Deviant Kings: Claimed by The Four Lycan Kings

Adeline’s pov~

I dragged myself back into the velvet booth, slamming my spine against the backrest as pure, bitter exhaustion fought with the rage boiling in my veins.

The server reappeared, his hands shaking so violently the heavy silver plate rattled against the marble table as he set down a steaming portion of roasted meat, hot broth, and coffee.

He practically scrambled away, fleeing the dark aura suffocating the corner of the room.

Raven didn’t even glance at the food. His pitch-black eyes remained locked onto me, heavy, unyielding, and terrifyingly sharp.

"Did you throw up my blood or not?" he asked again, his gravelly voice dropping so low it felt like a physical weight pressing against my chest.

I stared at him, my hands clenching into tight fists beneath the table. The unanswered question that had been burning a hole in my skull finally snapped my patience.

"What did Blake mean by what he said? Personal reasons? Has no other reason from now on? What did he mean by that?" I demanded, leaning across the table, my voice a sharp, furious whisper. "And what the hell did you mean when you said you’d create reasons by yourself?!"

Raven’s gaze flicked away from mine, just for a fraction of a second, a subtle shift in his expression that almost went unnoticed before his face hardened back into stone.

"That is nothing," he said coldly.

"Then my answer is nothing as well!" I snapped, the raw, emotional sting of his deflection making my eyes burn with angry heat.

I can’t bring myself to tell him to stay away from me. It’s hard, especially after all he has done to me. If I wanted to survive the monster who is hunting for me, I need to stay away from all four princes. I am definitely not here for these dramas.

"I told you already, and I am telling you again, Raven," I spat, my voice cracking under the intense weight of my emotion. "I don’t want your protection. I don’t want your anything. Just stay away from me!"

Raven sat motionless, but the air around him grew cold, his chest heaving silently beneath his dark shirt.

"I know you are only protecting me because of your grandmother’s orders," I continued, tears of pure frustration threatening to spill over my lower eyelids as I glared into the dark, bottomless void of his eyes.

"Because the Dowager Luna commanded her golden grandson to look after a scentless defect! But listen to me, Raven—I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want your pathetic pity, and I damn sure don’t want your charity! Every time you look at me, every time you stand beside me, all I see is an obligation you are forced to drag around like a lead weight."

A hollow, agonising laugh scraped up from the back of my throat as the dark truth hit me, the realisation settling bitter and heavy on my tongue.

"You know what?" I whispered, my voice trembling with raw, unfiltered venom.

"I’m starting to realise that if I had come into this academy without your name attached to me... if I had just walked through those gates as an absolute nobody, without your suffocating shadow hanging over my head... maybe—just maybe—I would have had a peaceful life. A life where I was invisible. A life where people ignored me instead of hunting me like a sport game! I would have been ordinary. I would have been safe in my insignificance."

Raven’s eyes widened slightly, a rare, visible flinch shattering his cold facade as my words struck him straight in the chest.

"Just because I came here under your divine protection," I hissed, leaning closer across the small table, my teeth grinding together until my jaw throbbed, "I have become the girl with the largest death threats written on her back! Every single person in this cursed place wants to bleed me just to get a reaction out of you. You didn’t save me, Raven. You didn’t give me a sanctuary. You put a target directly on my forehead and walked away, expecting me to be grateful for this! But I am grateful for everything you have done till now."

Raven froze, his mouth parting slightly as if he had been physically struck by the sheer force of my outburst.

"Adeline..." he rasped, his gravelly voice dropping into a rough, fractured whisper that sounded stripped of every ounce of his usual composure. "You don’t understand what you’re saying. If this is about what Zyran—"

"Don’t even say his name to me!" I cut him off, my voice slicing through the heavy air like a serrated blade. I stood up from the booth so fast my knees slammed violently against the edge of the table.

I looked down at him, my chest rising and falling in sharp, frantic gasps, every breath burning like hot ash in my lungs.

Raven didn’t yell. He didn’t rise to his full, imposing height or unleash the suffocating, crushing weight of his Lycan alpha command to force me back down into the leather seat.

I stood there, the heavy wood of the table vibrating with the violent residual force of my movement, my knuckles turning stark white where I gripped the edge just to keep my trembling legs from collapsing beneath me.

Instead, he sat entirely frozen, staring up at me with an expression I had never seen on his face before. The pitch-black, unyielding ice in his eyes shattered into a thousand jagged fragments, leaving behind a raw, fractured abyss filled with an agonising, silent turmoil.

A dark, bitter part of me registered the shift—a whisper deep in my chest telling me that my words had drawn real blood, that I had managed to slice through his indestructible armour.

But I didn’t regret a single syllable.

It was the absolute, undeniable truth. If I hadn’t entered this cursed academy dragging the heavy chain of his protection behind me, I would have been invisible.

A ghost. An unknown, scentless nobody wandering these marble halls, entirely ignored, but whole. I would have been safe in my insignificance.

I wouldn’t have been hunted. I wouldn’t have been dragged into the shadows. I wouldn’t have had to fight to keep a monster from tearing away the last shred of my dignity.

"Adeline..." he rasped, his gravelly voice dropping into a low, desperate, agonising plea.

The sound of my name on his lips—laced with that sudden, desperate softness—cut deeper than his anger ever could, but I forced my heart to harden against it.

I couldn’t afford to fall for his quiet gentleness. Not when his protection was a golden leash that was slowly choking the life out of me.

"Thank you for everything you have done," I said, my voice trembling with a lethal mixture of deep-seated pain, anger, and absolute exhaustion.

"I mean it," I continued, each word measured and heavy as lead.

"Thank you for pulling me out of the dirt today. Thank you for the blood that healed my shattered ribs. But please... just stay out of my life. I don’t want your protection. I don’t want your guilt. I don’t want your pity, and I damn sure don’t want your anything. Just stay away from me."

Raven’s jaw flexed, a vein pulsing sharply at his temple as his chest rose and fell in a heavy, silent breath. He reached a hand out across the table, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to grab my wrist again, to hold me in place, but he stopped mid-air—his calloused fingers hovering inches from my sleeve before dropping back onto the dark wood.

Before turning away, I leaned down slightly, looking straight into those dark, haunted eyes, my tone dropping into a soft, bitter murmur.

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