Chapter 185: The King is Mine

Ivy’s POV

When my eyes fluttered open, I realized I was on a bed. My neck throbbed but it didn’t hurt anymore. The ache wasn’t pain…it pulsed, almost alive, like something beneath my skin had been rewritten.

I slowly began getting up, but froze immediately when I felt them.

Red, glowing eyes burned from the corner of the room, watching me.

My breath hitched.

What now?! Is the curse not broken yet? After all the blood he sucked, shouldn’t it have ended? Shouldn’t he have been freed?

But strangely, I didn’t feel drained at all. No weakness, no dizziness… nothing like what death would feel like.

Instead, I felt more alive.

Every nerve, every muscle, every beat of my heart thudded with new force. The air smelled sharper, richer…even the shadows seemed to have shape and breath. My whole body vibrated with a strength I’d never known.

And then, just as I tried to make sense of it, I staggered, clutching the side of the bed.

A dizzy rush slammed into me, and then…

Memories.

All of them.

Like a tidal wave crashing against the walls of my skull, they poured in…my dad’s smile, Connor, my birth parents, Lila’s poisonous smirk, Dina and how she turned out to be the so-called reaper, Alpha Raul and how I escaped him. Faces, voices, laughter, betrayal, love…everything that had been torn away returned in a single blinding rush.

Tears stung my eyes as I gasped.

And then, through the storm of memory…one name, one ache.

“Leo?”

The word slipped from my mouth, trembling, desperate. Images of him…his laugh, his touch, the way his eyes once softened for me…swarmed through me until I could barely breathe.

“Leo!” I screamed, my heart shattering at the sight of him still standing there, his chest rising and falling in jagged breaths, his eyes glowing like a wolf caught between instinct and confusion.

I shot out of the bed and ran toward him, not caring if he struck me down, not caring if this was still a dream or a trap.

“It’s me. Ivy. Leo, it’s me!” I cried, throwing my arms around him, hugging him as tightly as if I could fuse us back into one soul.

For a terrifying moment, he remained stiff…unmoving, unyielding. His muscles locked, like he didn’t recognize me.

Oh God… could the spell still be holding him?

“Here,” I whispered, pulling back just enough to tilt my head, baring my neck to him. My voice cracked with pleading. “Drink. As much as you need. Please come back to me.”

The tears that slid down my cheeks burned like fire. I couldn’t lose him again…not Leo. Not after everything Lila had already stolen.

As though those words were the key, as though that surrender was the only thing he’d been waiting for, he didn’t hesitate.

He lunged.

His fangs sank into the crown of my neck…not the scar of where he marked me before, but lower, hungrier, like he needed to carve a new claim over me.

I gasped, my body arching into him. A wave of emotions crashed over me, flooding every part of me…fearless this time, raw and unbroken. There was no terror in me now. Only relief. Only fire.

I tapped his back, holding him closer, cooing, whispering, telling him it was okay, that I was here, that he wasn’t alone. His grip tightened, bruising my waist, forcing me flush against his chest as his mouth devoured me like I was salvation.

I didn’t care if he left marks. I wanted him to.

And then…

He stilled.

Slowly, he pulled away, his lips wet, his eyes no longer glowing red but shifting back, flickering, searching.

“Ivy?” he stuttered, his voice hoarse, almost unbelieving.

Tears poured from my eyes, unstoppable.

“Yes,” I whispered, cupping his face. “It’s me, Leo.”

Something broke inside him then. His whole body trembled as he hugged me, crushing me to his chest like he was terrified I’d vanish if he let go.

“Ivy. Ivy. Ivy,” he chanted, like a prayer, like a curse lifted. My name spilled from his lips as if he had been holding it back for a lifetime.

When he pulled back, our eyes met.

The world disappeared.

Questions and confusion swirled thick in the air…I could see them in his gaze, feel them pressing against the edges of my mind. But none of it mattered. Not right now. Not with the bond humming so violently between us.

It was only us.

And as though he read my mind, he crashed his lips onto mine.

The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was fire. Desperation. A collision of souls torn apart and finally slammed back together.

I clung to him, my nails dragging across his shoulders as he kissed me like a drowning man finally breathing air. My lips bruised under the force, my body quivered under the heat, and somewhere in the middle of it all, I felt the room itself lighten.

A burst of warmth, a glow I couldn’t see but could feel, rippled through the air.

He lifted me off my feet without breaking the kiss, carrying me back toward the bed as though his strength had no end.

“Fuck, where have you been?” he muttered against my mouth between ragged, hungry kisses. “I’ve been searching for you…everywhere… I thought I lost you forever.”

His words shredded me. I couldn’t answer, not with my throat thick with sobs and his lips stealing every breath.

He laid me down on the bed, towering over me, his gaze hungry, feral, reverent all at once.

Within seconds, clothes fell away, torn or discarded, I didn’t know. He ripped through my underwear like a starved beast, but his touch worshiped what was beneath. His hands trembled as they roamed, as if trying to relearn me, to memorize every curve, every shiver, every gasp.

When his lips left my mouth and began trailing lower, a storm of heat ignited across my skin. Each kiss burned, each brush of his mouth claimed. I arched beneath him, every sense overwhelmed by him…his scent, his taste, his heat.

And when he lowered himself, when his body finally pressed into mine, I gasped, clenching around the invasion of something both foreign and right.

Pain flared, sharp and bright, stealing my breath. I stilled, gripping him tightly, forcing myself to breathe through it.

His forehead pressed against mine, his breaths ragged. He didn’t move, holding himself there, waiting, giving me time. His thumb brushed my cheek, his other hand gripping mine so tightly it hurt.

The ache throbbed, then softened, and slowly…carefully…pleasure began to override the sting.

I tilted my hips, giving him silent permission.

And then he moved.

The rhythm began slow, hesitant, but with each thrust, the bond between us roared louder, unraveling the distance Lila’s curse had forced upon us. My cries filled the room, tangled with his growls, the sheets twisting under our bodies as if the world itself was straining to contain us.

Every thrust shattered me from every angle, breaking and remaking me. Every kiss claimed me. Every whispered “Ivy” branded me.

The pain was gone now…only fire remained. A fire that consumed and rebuilt, that pulled us into one body, one soul.

I clung to him, nails digging into his back, begging without words for more. For him. Always him.

Then, without a single thought but the possession clawing through me, I sank my teeth into the strong curve of his neck just as he leaned in for a kiss.

His body jolted against mine, a ragged moan ripping from his throat as he buried himself deeper, the sound of my name breaking from his lips like a prayer he couldn’t hold back.

Heat seared through us…my claim burned into his skin, into his soul…so the whole world would know.

The Alpha King wasn’t just mine in name, but marked, branded, owned.

And when I broke…when the ecstasy tore through me, white-hot and devastating…I felt something else flood through me. A warmth, deeper than flesh, a power surging from my core, spilling outward.

And with it…him.

I felt him empty inside me, a flood of heat marking me as his in the most primal way.

The room glowed. I swore I felt it…the curse shattering, the chains dissolving, the shadows fleeing.

And along with it…

My virginity. My fear. My distance from him.

Gone.

I collapsed beneath him, chest heaving, my body still trembling, but my soul…my soul was whole again.

The curse had been broken.

And I couldn’t be any happier.