(Nyx POV)
They stepped onto the balcony together—Dorian, Cassian, and two other burly guards, one on each side of us. The night air was thick with sound—thousands of wolves below the palace terrace, a living tide of fur, breath, and prayer.
Floodlights cut through the dark. Not truly needed—wolves didn't need light to see—but for the viewers at home… cameras hovered above us, red lenses blinking, broadcasting every breath we took to the entire kingdom.
This was supposed to be simple.
Step out. Say a few reassuring words. Promise stability after the attack.
No fire. No blood. Hopefully, no bullets.
Just a speech.
Dorian stepped forward.
He gripped the railing, voice steady as a bell.
"You want truth?"
The crowd quieted instantly—the kind of silence only power could summon.
He turned his head toward the city lights and then—toward me.
"Liora is not my mate."
The world stopped breathing.
He didn't glance at the Council cameras. Didn't care that the Elders and priests watching from the palace windows would choke on their tea.
"She was chosen for the crown to fulfill the prophecy," he continued, "but fate chose differently. I will not lie to you. I will not pretend. My true bond—my Queen—is Nyx."
Gasps rippled through the sea of faces. The full moon climbed higher, casting its silver over the marble, over him, over us.
My pulse slammed into my throat.
This was not the plan.
The crowd's silence shattered into a roar—first disbelief, then something primal, unstoppable.
"MARK HIM! MARK HIM!"
I blinked, stunned. I felt the pull—the moon, the will of the people, Dorian, my mate, my wolf. My hands curled at my sides.
"Well," I whispered under my breath, teeth clenched into a smile, "this escalated."
Dorian's mouth tilted, that almost-smile that always ruined my defenses.
"Stay with me," he murmured, low enough that only I could hear.
"Wasn't planning to run."
"Good," he said. "Because we're giving them what they came for."
"This was not the plan."
"We've got you, Queen," Cassian whispered softly behind us.
Dorian stepped closer, heat rolling off him. The full moon painted his skin silver; its light hit the mark at my throat, setting it aglow. The crowd saw it, saw us, and the chant built like thunder.
"Intended and fated," Dorian said, raising his voice again, "are not the same. You can choose your intended. But a fated—" He looked at me, eyes blazing gold. "A fate cannot be undone."
"MARK HIM! MARK HIM!" they howled again, voices crashing like waves against the ancient stone walls.
And then it shifted.
"SAVE US! SAVE US!"
The chant hit differently. It wasn't hunger anymore—it was pleading. A desperate, unified cry that vibrated through the air like a heartbeat too big for the body of a kingdom.
It hit me square in the chest, a physical force. I could feel it—thousands of wolves, Lycans, families who'd buried too many young and aged too soon. An entire species teetering at the edge of extinction.
Their fear wasn't for me. It wasn't even for Dorian. It was for all of us.
And in that moment, the pull of the bond, the gravity of the moon, the tremor of destiny—it all aligned into something far greater than optics or politics.
This wasn't about control or proving my claim.
This was about survival.
This was about him.
My fate.
My king.
Our people.
There was no choice left. There had never been.
This was destiny.
The moon—brilliant, blinding—pulled at me. I'd never felt its gravity like this.
Kelly roared in my head: YES! This cannot be denied! Take him. We are fated.
My wolf pressed against my skin, snarling approval, drunk on the scent of him.
You are not a soldier now, Kelly whispered. You are a wolf. This is who we are. Take him. Claim him.
Dorian's hand brushed my hip, grounding and dangerous.
"It's all right," he murmured. "Let them see who we are."
"Not ideal," I said, trying to breathe."No," he murmured, leaning close, "but effective. They'll never doubt again—and neither will you."
The world blurred—the crowd, the lights, the politics—all of it fell away until there was only him. The bond tugged like a rising tide inside my veins.
I reached up, my hand sliding to the back of his neck.
"You sure?" I whispered.
His pulse jumped beneath my fingers. "Completely."
And then I kissed him.
The roar below melted into silence. The cameras closed in. Our lips parted, our wolves surged, and the world tilted. His hands held my waist, solid and sure, as the glow from my mark spilled across both of us.
When I drew back, the crowd was waiting breathlessly, suspended. The full moon burned above us like a witness.
Dorian tilted his head slightly, exposing his throat in a gesture older than the crown itself. His eyes locked on mine.
"Show them," he said softly.
I didn't think. I felt. The wolf in me took the lead. My teeth grazed his skin. His body shuddered once—then stillness.
I bit down.
The bond detonated gold and silver lightning, bursting between us, bright enough to blind the nearest cameras. The sound that left him wasn't pain—it was possession, relief, surrender.
I tasted his blood—hot, wild, and ancient. The air shook with power. The crowd erupted.
And through the thunder, one scream rose above all others—high, breaking, human.
"No! No! He is mine!"
Liora's voice.
The balcony guards, and Cassian—surged forward to offer protection, closing ranks around us in that moment of raw vulnerability. Their purpose was clear: protect the crown, protect the bond.
The press drones caught every angle—the queen crowned in blood and moonlight, the king humbled as she marked him, and the spurned princess below, screaming at the sky. Kelly inside me smiled—a big, wolfy grin, tongue lolling in my mind.
And I felt them. Dorian's wolf and his Lycan—united in this claim. Both halves of him are present, burning in his eyes: the beast and the man, probably for the first time, are in perfect accord.
I'd never felt safer. Not even with my whole unit at my back. Never.
The moonlight burned brighter, wrapping us in its glow as if the heavens themselves bore witness. And in that silence that followed—the breath before the next storm—I sensed it:
Something more profound than a mate bond.
Something old.
Something dangerous.
Had awakened.