Deviant Kings: Claimed by The Four Lycan Kings

Author’s pov~

Blake’s brow furrowed, his strategic mind instantly spinning. He stepped out from the shadows of the corridor, looking up at the landing. "You owe her? What the hell does that mean, Raven? What could a highborn prince of the Second Throne possibly owe a wolfless girl who can’t even shift?"

Raven didn’t answer. He just stared down at them, his jaw locked tight, his expression turning into an unyielding, stony wall. He turned back around, preparing to walk out into the sunlight.

"Don’t you dare walk away from us right now!" Keiran roared. He moved with sudden, explosive speed, crossing the distance and slamming his large, veiny hand onto the steel bannister at the base of the stairs.

His dark eyes flashed with a lethal, demanding authority. "Speak, Raven! You just threatened to tear the Third Throne down and start a civil war over her. If we are going to fight a ghost to keep that girl alive, you tell us the goddamn truth right now. Why do you owe her?!"

The pressure in the stairwell turned volatile as Keiran forced the confrontation, his Lycan aura flaring to clash directly against Raven’s suffocating darkness.

Raven slowly turned back toward them. He stepped to the edge of the stone landing, his pitch-black eyes fixed on the three princes below.

"One year ago," Raven began, his voice dropping into a low, echoing rumble that filled the damp stairwell.

"My grandmother left the estate alone. She had urgent business near the neutral borders and refused to take a royal guard. She was ambushed in the deep forest. A rogue pack tracked her scent and cornered her."

Blake shifted his weight, listening intently, his eyes narrowed.

"She’s a highborn alpha, so she fought," Raven continued, his jaw tightening as the memories surfaced.

"She took down three of them, but they kept coming. She was outnumbered, bleeding, and forced to run. By the time she reached the ravine, her wolf was exhausted. A massive rogue alpha cornered her against the rocks, ready to tear her throat out. She was completely defenceless."

Raven paused, his gaze locking directly onto Zyran’s blood-splattered face.

"Adeline saved her."

A stunned silence slammed into the corridor.

Blake blinked, his strategic mind instantly hitting a wall. "Wait... Adeline? She killed a rogue wolf by herself? So she is a shifter? She’s been masking her scent this entire time to fool the academy—"

"She didn’t shift," Raven cut him off, his voice a sharp, cutting wire that snapped Blake’s sentence in half.

"She didn’t have a wolf to rely on. She was just a girl walking the border lines. But when she saw a woman about to be slaughtered, she didn’t run. She drove a jagged, broken tree branch straight through the rogue’s eye socket, pinning his skull to the dirt. She ripped a fully shifted rogue alpha apart with nothing but a sharp stick and raw, human fury to save my grandmother."

Zyran, Blake, and Keiran all froze.

The breath died in Zyran’s throat, his dark eyes widening in absolute, paralysing shock. Keiran’s hands gripped the stone bannister so hard.

"What?" Keiran rasped, his gravelly voice dropping into a stunned whisper. "Without shifting? A human killed a rogue alpha with a stick?"

"She protected a Queen of the Second Throne when her own bloodline wasn’t there to do it," Raven said, his voice thick with an unyielding, fierce pride.

"She managed to get my grandmother out of that forest," Raven continued, his voice dropping into a rough, hollow baritone that echoed off the damp stone.

"When my grandmother asked her which pack she belonged to, Adeline just looked at her with empty eyes and said she didn’t have a pack anymore. From that day on, she was completely on her own. She didn’t come here to spy on us, Zyran. She came here because my grandmother granted her sanctuary."

Raven looked down at the three of them, his eyes dark and absolute. "And today, you let your wolves drag her right back into the nightmare she saved my family from."

Zyran wiped a streak of drying blood from his forehead, his dark eyes still wide, entirely anchored to Raven’s words.

"That was when my grandmother felt it," Raven rasped, his fists clenching so hard his knuckles popped in the silence.

"Using her Alpha bond, she reached out and felt the shattered, defenceless, half-dead thing inside Adeline’s chest. Her wolf was entirely dormant—broken beyond repair. Adeline wasn’t just bleeding out from the rogue claws; she was mentally destroyed, carrying physical wounds that should have killed a regular human, let alone a wolfless girl."

Blake took a slow, stunned breath, the pieces finally falling into place. "A wolfless... a dormant wolf can’t generate the aura needed to survive in our world. The rejection from highborn packs alone would have driven her to suicide."

"Exactly," Raven said, his pitch-black eyes cutting through the torchlight. "A broken, wolfless person cannot survive out there. The predators smell the weakness and hunt them for sport. My grandmother brought her back to our private estate."

"She personally watched over Adeline, helping her broken body recover from the brink of death. But the scent of a dormant wolf is a death sentence in the territories. So, my grandmother used ancient high-magic spells to mask it completely. She bound Adeline’s broken spirit, burying the scent of her wolfless state so she could walk among us without being hunted."

Keiran let out a low, gravelly whistle, his hand sliding off the cracked stone bannister. "So the scentless defect... it’s not a birth defect at all. It’s a cloaking spell."

"Yes," Raven said, his voice tightening with an intense, protective edge.

"My grandmother sent her here. She personally requested sanctuary for Adeline within these academy walls, thinking the Four Kings would keep the perimeter safe enough for a fragile, broken wolfless girl to rest finally. That is why she is here. She is not a spy. She didn’t seek out power, she didn’t seek out titles, and she sure as hell didn’t want anything to do with us."

He glared down at Zyran, the silence returning like a heavy anvil.

"She bled for my bloodline," Raven whispered coldly. "And today, your ignorance almost let her get killed."

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