Deviant Kings: Claimed by The Four Lycan Kings

Author’s pov~

Keiran glanced toward the spiral staircase leading back up to the light.

"Raven is going to notice the shift in the air soon. If he finds out she was touched, he will burn this entire academy to the ground looking for the culprit. We keep him in the dark until we have a name, Zyran. If we tell him now, he will surely believe that it’s you and without proof we can’t do anything. Go clean the blood off your hands before the high guards trace the scent back to you."

Zyran didn’t answer. He just turned and walked toward the stairs, his heavy boots leaving faint, crimson footprints on the stone floor.

The physical blood would wash away easily under hot water, but the weight of her words—the absolute certainty in her eyes when she blamed him, felt like an indelible stain he would never be able to scrub off.

Zyran’s foot had barely touched the first stone step when the shadows at the base of the staircase fractured.

A suffocating, black pressure slammed into the corridor, so heavy and instantaneous that it felt like the oxygen had been violently sucked from the room. The torches along the walls flickered, their flames dying down to desperate blue embers.

Out from the darkness stepped Raven.

He didn’t just look angry; he looked like death incarnate.

His dark eyes were completely pitch-black, the pupils swallowed by a feral, unbridled rage. His chest heaved, his massive shoulders tense as he glared at the three Lycans standing before him. He had heard everything.

Every single word.

"Raven," Blake started, his voice instantly dropping its strategic tone, his hands rising instinctively into a defensive guard. "Listen to me—"

"Shut your mouth," Raven spat, his voice a lethal, vibrating growl that echoed off the damp stone like a physical blow.

He walked forward, his boots clicking slowly, dangerously, until he was standing mere inches from Zyran.

He didn’t blink as his gaze raked over the thick, wet crimson coating Zyran’s clothes, then moved down to the severed arm visible through the open cell door. The scent of blood was making his own wolf claw violently at the surface.

"I warned you," Raven whispered, a terrifyingly quiet sound that cut sharper than any roar. He locked his dead eyes onto Zyran’s face, his jaw tight enough to crack his own teeth. "I stood in the Vault, Zyran, and I looked you in the eye. I warned all of you to stay the fuck away from her."

"Raven, it’s not what it looks like," Zyran rasped, his aristocratic composure entirely gone. For the first time, he didn’t fight back against Raven’s suffocating pressure. He just stood there, covered in the blood of the men who had broken the girl Raven was trying to protect. "I didn’t order the hit. Someone else took the—"

"I don’t give a shit about your shadow network!" Raven roared, suddenly lunging forward.

He grabbed Zyran by the throat, slamming him violently against the stone wall. The impact cracked the rock, dust raining down on their shoulders. Raven’s claws dug into Zyran’s neck, drawing fresh, royal blood that mixed with the crusting crimson already there.

Keiran instantly stepped forward, his dark eyes flashing. "Raven, let him go! Fighting him won’t fix her face!"

The mention of her injuries made Raven’s grip tighten until Zyran choked, his golden eyes flashing in warning.

"She is bleeding because of you," Raven hissed, his face inches from Zyran’s, his breath hot against the prince’s cheek. "She is sitting in a dark room, broken and terrified to look anyone in the eye, because you wanted to play your little highborn chess games. You wanted to scare her? You wanted to see if she was a threat? Look what your arrogance did to her."

Raven slowly let go, shoving Zyran away with enough force to send the prince stumbling back against the iron bars of the cells.

Raven wiped his bloody hand on his trousers, his expression turning entirely cold, entirely detached. The brotherly bond they shared as the Four Kings was at the edge of breaking.

"If she gets hurt one more time," Raven said, his voice dropping into a flat, deadpan wire as he turned his back on them and looked up the stairs, "or if whoever is hunting her even thinks of finishing the job... I won’t just break the alliance. I will tear the Third Throne down brick by brick, Zyran. Keep your invisible guards away from her. If I see a single one of your wolves within a mile of Adeline, I will kill them. And then I am coming for you."

Without waiting for a response, Raven stormed up the stairs, his dark cloak swirling around him as the shadows swallowed him whole, leaving the three princes in a heavy, suffocating silence.

Zyran choked out a breath, his hand flying to his bleeding neck where Raven’s claws had just torn the skin. The volcanic rage he had felt just moments ago turned into something sharper, a desperate need to understand the madness tearing them apart.

"So, now you are blaming me? You think this is all my fault?!" Zyran yelled up the stairs, his voice echoing off the damp stone walls. He took a fast step forward, his boots splashing in the pool of blood near the cell door.

"I did it because of you, Raven! Look at yourself! You have been a freezing, untouchable bastard since the day you were born. You never let a single girl come near you. You’ve never touched anyone, never looked at anyone twice. And suddenly, you’re throwing your entire royal title away for a nameless, scentless civilian? It was suspicious! I thought she was a spy sent to destroy the alliance from the inside!"

At the top of the stairs, the shadows stopped moving.

Raven paused on the stone landing, his back still turned to them. His broad shoulders tense under his dark cloak, his hands clenching into tight fists at his sides. The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.

Slowly, Raven turned his head, his pitch-black eyes cutting down through the dim torchlight to lock onto Zyran.

"I don’t give a damn what you thought," Raven said, his voice dropping into a flat, freezing whisper. "I protect her because I owe her that."

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