Chapter 38: LINES THAT CANNOT BE CROSSED
No one moved.
The fire crackled softly between the two groups, the only sound brave enough to exist in the silence.
Levion’s eyes never left Ciara.
She could feel the weight of his stare like a physical touch, pressing against her skin, searching for the girl he had left in the east wing of his castle.
He would not find her.
That girl had drowned in a river.
What stood before him now had clawed her way back from the dark.
“You will not stay here,” Levion said at last, his voice quieter but no less firm.
Ciara folded her arms across her chest. “You don’t command me.”
A murmur stirred through his warriors again. Disbelief. Offense.
Levion did not even glance at them.
His focus remained on her.
“You are still under my protection.”
Ciara’s lips curved faintly, but there was no humor in it. “Protection? Is that what you call it?”
The words struck harder than a slap.
Levion’s jaw tightened. “You think I knew what was happening to you?”
“I think,” Ciara said evenly, “that you didn’t care enough to find out.”
That one landed.
He inhaled slowly through his nose, like a man restraining something violent inside him.
Eryx stepped forward slightly again, not aggressively, but enough to remind the lycan king that Ciara did not stand alone.
Levion’s eyes flicked to him, irritation flashing openly now. “You speak too freely for someone who lives outside the law of packs.”
Eryx’s expression didn’t change. “And you speak too confidently for someone who failed to keep his mate safe.”
The insult hung sharp in the air.
Several warriors shifted, hands tightening around their weapons.
Ciara stepped between them before anything could ignite.
“Enough,” she said.
Both men went silent.
She looked at Levion first.
“I am not refusing to return because I want to defy you,” she said calmly. “I am refusing because I am not finished here.”
His brows drew together slightly. “Finished with what?”
Ciara hesitated.
She did not know how to explain what had happened without sounding mad.
“The forest,” she said finally. “It showed me something. About my wolf. About who I am.”
Levion’s eyes darkened with thought, not disbelief.
The bond between them pulsed again, low and aware.
He could feel it too.
The difference in her.
“You think this place changed you?” he asked.
“I know it did.”
A long silence followed.
Levion studied her face like he was trying to read a language he did not understand.
“You are still my mate,” he said, but the words no longer sounded like a claim.
They sounded like a reminder.
Ciara nodded once. “I know.”
“And you believe you can simply walk in and out of my kingdom as you please?”
“I believe,” she replied, “that I am no longer something you can lock in a room and forget.”
That one cut deep.
Levion looked away briefly, toward the trees, toward the night.
For the first time since arriving, he seemed unsure.
Not weak.
Just… recalculating.
When he spoke again, his voice was different.
Less king.
More man.
“Come back with me,” he said quietly. “Not as a prisoner. Not as an obligation. Come back because you choose to.”
Ciara’s chest tightened unexpectedly.
For a moment, she almost wanted to say yes.
To return to walls, warmth, familiarity.
But then she remembered the river.
The hands holding her under.
The years of being small.
“I can’t,” she said softly.
Levion looked at her sharply.
“Not yet.”
That word changed everything.
Not yet.
Not never.
His eyes searched hers again.
“How long?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Behind him, one of his warriors stepped forward. “Your Majesty, we should not be negotiating—”
Levion lifted a hand without looking.
The warrior fell silent instantly.
Levion stepped closer to Ciara, close enough that she could feel the heat of his body.
Close enough that the bond between them hummed loudly in her ears.
“Then I stay,” he said.
Ciara blinked. “What?”
“I stay here,” he repeated calmly. “Until you are finished.”
Shock moved through everyone in the clearing.
His warriors looked horrified.
Eryx looked impressed.
Ciara stared at him. “You can’t just abandon your kingdom.”
“I am not abandoning it. Zayn can rule in my absence for a short time.”
Ciara shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. You don’t belong here.”
Levion’s lips curved faintly. “Neither did you. Yet here you are.”
She had no answer to that.
The truth was uncomfortable.
He turned to his warriors. “Set up camp. We move with them at dawn.”
No one argued.
They obeyed immediately.
Ciara watched him, stunned.
“You’re serious,” she said.
Levion looked back at her. “You wanted me to see who you are out here.”
He paused.
“So show me.”
Something shifted inside Ciara’s chest.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Something far more dangerous.
Hope.