Chapter 11 Morning After Tyrants
11: Morning After Tyrants
The first thing I felt when I woke up was warmth. The second was pain in places that had never signed up for this kind of workout.
The third? Lucian’s arm, heavy across my waist like a steel bar with claws. Not metaphorical claws. Actual claws.
I froze, brain still rebooting from the most unhinged dream I thought I’d ever had—except nope. This wasn’t a dream. Not unless dreams came with bruised lips, bite marks, and a very naked Tyrant Alpha currently nuzzling the back of my neck like an overgrown wolfdog.
My life choices. Truly. Top tier.
“Awake,” he rumbled against my skin. Not a question. A fact. Because of course he’d know the exact second my eyelashes fluttered. Overachiever.
I swallowed hard, trying to play it cool. “Well, good morning to you too, GPS tracker.”
His claws flexed lightly, dragging along my hip. “What is a GPS tracker?”
“Nothing,” I muttered, burying my face in the pillow. “Forget I said anything.”
Silence. Except not silence, because I could feel him smiling against my shoulder. The smug bastard.
Here’s the thing they don’t tell you in werewolf romance novels: giant alpha males take up all the bed real estate. Like, my entire half was gone. I was basically a decorative pillow.
I wriggled to get some breathing room, only for his arm to tighten.
“Stay,” he ordered.
Oh, stay. Like I was some housecat. My sarcasm meter revved to life. “What am I, a golden retriever? You want me to roll over too?”
His answer was a low growl that vibrated straight through my spine. Not threatening. Just… pleased.
“You’re mine,” he said simply. As if that explained the bed-hogging situation.
Heat flared low in my stomach, traitorous and embarrassing. I turned my head away so he wouldn’t see the blush.
“Yeah, yeah. Big bad alpha. I got the memo.”
Eventually, Lucian actually let me out of bed. By “let,” I mean he physically scooped me up, set me on my unsteady legs, and dressed me in one of his shirts because apparently my clothes were casualties of last night’s… war.
Do you know what it’s like to walk into the tyrant’s dining hall wearing his shirt? Every servant’s eyes bugged out like I’d just strolled in with the crown jewels strapped to my chest.
I tried to play it cool, sliding into the high-backed chair at the end of the long stone table. Lucian sat at the head, of course, brooding like breakfast was a war council.
The spread was ridiculous: fresh bread, smoked meats, honey, fruit. Basically medieval brunch.
I reached for an apple. His hand shot out first, taking it and placing it on my plate like I was five.
“Are you—are you seriously portioning my fruit now?” I asked.
He ignored me, tearing into bread like it had personally offended him.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered, taking a dramatic bite of the apple. “The big tyrant alpha, ruler of Dravenmoor, destroyer of armies—fruit butler.”
His silver eyes flicked up, amused. “You’re insufferable in the morning.”
“Better than insufferable at night,” I shot back, then immediately regretted it as my brain replayed last night. My face flamed.
His grin—sharp, satisfied, wolfish—told me he knew exactly what I was thinking.
After breakfast, back in his chambers, don’t ask how he maneuvered me there—I think I was hypnotized by the smell of cedar and smoke, we ended up sprawled across the bed again. And officially he made this day as his rest day this week.
He lounged like a king who’d just conquered a kingdom. I perched at the edge like a guilty stowaway about to confess tax fraud.
Because I had a secret. A big one. And after last night, it felt… wrong to keep hiding it.
“So,” I started, picking at a loose thread in the blanket. “I should probably tell you something.”
Lucian’s eyes slid to me, slow, deliberate. “If this is another complaint about fruit portions—”
“No!” I blurted. Then, quieter: “It’s… bigger.”
He raised a brow. Waiting. Patient. Dangerous.
“Okay, so…” Deep breath. “I’m not actually Aria Quinn.”
His gaze sharpened. “Explain.”
Here it was. The insane part. The part that would make him think I was a lunatic, or worse, a liar.
“I’m Kiera, Kiera Steele,” I said. “From… another world. And in my world, this—” I gestured around at the fortress, at him “—is a book. A story. One I was reading before I got… pulled in.”
For a moment, silence. The kind that could squash you flat.
Then he leaned back, expression unreadable. “A story,” he repeated.
“Yes!” I said quickly. “You’re—the villain. Rowan’s the hero. Aria was supposed to be with him. The whole thing is about fate and prophecy and balance, blah blah—except I’m here now, and everything’s gone sideways.”
Another long pause.
Then Lucian’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. More like he was holding back laughter.
“You expect me to believe,” he drawled, “that I am nothing more than ink on a page in some… other world’s fable?”
My cheeks burned. “Well… yeah. That’s the gist.”
He studied me, silver eyes molten. Then, with infuriating calm, he reached out and hooked a claw under my chin, tilting my face up to his.
“Lies,” he said softly. “Clever lies. But lies.”
My heart sank.
“I’m not lying,” I insisted, voice cracking. “I swear. I can tell you things about Rowan, about battles that haven’t happened yet—p/s: I was spoiled by watching reels advertising this novel. Last but not the least, I could even tell what will happen to you.”
Lucian’s thumb brushed over my jaw, slow and almost tender. “Or perhaps,” he murmured, “you’re weaving stories because you fear what you feel. You’d rather pretend I’m fiction than admit you are mine.”
Oh. Oh, that was so unfair.
I wanted to argue. To scream, stomp, wave the paperback copy of Blood Moon Requiem in his face. Except… I didn’t have the book anymore. And with him looking at me like that—hungry, certain—I doubted he’d believe me even if I did.
So I shut my mouth. For once.
His smirk deepened. “That’s what I thought.”
The rest of the morning passed in a strange quiet. Not awkward, exactly. Just… heavy.
Lucian lounged in a chair, reading reports from his generals like a normal day in Lunareth. I paced the chamber, brain looping he doesn’t believe me, he doesn’t believe me until I wanted to scream.
Finally, I flopped onto the bed. “You know,” I said, staring at the ceiling, “if this really was a book, readers would hate this chapter.”
Lucian didn’t look up. “Why?”
“Because it’s all pillow talk and existential crisis. No battles. No drama. Just me, whining while you brood.”
His lips curved faintly. “Then perhaps,” he said, “your readers need patience.”
I shot him a look. “Did you just make a meta joke?”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Sure you don’t,” I muttered.
When the noon bells rang and a servant came to announce some crisis at the border, Lucian rose, towering and terrifying again in full tyrant mode.
Before he left, though, he paused by the bed. His hand brushed my cheek, claws gentle for once.
“Whatever story you think you’re in,” he said, voice low, “understand this: I will not let you go.”
And then he was gone, cloak swirling, leaving me with an apple core, a mess of tangled sheets, and a heart that couldn’t decide if it was doomed or lucky.