Savanah: A Lycan's Queen Story

I was speechless. My mind was completely blank.

My lycan was roaring somewhere in the back of my empty brain, torn between fury, that our mate would sell us out like that for power, and desire to say yes, just so we could be closer to him.

But then King Dimitri’s face swam to the front of my mind.

With his dark brown hair styled to perfection.

His hazel eyes sparkling, a hint of mischief hidden in his serious expression.

The aura of dominance flowing off of him in waves.

Whether my lycan wanted it or not, my human heart still belonged to him.

Even after he’d thrown me in the dungeon, I still hoped I had a chance.

Maybe Bradley was right. Maybe the king would come down and find me.

Maybe he’d be so overcome with guilt over my mistaken imprisonment that he’d allow me to stay at the palace, granting me a place in his court.

And you never know. If he didn’t find his mate in the next few years, and Bradley remained relegated to the dungeons, maybe I’d be able to convince him to make me his second chance all on his own.

Mate or not, I didn’t trust Bradley. I could earn the king’s love without his scheming.

“I have many powers, little one, but sadly, reading minds is not one of them.”

I jumped when Bradley’s silky voice sounded, echoing across the near-silent cave.

I heard scraping on the floor as he stepped forward. Those hypnotizing green eyes blinked mere inches from my face.

I heard him inhale a breath, and I couldn’t suppress a shiver. I knew his lips were close, close enough that I could reach out and kiss them.

YES, roared my lycan. But I growled inwardly, shutting her up.

I knew I had to make a decision. There was nothing else I could do.

I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.

“Savanah Willows?”

I jumped about a foot in the air as the stern voice echoed around the cell.

With a snarl, my mate fell back into the shadows as the cell door opened, revealing one of the gold-clad guards who’d dragged me down here.

“Y-yes?” I stuttered, pulling myself up to full height, which wasn’t that impressive.

The guard entered the room and approached me, staring down at me with bright gold eyes.

“The king would like to see you.”

He grabbed me roughly by the arm and pulled me out of the cell before I could even register what he was saying.

Wait! The king wanted to see me?

I cast one more look over my shoulder as the guard pulled me out of the cell and slammed the door behind me.

Bradley was standing in the middle of the cell, his face bared in a snarl, his green eyes flashing.

“Remember my offer, little one,” he bellowed as I was dragged away.

***

The royal library was massive. I’d never seen so many books in my entire life.

I was never much of a bookworm, but even I guessed I could spend hours in there, perusing the shelves to my heart’s content.

But not right now. Right now I was terrified.

The guard had dragged me out of the dungeon and through the palace before finally throwing me through a door into the library and locking me inside without a word.

Now I was huddled in an ornate little reading nook in the corner of the room.

The contrast between the darkness and dampness of the dungeon was striking. I felt woozy as I looked around at the beautifully designed room around me.

I assumed I was to wait there for the king. Whether he was going to pardon me or sentence me to death, I had no idea. I felt faint with nerves.

But as the hours ticked by, my anxiety was replaced with another emotion: boredom.

As scared as I was for whatever fate the king had in store for me, I wished he would just get on with it. Sitting and stewing in my fear was driving me crazy.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up and moved to the massive library catalog, an old dusty book on a plinth in the middle of the room.

Opening the giant book, I flipped through, looking for one name.

Bradley.

If I was forced to wait here for the king, I could at least fill my time trying to figure out why my mate was imprisoned.

I stopped when I found the page with the books starting in B and scanned the list, looking for my mate’s name.

Braalin the Bold

The Braccian Wars

Braen The lycan Lady

That was strange. There was no listing for “Bradley.” I checked again but still couldn’t find his name. I flipped through the entire catalog but couldn’t find a single mention of Bradley.

That couldn’t be right. Surely there must be a record of lycans imprisoned by the king.

I managed to find a listing for Prison Records and searched all eight volumes of names, but couldn’t find a single mention of my mate.

Growing frustrated, I started pulling down books randomly, littering the floor, but nowhere did I find the name Bradley. It was starting to piss me off.

I’d just opened a book entitled Dangerous Lycan~s & Their Deadly Deeds~ when a familiar voice from near the door startled me.

“Well, what have we here?”

I jumped about a mile and turned to see him standing in the doorway, a dangerous look on his face.

The king himself, Adonis Dimitri Grey.

“Your Majesty,” I said, bowing low.

The king surveyed me, then took a step into the room.

“Doing a bit of light reading?” he asked, picking up one of the prison records and flipping through it.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I got bored waiting,” I explained. He gave me an impassive look in response, as if he didn’t believe a word of it.

“Sit,” he said, pointing to a small table in the corner with two chairs. Nervously, I walked over and sat down. He sat across from me.

Now that we were in the same room, my nerves had returned. After all that time in the dungeon, I’d forgotten just how beautiful the king was.

Now was my chance. As long as he wasn’t about to condemn me to death, this was the best chance I’d get to convince him that I could be his second-chance mate.

“I’d like to apologize,” the king said coolly, making a face as though “apology” wasn’t in his usual repertoire.

“Oh?” I asked, trying to keep the excitement from my voice.

He nodded slowly. “I was told there was a rogue attempting to infiltrate my court proceeding today, and it appears I apprehended the wrong person.

“Your uncle, the…”

He seemed to chew on his words for a moment, making me think he hated my uncle almost as much as I did.

“…unique councilman from the Council of Alphas, has made me aware that you are his daughter, and unmated.”

I felt my heart rate increase suddenly. Was he about to say what I hoped?

“In light of that,” the king continued, “I am happy to offer you a seat in the lower ring of my council.

“You would be permitted to remain here at the palace and hopefully find your mate among the ranks of my court. This is as an apology for the treatment you’ve been forced to endure.”

My heart was singing, although my lycan was furious. She wanted to roar in the king’s face and tell him we already had a mate. But my human mind won out.

“Thank you, my king. It would be an honor,” I managed to say, excitement bubbling inside me. It was working.

“There is a catch,” the king said, instantly making me look back up at him.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” I asked nervously.

“You must tell me what you were searching for before I came in. I know you’re lying to me about simply being bored.”

I gulped. I guess I could tell him about meeting Bradley without telling him we were mates.

“I…I was looking for information on my cellmate, a lycan by the name of Bradley, Your Majesty,” I admitted.

Instantly I saw the king’s face darken.

“Bradley… That’s a long story. He was a lycan in my court, and he always dreamed of power,” the king began, surprising me with his candor. I thought he’d refuse to tell me anything.

“He wanted my throne, and I think it drove him mad that he’d never get it. Some lycans need power to survive, and without it their darker side wins out.

“He challenged me for the throne, and when he lost, he killed some people who were very close to me.”

“So I tracked him down and punished him. You’ve seen the scars on his face, I take it?”

I nodded quietly.

“He’s been in our dungeons ever since. I am very sorry you were forced to share a cell with him,” he finished.

Looking up at him, my heart broke for the king. He clearly had lost people he loved at the hands of my mate. I had to do something to help him.

I reached out a hand, resting it on his clasped ones.

“I’m so sorry, Adonis.” The name slipped out before I realized what I was saying.

The king’s eyes flashed red, and I knew I was fucked.

In an instant, he’d flipped the table and pinned me against the wall, one arm holding me in place, the other one at my neck, choking the air out of my lungs.

My face was going red as I gasped to get oxygen. But that’s not what scared me the most.

What scared me the most was how the king—my love—was looking at me. His eyes were no longer hazel. They were a deadly blood red.

His teeth had elongated into fangs, and I could feel his fingers turning into claws at my neck. His lycan was in control.

“Don’t you dare sully my name by putting it in your mouth,” he roared. I thought I was going to die. The fear was overpowering me.

“I—I’m sorry,” I gasped, trying to squirm out of his grip. But it was no use.

“We are not mates. You are nothing to me!” he roared.

“Dimitri!” I heard a shout from the door and saw a man I’d never seen before in the doorway, staring at the king with horror.

For a moment the king just fumed.

Then his claws vanished from my neck, and he stepped backward. I fell to the floor and lay in a huddled mess, my whole body shaking in fear.

“I expect you out of the palace by sundown. I never want to see your face again,” he snarled at me, his voice full of venom.

With that, he turned and swept from the room.

“Come with me, Gabe,” he snapped at the mysterious man, and they both vanished.

I didn’t move for a long time.

My brain was at war with itself. My lycan was cheering while my human mind was melting.

He didn’t want to see me again? Ever? The love of my life, and he hated me!

I don’t know how I’d managed to mess this all up. He’d been prepared to offer me everything.

But a part of me knew I’d never have been able to seduce him.

The way he’d nearly killed me just for using his first name. He didn’t love me.

You know what you have to do.

The voice was nothing more than a whisper in my mind, but I knew it was true.

If I still wanted a chance at the king, there was only one option.