Chapter 26 Remorse
CHAPTER 26: Remorse
Aric's POV
The silence that settled over the clearing was heavier than any I’d ever known.
Next to me, Seraphine’s breathing had finally evened out but the tension radiating from her small frame was hard not to notice. I just lay there staring up at the stars through the forest canopy, my body humming with a satisfaction so deep it was almost frightening.
Every single second of what had just happened was burned into my brain. The way her anger had melted into pure need, the feel of her skin under my hands and the sounds she made. I’d faced down armies and rogue alphas but I’d never felt a power as terrifying or as addicting as the one that had just passed between us.
I knew it the moment she snapped back to reality. I felt her go rigid beside me. The warmth of her seeped away replaced by a cold hard dread that was entirely her own. I didn’t need to look at her to feel the guilt and shame rolling off her in waves.
Without a word, she rose and the movement was stiff and robotic. She kept her back to me with a silent wall of rejection as she gathered her scattered clothes. The sight of her pulling her tunic over her head, hiding the skin I’d just worshipped felt like a dismissal and a final verdict.
I pushed myself up, my own muscles protesting from the grimhowl’s claws and… other exertions. I started pulling on my pants, watching her. The need to say something.. to break this awful quiet was a claw in my throat.
“Seraphine…” My voice came out rougher than I intended still raw from her name on my lips.
She flinched but didn’t turn around. She just kept dressing, her movements hurried now desperately.
I took a step toward her, drawn to her like a damn moth to a flame even when that flame was clearly about to burn me.
“Talk to me. Please.”
She finally turned but it wasn’t to talk. Her eyes, wide and glistening with unshed tears were full of a turmoil that hit me right in the chest. She hugged her arms around herself shrinking away from my approach.
“I have to go,” she whispered, her voice cracking on the simple words. It was the voice of someone who had just lost a fight. With me. With herself.
She didn’t wait for a reply. She just turned and walked away, her pace quickening until she was almost running, fleeing the clearing and the dead beast and me. I watched her go with a sharp bitter taste filling my mouth. She never once looked back.
A frustrated growl rumbled in my chest. I kicked the carcass of the grimhowl in a useless childish outburst. The damn thing was already dead.. it couldn’t feel my anger.
“Useless,” I muttered to the empty forest.
Defeated, I sank down next to the dead beast with my back against a thick tree trunk. I replayed it all in my head. The fight, the kiss, the accusations and yhe… everything.
I couldn’t deny it. I’d enjoyed every single second and my body still buzzed with the memory of her.. it was insane and an abomination according to every law and tradition my kind held dear. The great Lycan King brought to his knees by a slip of a human girl who wanted him dead.
But she was different. There was a fire in her a strength that had nothing to do with being a lycan. She’d faced a grimhowl and lived.. she’d faced me and lived and that pull I felt… it wasn’t just attraction. It was something deeper, something ancient and terrifying that I couldn’t name. It felt like… like…
I shook my head, refusing to even think the word. It was impossible.
I stayed there all night with my thoughts chasing each other in endless, frustrating circles. The sky was beginning to lighten from black to a soft, bruised grey when I finally heard the sounds of my patrol. I stood with my joints stiff and stretched just as Beta Caspian and a handful of guards burst into the clearing.
Caspian’s face was a mask of alarm that quickly shifted to sharp assessment.
“My King! We were searching everywhere. The human girl said you were probably out here and that you’d killed another one.”
His eyes flicked to the grimhowl then back to me doing a quick, knowing scan of my disheveled clothes, the leaves probably still stuck in my hair. His nostrils flared almost imperceptibly.
“It’s just one, Cas. Nothing to worry about,” I said, my tone suggesting the conversation about the grimhowl was over.
He wasn’t deterred.
“Why were you out here all night? We heard… commotion.” His gaze was pointed.
I ignored the unspoken question.
“I was thinking. What’s the news?”
He hesitated for a beat, clearly wanting to push, but his soldier’s discipline won out.
“We’ve secured the meeting. With the human leaders. In No Man’s Land, as you requested. Three days' time.”
“Good. That’s good.” A flicker of relief. Progress. Maybe I could show her I was serious about the truth. “I’ll prepare for it later. I need a minute.”
I brushed past him and the guards, making a beeline for my quarters. I just needed a wall between me and my Beta’s knowing eyes. I was almost at my door, craving the solitude, when a familiar, cloying scent hit me.
Vespera stepped out of the shadows, her beautiful face twisted into an ugly mask of fury.
“Too busy to see your intended,” she spat, her voice dripping with venom, “but not too busy to spend the entire night rutting with that human weakling in the dirt.”
I froze, my patience, already worn thinner than a moon-changed pup’s, snapping.
“Watch your tongue, Vespera.”
“Why? Is the truth too painful?” she sneered, stepping closer. “The whole palace heard you, Aric. Or did you forget that lycans have excellent hearing? We all heard her screaming your name. And you screaming hers. It was quite the performance.”
Rage, white-hot and blinding, consumed me. In a flash, my hand was around her throat, slamming her against the cold stone wall. Her eyes bulged in shock.
“I said,” I growled, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper, “watch your tongue.”
“Aric! Let her go please!”
My sister Lyrin’s voice cut through the red haze. She came striding down the hall, her expression a mix of annoyance and amusement.
“Unless you plan on explaining to the Western Clan why you choked their princess to death in your hallway?”
I released Vespera with a shove. She gasped, rubbing her throat and shooting me a look of pure hatred before spinning on her heel and storming away.
Lyrin leaned against the opposite wall, a smirk playing on her lips.
“Well. That was dramatic. I have to say, brother, you weren’t exactly trying for subtlety last night, were you?”
I ran a hand over my face, exhaustion finally winning.
“Don’t start, Lyrin.”
“Oh, I’m definitely starting,” she chuckled. “The great, untouchable Lycan King. Finally brought down by a little human girl with a death wish. You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”
I sighed, the fight going out of me. There was no point lying to Lyrin. She could always smell a lie.
“I don’t know what it is. It’s… more than that. It’s like… I don’t know.”
Her smirk faded into a look of genuine curiosity.
“Like what?”
The word I’d refused to think all night finally tumbled out.
“Like she’s my mate.”
Lyrin’s eyebrows shot up.
“Whoa. A human? Aric, that’s… that’s not just unusual, that’s…”
“I know what it is,” I interrupted, frustration creeping back in.
“You need to tread carefully, brother,” she said, her tone turning serious. “This… this could open up a whole world of trouble. You know what the elders will say. What the other clans will say. They’ll see it as the ultimate weakness.”
“I am not weak!” I snapped, the words coming out too fast, too defensive.
Lyrin just looked at me, her gaze soft but unwavering. She didn’t have to say anything else.
We both knew she was right. The thought settled in my gut like a stone. Finding my mate was supposed to be a blessing. So why did it feel like I was standing on the edge of a cliff about to start a war..?