6

6
Nadine’s POV

My body felt like it had been crushed beneath steel wheels. Every muscle screamed, every joint ached, and my skin burned with bruises I didn’t remember earning. I groaned, shifting slightly, but the simple act made fire shoot through my limbs. It felt like someone had beaten me with a big wood and I am waking up to that aftermath of being struck.

Where was I?

The last thing I remembered was the porcelain cup… the bitter perfume… the blur of the chandelier lights before the world collapsed around me.

My lashes fluttered open. At first, the world tilted shadows and light bleeding together. Then the haze cleared, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

This wasn’t the place I had come to for the job.

This was a room. A very good room at that. What was I doing here?

I lay on a bed far too large for me, its dark velvet sheets tangled around my body. My clothes were gone, stripped down to nothing but thin undergarments, and a cloak of shame crashed over me. My fingers clutched at the fabric, pulling it against my chest.

The room was vast, cavernous, with walls carved from stone and tapestries that looked older than empires. A single fire burned in the hearth, casting gold over polished floors. It wasn’t human. Nothing about this place was.

Panic rose in my throat, but then a shadow moved at the door.

My blood ran cold.

He stepped into the light, tall and terrible, shoulders broad enough to block the flames behind him. His presence hit me like a tidal wave, my lungs tightening, my wolf howling in recognition before my mind caught up.

Madden.

The cruel Lycan King.

The man I had rejected years ago. The one I had damned myself to escape.

The man I had hoped never to see again.

His gaze found me instantly those storm-dark eyes I remembered too well, glowing faintly, promising ruin. Fury radiated from him like a living thing, a beast pacing just beneath his skin.

“You thought you could run away from me?” His voice was low, dangerous, but each syllable cracked through the air like a whip.

My lips parted, but no sound came out. My throat was dry, my voice trapped behind the weight of his presence. The mate bond flared inside me, vicious and cruel, tightening around my chest until it hurt to breathe.

“No,” I whispered finally, my voice rasping. “Not you…”

Madden’s jaw ticked, his fangs flashing for the briefest second as he stepped closer. Each movement was precise, restrained, as though if he moved too fast he would shatter the fragile tether between us. His boots clicked against the stone, echoing in the chamber, until he stood at the foot of the bed.

I curled into myself instinctively, clutching the sheets like a shield. My heart hammered against my ribs, not from desire, never desire, but from fear, hatred, the old wounds clawing their way back to the surface.

“What… what do you want from me?” I asked, though the words came out weaker than I intended.

His eyes narrowed, unreadable, but the fury in them was unmistakable. “What do I want?” he repeated, almost a growl. “I want what was always mine. What you denied me. What you thought you could bury among humans like some nameless ghost.”

I shook my head, pressing back against the headboard, the iron cold against my spine. “No. I’m not yours. I told you I will never be yours.”

The firelight caught on the sharp planes of his face, casting him in shadow, a god of wrath and ruin. “You rejected me,” he said flatly, as though he still couldn’t believe it. His hands flexed at his sides, claws threatening to break skin. “And because of you… she died.”

My chest squeezed.

Seraphine.

I bit down on my lip, hard enough to taste blood, to ground myself against the storm raging in my mind. Seraphine his mate, the one everyone whispered I had killed. The woman whose blood was on my hands, even if I never touched her.

“You made me feral, Nadine,” he continued, his voice thick with restrained rage. “Do you know what that did to me? To my people? To the kingdom?”

Tears burned at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I forced my chin up, even as my body trembled under the weight of him. “I didn’t kill her. You think you can blame me for everything, but her death isn’t mine to carry.”

He laughed then a bitter, humorless sound that scraped against my bones. “Not yours to carry?” His gaze flicked down, lingering on me wrapped in nothing but sheets, and a cruel smile ghosted across his lips. “You’ll carry it, Nadine. Every breath. Every step. You will pay for the life you stole from me.”

The bond roared between us, wild and relentless, and for a heartbeat I thought he might rip the sheets from me, mark me right there, end this cat-and-mouse game. But he didn’t. He simply turned away, as though even looking at me any longer risked breaking his control.

“You’re back where you belong,” he said coldly, walking toward the door. “In my territory. In my palace. Under my rule. Don’t mistake this for mercy. You are not here as a guest.”

“Madden,” I breathed, my voice cracking.

He stopped, his hand gripping the doorframe so tightly the wood groaned beneath his claws. Slowly, he turned his head, eyes burning into me one last time.

“You ran from me once. You won’t run again.”

And then he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him with a thunderous finality that shook the room.

I sat frozen, trembling, my heart clawing against my ribs. The sheets around me suddenly felt like chains, binding me to a fate I had spent years outrunning.

The cruel

Lycan King had found me.

And there would be no escape this time.