The Marked Mate of the Lycan King.

Esme Pov

The silence of my hiding place was utterly shattered. I didn't open my eyes, but I felt the heat of the body above me, smelled the scent of rich, expensive leather and something fiercely powerful-like ancient woodsmoke and frost. This wasn't the damp, earthy scent of a local wolf. This was the scent of a king.

A hand, large and possessing an overwhelming power, clamped around my upper arm. Before I could even whimper, I was hauled upright, not gently, but with the painful force used to lift a sack of grain. My vision blurred as I stumbled, my feet scrambling for purchase.

"She was hiding, Your Majesty," a voice growled beside me.

I recognized the face of the Lycan holding me: Rhys Volkov, the Beta I had seen subdue Damon. His expression was cold and utterly terrifying. But my gaze was immediately drawn past him to the center of the clearing.

King Demetrius Klein.

He stood amidst the carnage of my former pack, untouched, unbothered. He was impossibly tall, a tower of muscle sheathed in dark, reinforced leather armor. He moved with the focused stillness of a predator that knows it has already won. Every line of his body radiated absolute, tyrannical control.

The air around him felt brittle and charged, like a winter storm about to break.

He finally looked at me. His eyes were the color of iced honey-intense and beautiful, but chillingly devoid of emotion. He didn't look at me like a person; he looked at me like a tool that had been poorly stored.

"You are the rejected omega, Esmeralda Lopez," Demetrius stated, the title leaving his lips like a smear of dirt. He allowed his gaze to linger on the faint, silvery scars patterning my forearm.

I felt a fresh wave of humiliation. My shame was now laid bare before the most powerful being in our world. I managed a quick, jerky nod.

"You know the path," he continued, taking a slow step toward me. The Alpha scent hit me again-rich, cold, intoxicating power. It was everything Alpha Damon had pretended to be, magnified a thousand times. "The route through the Shadow Canyons. The secret passage known only to those of the Silver Lineage."

My heart hammered against my ribs. Silas's frantic, bloody words echoed: Killer. Silver-Eyed. I was paralyzed, unable to confirm or deny this madness.

Demetrius didn't wait. He leaned into my mind, pushing at the walls I had spent four years rebuilding against Damon's mental prodding. His power was a deafening roar.

Show me the path. Give me the knowledge. The command was brutal, scraping against the tender core of my psyche.

I gasped, the pain sharp, but I gripped the memory of the talisman tightly, hiding it behind the dead, hollow feeling of my broken mate mark. I had nothing left but my silence. I wouldn't let this monster take the only thing that felt like my own.

Demetrius's perfect brow furrowed in annoyance. He hadn't encountered such fierce resistance from anyone in his own court, let alone an omega covered in kennel grime.

"Do not waste my time," he said, the velvet softness of his threat more terrifying than a shout. "The survival of my people depends on your swift obedience. Show me the map."

"I don't know what you mean, Your Majesty," I forced out, my voice a painful, reedy sound. "I only scrub floors."

His eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. "Foolish and defiant. A regrettable combination."

Then, with a suddenness that made my heart leap into my throat, he moved. His left hand shot out, seizing my chin and forcing my gaze to lock with his. His right hand released Rhys's hold and clamped around the nape of my neck, in the sensitive, dominant spot where an Alpha exerts control.

And then the world ended.

It wasn't the cold, calculating power he had been using. This was primal, raw, untamed fire. It exploded from the point of contact, racing through my veins and slamming against my chest where the dead Mate Mark lay. The pain was excruciating, melting the dead iron of rejection into molten, living agony, but beneath the pain was an agonizing, beautiful truth.

Mate. The word shrieked through my soul. Perfect. Mine.

The entire world fractured. My knees instantly weakened, my body convulsing as the irresistible, soul-deep magnetism pulled me violently toward him. He was mine. The King of Lycans, the monster who held my life in his hands, was the missing half of my soul.

Demetrius froze completely, his hand locked on my neck. I felt his mind, previously an instrument of war, recoil in absolute, white-hot shock. He felt it too, the pure, devastating force of the true, fated bond.

The flare of connection lasted only a single, agonizing second.

Then, with a visceral, animalistic roar of disgust, Demetrius released me, shoving me away as if I were a poisoned corpse. I stumbled backward, hitting the wall with a painful thud, gasping for air. The raw, beautiful heat in my body crashed into a deep, agonizing void.

No. No, no, no.

Tears, hot and sharp, finally escaped the dam I had held for four years. They were not tears for my old pack, but for the utter devastation of this moment. My fated destiny had chosen the monster who already hated me.

Demetrius stood there, his chest heaving, his perfect control shattered. His iced-honey eyes were blazing with a cold, terrifying fury. He stared at me, the terror and loathing in his gaze echoing the primal shock.

What wrong have I done, Moon Goddess? I cried silently, unable to voice the prayer. Why grant me a mate only to have him reject me with such venom? What curse is this?

"Silence," Demetrius snarled when Rhys tried to speak. He didn't look away from my broken form. His voice, when he finally spoke, was dangerously low, laced with absolute, strategic resolve.

"The Lycan King does not take rejects, least of all the spawn of a rogue lineage," he spat. He forced his control back, straightening his frame. The fury was replaced by cold, hard calculation. He pointed a damning finger at me.

"Take her. Bind her securely, but do not touch her. She will not be harmed, not yet. She has knowledge I require." He paused, his final command ringing through the decimated camp, sealing my fate.

"I am taking her to the Citadel. She is my prisoner, and she is my property now. See that she is secured in the Royal transport immediately."

I didn't move. I couldn't. I was staring at the man who was both my fated mate and the monster who now saw me as a piece of stolen chattel. The King had taken me. My life in the dregs was over, replaced by a terrifying journey into the heart of his enemy kingdom. The tears wouldn't stop, a silent, devastated testament to a destiny that had chosen to use me as its cruelest joke.