Deviant Kings: Claimed by The Four Lycan Kings

Adeline’s pov~

Blake reached out and gently tapped the tip of my nose with his index finger.

"I was just kidding, crackhead!" he said smoothly.

A massive, overwhelming wave of relief washed over me so fast my knees almost buckled. I stood there in the dark, my mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, caught completely off-guard.

What the fuck was that even?!

He had just made my entire world stop, made my blood run cold, only to casually brush it off like a stupid joke?

He is insane.

Completely, utterly unhinged.

I sucked in a harsh breath, my heart slowly dropping out of my throat, and forced my feet to move again. I fell into step a few feet beside him, glaring at the side of his head like I wanted to incinerate him on the spot.

"You are sick," I muttered under my breath, my hands still shaking slightly. "You are genuinely, mentally sick, Lord Blake."

Blake just let out another quiet, amused laugh, his long strides effortlessly matching my pace as we walked deeper into the shadowed courtyard.

"The real thing I want from you," Blake spoke up, his voice shifting back into something smoother, surprisingly grounded, "is for you to study with me."

My head snapped toward him, my eyebrows pulling together in disbelief before I immediately looked away, staring straight ahead at the dark treeline.

"No!" I said instantly, without a single second of hesitation.

"And why not?" Blake asked, not dropping his stride. He turned his head slightly to look down at me, his sharp features softening into something unusually reasonable. "I am just asking you to study with me after class. And I’m even okay with using the common library if that makes you feel comfortable. Public table, full view of the whole academy, no private dorms. Just books."

"No, Lord Blake—" I started to refuse, my jaw setting into that same stubborn line, ready to tell him that my time was up and he needed to get out of my life forever. But before the words could fully leave my tongue, a sound sliced through the quiet night air.

Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed against the stone pathway a few feet away.

"If she says no means, it’s a no, Blake."

A deep, lethal voice cut through the dark before Blake could even open his mouth to push me again.

It was Raven.

My blood went cold, a sharp gasp catching in my throat as I turned my head.

Raven stood there, materialised from the darkness like a grim reaper draped in liquid shadows. His pitch-black eyes weren’t just dark; they were a void, locking onto the small space between Blake and me with a terrifying, absolute fury.

I don’t know why, but my heart took a violent, panicked leap against my ribs. I looked up at him for one fleeting, terrifying second, taking in his clenched jaw and the sheer menace in his posture, before my eyes immediately darted down to the ground.

I couldn’t look at him.

Not after the metallic taste of his royal blood had spent the last hour burning through my throat, and certainly not after the way he had gently patted my hair before vanishing from my room.

"Didn’t expect to run into you out here, Raven," Blake said casually, tossing his head back with a slow, dangerous, and thoroughly amused smile. He didn’t step back. He didn’t even flinch under the weight of the First Throne’s lethal pressure.

Of course he won’t. They are best friends, brothers like and goddamn Princes.

"I don’t need an invitation to keep the vultures away from what isn’t theirs," Raven growled, his voice low.

He took two heavy, deliberate steps closer, his boots thudding with terrifying authority as the night air twisted around him. "She told you to leave her dorm. She told you she didn’t want to walk with you. And she just told you no to your pathetic study offer just now. Are you deaf, Blake, or do you just enjoy cornering girls who want nothing to do with you?"

"So, the news really spreads faster than I thought. By the way, you are wrong in one thing. Me? cornering her?" Blake let out a sharp, amused bark of laughter, taking a deliberate step sideways—putting his broad frame directly between Raven and me, deliberately blocking Raven’s line of sight to my face.

"I’m having a casual conversation with a classmate in an open courtyard, Raven. You’re the one who looks like you’re ready to rip the throat out of anyone who breathes near her. Who’s really cornering who here?"

My head reeled, the terrifying clash of two highborn Lycan aura forces pinning me right in the middle like a helpless moth caught between two raging blazes.

And what is it that they both are trying to play now? God, just make them leave and let me be in peace.

Exhaustion, fury, and a bone-deep embarrassment washed over me. I wasn’t a prize. I wasn’t a territory for them to mark or fight over.

"No one is cornering me!" I spat, my voice tight and raw as I forced myself to step out from behind Blake’s shoulder, glaring at both of them through the dim gloom. "And there is nothing I can do for you, Blake! I am done with this conversation, I am done with these five minutes, and I am getting the hell out of here!"

I turned on my heel, ready to sprint back toward the safety of the residential wing, but I didn’t even make it half a step.

Before I could fully turn, a large, calloused hand shot out through the dark. Raven’s fingers wrapped around my wrist like an iron manacle.

Without a word, he yanked me backwards, pulling me effortlessly across the stone until I was standing right beside his massive frame, completely wrapped in his dark, suffocating shadow.

My breath hitched. I stared down at my wrist, my skin burning where his bare fingers gripped me, before snapping my eyes up to his sharp, unyielding profile.

"Raven, what the hell are you doing?!" I gasped, my voice shaking with a mix of anger and shock as I pulled against his grip. "Let go of me!"

Raven didn’t look at me. His pitch-black eyes remained deadlocked on Blake, his jaw flexed tight enough to shatter bone.

"You don’t have anything to do with her, Blake," Raven warned, his voice surprisingly quiet, yet laced with a dark, absolute authority that warned of immediate violence. "Stay away from her. This is your only warning. Last and final."

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