer royal decree.
Instead, slowly, painfully, Kyle Ravenmore lowered his head.
May you like
He stood up on shaking legs, casting one last agonizing look at her tear-stained face, and turned away. Without a single word, the most feared Lycan in the kingdom walked out of the clearing and disappeared into the dark, punishing woods.
And for the first time in his life, the King obeyed an Omega’s command.
