Claimed By The King(s) Of Kings

Roiner

"I have a fated mate," Roiner said, sitting at the bottom of the grand cathedral stairs, his deep voice carrying through the cavernous space. "I do not even know how it is possible. I am a vampire; we do not have fated mates."

He groaned, burying his face in his hands, still unable to fully comprehend the very existence of Aina Whitelock. Fiddling absently with the silver rings on his fingers, his mind traitorously drifted back to her. He remembered the brief brush of her skin against his hands, and the delicate, faint scent of jasmine he had caught for a mere second back in his office. It had haunted him ever since.

"But you are also a lycan, Roiner," High Priest Wali said gently, taking a seat on the cold stone beside his longtime friend.

Roiner and Wali had met a century ago, back when Wali was nothing more than a bright, wide-eyed scholarship boy at the academy, not the graying, wrinkled priest sitting here today. Roiner had taken the human under his wing, watching him rise through the ranks to become the Head Priest of the Great Goddess Temple. In that time, Wali had repeatedly turned down the royals who begged him to take a seat on the High Council as Minister of Faith, preferring his sanctuary over their politics.

"Oh, please, Wali. I am barely a lycan," Roiner sighed, leaning his head barely against the carved banister.

His mother had been a full-blooded lycan, his father a pureblood vampire. Unlike most of his night-walking kin, Roiner had not been turned; he was born this way. And because he was a true hybrid of two ancient bloodlines, he suffered a terrifying curse. He could not die.

When Roiner was only sixteen, his mother was slaughtered by rogue wolves. Devastated, his father found himself unable to live in a world without his soul’s equal. He took off his moonstone ring and stepped out into the blazing sunlight, reduced to nothing more than ash in seconds. Vampires were immortal, yes, but they were not unkillable. Once they felt they had lived long enough, once the weight of centuries became too heavy, they could choose to take off their protective rings and surrender to the sun. It was the Goddess’s mercy for their cursed race.

Roiner had no such mercy. His lycan half continually regenerated his body, preventing the sun from ever consuming him completely. He would burn forever, but he would never die.

"The Goddess is showing you love, Roiner. She has granted you a fated mate. something you have secretly yearned for across centuries," Wali said, offering a warm, reassuring smile.

Roiner met his old friend’s smile with a cautious, brooding eye. It was true. He had prayed in the quiet shadows of this very cathedral for someone to anchor his hollow existence. But now that his prayers were coming true, terror gripped his heart.

"You do not understand," Roiner murmured, his fingers again restlessly fidgeting with his rings. "It is not right. Since I met her, I feel myself slipping into a terrifying want. I haven’t had a single moment of peace when she isn’t near me. The other day, I made up a pathetic excuse to visit the campus herbalism club just to catch a glimpse of her. The longer I am away from her, the more my lycan craves her touch, and the more my vampire craves blood. It is driving me out of my mind."

Wali chuckled, striking Roiner’s back with a hearty clap. "That is the fated mate bond, my friend. It is like that, as if two souls were forged from the same cosmic fire before time itself, bound for eternity so that even the cosmos cannot break them apart. You crave each other because you are incomplete without the other half of your soul."

"I am selfish!" Roiner blurted out, the force of his sudden outburst ringing off the stained-glass windows. His red eyes flashed with desperate sorrow. "I do not want to feel this. I cannot love her, Wali. I must not."

"Why?" Wali asked, raising a graying brow.

Roiner snapped his gaze toward the priest, his body trembling slightly as he voiced the darkest fear keeping him awake at night.

"Because there will come a time where she will grow old and die," he whispered, his voice cracking beneath the weight of impending grief. "And I will remain. I do not even know her yet, and I am already crazy for her. If I give her my heart and she dies... how shall I go on living, Wali?"

Aina

Aina sat in the corner of the crowded lecture hall, keeping her head low as the literature club engaged in a heated debate. She remained quiet, choosing to blend into the shadows, but her ears were tuned to every single word. To her surprise, the topic of today’s session had completely hooked her attention.

They were dissecting The Eclipse of Solitude, a literary masterpiece written over three hundred years ago during the brutal Age of the Two Kings. It had been penned by a rogue wolf shifter who was eventually executed for treason, but his tragic romance novel survived the centuries.

It detailed the doomed affair between a mortal woman and a cursed, immortal alpha. Driven mad by the unbearable grief of his execution at the hands of the realm’s monarchs, the young woman chose to swallow deadly belladonna hemlock, preferring to join him in the underworld rather than live a single day without him.

What a absolute idiot, Aina thought to herself, resting her chin on her hand as she stared down at the ancient, leather-bound text on her desk. That girl was so stupid. Why on earth would you choose to throw your entire life away just because the person you love is dead? Sure, it’s sad, but it isn’t the end of the world.

In Aina’s mind, the story was undeniably tragic, but the logic behind it was completely absurd. If the guy I love dies, I’m mourning him for a solid month, maybe two, and then moving on with my life, she reasoned privately. I would never die for a man. Ever.

"Her sacrifice was the ultimate declaration of devotion!" a drama student across the table declared, clasping her hands over her heart. "True love demands everything!" Before Aina could roll her eyes at the girl’s romantic delusions, the heavy oak doors of the literature room slammed open with a dramatic BANG, rattling the windowpanes and startling half the club out of their seats.

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