His Unrequited Love

The King’s Lair

Victor

It is a gloomy afternoon in early June when I finally reach the outskirts of Shifter Valley - the large vast space of land where in ancient times the shifters on the continent decided to settle. The valley is as large as the territory of a small country even though it isn’t, not really. Shifter Valley, as it is called is an administrative region with small towns scattered over it with Redwind being the largest of them with a population of almost seventy thousand. Most of the population in the valley is human actually. We shifters form less than ten percent and usually, we stay hidden from the humans. There are lycans and wolves, descendants of the once great wolf shifters who got separated by blood and fate by a spiteful powerful witch as our origin legends say. We live in many packs with the Valentine wolves the larger and most powerful of them but there are others too, some of them even not living in the valley. And there are not only wolves either. There are also were-cats and bears and foxes and everything in between. And then we have the royal family, the last ones that are left of the all-shifters line, the most powerful, the most dangerous for the magic they possess and the power they hold over all of us. Their leader? Gabriel Lawrence. The shifter king.

I park my jeep near the mental border of the valley and get out to take a breather. I am in the middle of the old road used only by shifters and less and less in recent years, as it is slower and riskier than the highways.

The air is damp with the rain that’s just fallen and there is a certain crisp to it that attacks my senses with memories from another life in which I was a young boy, still naive and full of hope.

A certain kind of yearning settles in my chest - a yearning for this past when there were no obligations and heavy decisions to take, and the future seemed bright and wanted, and full of hope. The cynical part of me wants to wave it off, that damn memory that is of nothing and no one in particular. It’s just that other, softer part of me I never managed to get rid of over the years wants to cling to that feeling for just a bit longer. It is the smell of home, of the place where even if my life was falling apart I could still find comfort and hope for the future. Stupid, protected kid who didn’t know how deep life bites.

That kid is long gone now. The treatments bestowed upon me to fix my unnatural affection to the same s*ex and the obligations that came with me becoming the alpha to a shattered pack at just eighteen when I lost my father and the love of my life - it all took care to shut him up pretty quickly. Then there came my grandmother’s betrayal, one of my sisters starting a war against the pack and betraying us too, and the banishment. No kid, no naive romantic fool can live through this much heartbreak and stay the same.

My chest is tightening again as I get back into the car, suddenly mad at myself for getting out in the first place. What good it is to linger on the past and wish for freedom that will never come? I am not that person anymore. Yes, the trees are just as tall and green, and fresh, and the air is just as crisp as I remember it, filled with the scent of pine needles and the earth itself. Yes, the wisteria is blossoming everywhere around me just like it does every year.

But I don’t care to enjoy it anymore. On the contrary. A cruel vindictive part of me wants to run back out and walk all over the damn forest flowers and ruin them. I didn’t get to live, why should they be allowed to?

The urge is so sudden, I have to grip the steering wheel and stop myself from doing it. I am high on my pills and my head is empty of other voices than my own right now so at least I can focus better. I do, I really, really try to. The irony is that I wouldn’t even have to try to stay sane and stop myself from ruining the wildflowers - if my wolf was not suppressed like this he would’ve kicked my butt for even thinking of hurting something innocent out of spite.

I start the engine again and pressing my lips in concentration, drive past the border, half expecting to hit the invisible wall and burn in the crash.

Nothing happens. There is no pain, no howling in my mind, no blood or broken limbs as I am able to actually move through the mental barrier for the first time in five years.

For some reason, it feels underwhelming how easily it happened. After so long I imagined some bright light blazing from my a*ss or something, maybe some divine force welcoming me back home? But there is no such thing. Driving down this road is no more different than driving down any other road in our vast country. It’s nothing like any other time I tried to come back and miserably failed. In the beginning, when my ban was new and alien to me, I did try to come back. The pain was too much back then and I couldn’t escape the overwhelming feeling of loss and dread, my wolf constantly howling with sorrow in my head and not letting me think straight. Sometimes when it got too much, I’d come here and try to walk back to the valley but every time I reached the barrier the blood oath I took when I became alpha and bound my loyalty to Gabriel as my one and only king, held me back. The punishment for breaking his will was so severe it tore my skin to ribbons, and I was left in a heaping bleeding pile of flesh right there on the asphalt with nobody to come and help me. I had to spend the agonizing hours of being sewn back together by my shifter blood again and again with no one to stay by my side. And it happened every damn time, too many times.

I haven’t done this in years but I remember. And because I will never forget, the current moment seems like nothing important, when it should be the most significant thing that happened to me in such a long time, and I hate every bit of it because it isn’t.

Consumed by my dark thoughts, I speed up, and by the time I reach Gabriel’s official residence an hour later, I am reaching one hundred miles per hour. But there it is filling my vision - that large enormous building that actually looks like a damn castle taken right out of a fairy tale and landed on a large piece of green land. People say Valentine mansion looks like one but it is nothing compared to Gabriel’s home. There are guards everywhere, and a large flag is waving over the front door, because Gabriel is taking some official government job too, making him equally powerful in and outside of the shifter world.

It is close to a miracle not only that I passed the border but that I am also allowed here without any additional security checks. People around here knew me well back then and that’s why I am sure they know of my fall as well. A fallen alpha coming to lick the booths of his master only so that he can walk again his land, broken and beaten, and forgotten. Unwanted. It could be poetic if it wasn’t that f*ucked up and pitiful.

As I walk towards the security at the front door and let them inspect me for weapons, I can’t stop thinking how the building was larger in my memories and how deeply I hate this place and how official it seems. Or feels. I don’t want to be here, I realize. I don’t want to face Gabriel Lawrence ever again in my life and that is the sad truth behind the reason I didn’t talk to him last week at that bar.

But I don’t have a choice, do I? He is the one thing that stands between me and my family and I am ready to do everything he asks me to if it means I get to be with them again.

The guards clear me out and lead me inside. We pass the large hall with mosaic floors and that enormous crystal chandelier I used to think might fall over my head one day, and then we are at the audience room - the official place Gabriel takes his business guests at.

He is there, behind that door his guard opens for me and my heart skips a beat as I cross the threshold. Then the door clicks behind me and I am left alone with him.

Gabriel waits for me near the window, official and distant, and for a second I am reminded of how I once asked Luca, Veronica’s mate and husband, in for an audience with me and offered him money to stay away from her by her own request. The memory is so vivid in my head right now and more so because of how similar this current encounter is, and how different I am from the guy I used to be back then.

Gabriel turns to face me with a slow deliberate movement and my heart skips a bit at the breathtaking beauty of his face even now, and the grace that radiates from him. He is the living definition of royalty. From the expensive haircut and the way his dark hair curls around his forehead to the pale complexion of his smooth skin, he is perfection and royalty wrapped as a person. But it is his eyes - dark and indefinite, that has always drawn me to him. Just like a moth to a flame, I am unable to look away even now, even with everything that separates us now more than ever.

Those eyes with their black and green and blue color gleam at me with an emotion I am not able to recognize at first. There it is - another significant difference between me and Luca Moretti when we were in kind of the same standstill so long ago - I don’t have Luca’s bad a*ss attitude towards life, I am too jaded and too tired at thirty-three to bring it back to life. I am aware how pathetic that sounds, at this age life is actually just beginning and I am a lycan which means I get to live much much more than a regular human but I feel old and spent as I stare into the eyes of the man I used to love.

Gabriel’s eyes are all I can focus on right now. The silver light coming from the window behind him reflecting the grey clouds and the greenery outside enunciates the green in them and makes my throat go dry. My gaze is glued to Gabriel and his aura and deep down I know there is no way to come out of this meeting unbruised.

His lips stretch in a cold but polite smile as he observes me. He looks like someone who’s just won a bet with themselves or something. His body language is that of a person who is here to do business with a stranger - a bit guarded, completely comfortable in ruling the situation, too sure of himself. He is here to make deals he knows he’d get the best out of because I am in his debt and there is no way I get to hold the upper hand.

“So good to finally meet you again, Victor,” he tells me with his flat collected voice and I shiver internally. I used to go all soft over that voice of his, it used to compel me and make me forget my own name when it was quieter, shakier, and full of lust in the short time I actually got to have him for myself. He sounds different now but I am just as drawn to him.

Swallowing hard, I try to suppress that damn attraction and focus on the moment. This man and I are strangers and there is too much bad blood between us to ever be something more than a king and his exiled subordinate.

“You sound surprised. You asked for me, so here I am” I say without actually returning the pleasantries. Neither of us is here for it and I start to feel impatient - I may still want him but I also know I will never forgive what he did to me by banishing me out of my land. Not when he knows, oh how well he knows, what my family and my land mean to me. The fact that part of me knows he did it exactly, for this reason, to get back at me for the past, only makes me want to hate him more. And hate me for not hating him.

“I did ask, yes,” he waves me off like I am indeed his employee or someone he can order around. Yet again - I am. I have taken an oath to him and he is the king of the realm I used to be a part of. “I wasn’t sure you’d come after our last encounter. You know, last week back at the bar.”

My eyes widen in surprise. So he did see me that night. And just as I subconsciously chose not to cross his path, he chose it too.

“You threatened to prolong my banishment if I didn’t… my king,” I remind him with a raised brow unable to hide the spite at mentioning the title. I’ve always hated being subjected to him and he’s always enjoyed it a bit too much. To the world, he is the perfect ruler, that impeccable royalty who’d never make even the smallest steps out of line. But I know what he’s capable of once crossed. Just like a kid getting rich and powerful after high school and coming back to impress and torment his bullies whose life didn’t turn up as glamorous, he is there to strike everyone who did him wrong and mock them.

“That I did, but the truth is I needed to attract your attention in some way,” Gabriel reminds me. Goddess. He looks so young and full of life even with the official black suit and the tie around his biteable neck. A flash of memory runs through my mind then - another neck, strong and heavily tattooed, the skin tanner, softer. I push the image back, now is not the time to distract myself with thoughts of some random pretty boy I f*ucked a while ago.

“What do you want from me, Gabriel?” I ask with a tired sigh. Damn it, I am too exhausted to play games and beat around the bush. And especially with him of all people. We are too old for this, too much water has run beneath the broken bridge that will forever keep us on opposite shores.

“Always so straightforward. I guess there was a time I liked a version of you for this sole reason,” Gabriel sighs somewhat theatrically as my heart freezes again. Liked is the word he used. Past tense. See? That’s why I don’t do hope anymore. The whole week I busted my a*ss off with work only to try and f*ucking distract myself from the creeping hope that there is a chance in this world that Gabriel inviting me here might end up with us being… we won’t. There is no way, not after what I did to him, not with the lengths I walked to kill the forming relationship between us all those years ago. Not with what he did to me in return. Hope is useless and I am a stupid i***t for even allowing it to come back to me.

Gabriel lifts a brow at me as if for a second he is wondering what thoughts I suddenly got lost in. His lips curve in a thin, heartless smile. “Alright then, I need your help.”

The way he says those last words, all business, and seriousness, makes me go alert, all sentiments suddenly forgotten.

“My help?” I repeat skeptically. There is nothing the shifter king might want help with from a guy like me - I don’t have power anymore, and nobody cares if I live or die. I have my work and I am extremely good at what I do, but he didn’t have to ask me here in order to hire me for my services. As reach and powerful as he is, I know he is more than capable to find a hundred other specialists as good as me. A thousand even. People who are closer geographically, have connections, and most importantly, don’t come with my burdens.

“Yes, it is a delicate matter and the truth is there is no one I can trust with it more than you.”

“Cut to the chase, Gabriel, please,” I roll my eyes like a spoiled kid, suddenly really, really annoyed with him, because I realize perfectly well he is playing with me.

“It is about that new witch,” the king explains with a sigh.

I blink in confusion. What the hell is he talking about? What witch?

“Yes, that St. Claire witch. He’s been playing with some really dark stuff recently and when I saw you together, it clicked. Who else could help better than you in this situation?”

“Which is?” I prompt again because what the f*uck is going on? What has Veronica’s friend got to do with all this? And why is Gabriel poking so close to my sister again?

“He’s working with black magic,” the king explains. As he continues to talk, his face contorts into something sinister and cruel and his eyes seem lost in whatever it is he is thinking and feeling right now. All I know is it seems too dark for me to handle and suddenly I don’t want to be in a room with him when he is like that. I care enough, even now, even after what we did to each other over the years, to stay and look for a way to ground him back but the truth is I don’t know him anymore. I don’t really know how to help. As I look into his cold eyes, I’m not sure if I want to. “I can feel it stirring beneath my skin but I don’t have enough proof to put him to trial, so you understand it’s a delicate matter. He’s about to put us all in danger if this continues and he is not stopped.”

“That’s not right,” I object. I don’t like Ian St. Claire or remember him enough to care that Gabriel’s got his eye on him, but I know for a fact my sister wouldn’t be friends with the man if he was bad news. “The guy is harmless. Didn’t you take his magic away?” I wince at the memory. When Ian’s magic was torn from him I was too far gone in my own sorrow at hearing Gabriel’s verdict against me to care about anybody else but I will never, ever forget the cry of pain that tore out from the kid when they actually stripped the magic from his bones.

“It is never forever when you drain a witch from its powers. It grows back inside them. And the St. Claires are a bad omen even when powerless. But when they have powers they can go as far as stealing the animal spirit of an entire bloodline. Look what the last one of them did to your wolf-shifters lot. I am afraid he is following his ancestor’s footsteps, now that a real wolf shifter has been born. He is about to take her blood in his pursuit of dark power and we need to stop him before it is too late. We can’t let anyone this powerful roam our lands again.”

The king knows what he’s doing. I give him that.

He doesn’t need to say the words for me to spot the threat immediately. I just never expected him to go this far. Because he is straight-up threatening Ariana - my niece is the only true-born wolf shifter. And he is playing with me too, he knows perfectly well the lengths I’d go to protect my family.

“I am afraid if the witch is not stopped on time, I will have to take that child under my care for the good of all of us, you understand that, don’t you?” Gabriel continues to twist the blade into my wound, rubbing everting I stand for against it to make it hurt even more. “But as you are close to him, you can spy on him and tell me exactly what he is up to and when he is about to strike so that we can protect ourselves and the child. That way we will never ever have to worry about her safety again.”

“What… is it exactly you want me to do?” I ask through my clenched teeth.

“I am lifting your ban temporarily so that you can fulfill your task. I want information, for now, for you to spy on the witch and report to me anything you notice until we figure out a way to get rid of him. I want you to help me stop the witch threat. And when you’ve helped me get rid of it once and for all, I will consider lifting the ban for good. But if we fail and the witch continues to be a danger, I will really have no choice but find a way to protect this child’s precious blood in any way I see fit,” he continues beating around the bush. What the hell is he even talking about?

My heart is racing like crazy in my chest. I am almost grateful for the pills I’ve stuffed myself with so that they manage to keep a part of me numb, a part different than just my wolf because otherwise my legs would’ve collapsed and I’d be a sobbing whaling wreck on his expensive carpet.

I don’t want to be a part of this, I can’t. It sounds honourees and wrong. It sounds like betraying an ally in order to get what I want.

“I don’t want you to do much, Victor. Just find a way to bring me that witch’s powers for good. Tear it from him, get close to him, lie to him, f*uck him if you have to, I don’t care. I want it safe with me so it won’t harm anyone anymore. You have three months to do it. Partners?” And then he steps towards me with a stretched hand as if he expects me to shake it for him, a mischievous, cruel glint in his eyes.