Curves And Claws: The Lycan King's Relentless Claim novel Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Carolyn,

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The door closed behind him with a soft click, but the sound sliced through me like a blade. Cassian didn’t even look back before walking away. His scent faded in the air, replaced by the suffocating emptiness he left in the room. For a moment, I stayed frozen, hands trembling, breath shaking like a broken instrument.

Yes, Ten years ago, it was me who he actually proposed to make me Luna. He had a silly crush on me because I was next to him when his family abandoned him. It was me who told my Dad to step up and help him out.

But I didn’t like him for slightest. Although I liked his overwhelmingly attention and love, I didn’t want to be involved with him only. But Elle was different. She was quieter, obedient and perfect. I thought if she would be the perfect candidate to control and when I would be bored of my life and wanted to settle, I would just remove her and take her place.

After all, he liked me. Not Her

But I was wrong. When he said that he would take her as his Luna Queen, he made it clear that I had no future as well. At that time I didn’t care since I was the one who was controlling the internal affairs anyway.

But now I found Roana’s present very unpleasant and threatening. She wasn’t just taking over the households but him. Cassian who was deeply in love with Elle after I rejected him. How I couldn’t let him go to another woman.

Something inside me snapped.

The trembling in my hands stopped. My breathing steadied into something cold, controlled, deadly. My spine straightened. The tears burning behind my eyes evaporated into nothing. My shoulders relaxed as if the weight of pretending had finally dropped off me.

The room suddenly felt smaller, darker, as if the shadows themselves leaned in to listen to me.

“So that is how it is,” I whispered to the empty air. My voice no longer quivered. It was sharp. Precise. A blade wrapped in

silk.

He called me family. Family. As if I was a child he had to gently push aside. As if I had not bled for him, stood beside him, carried his secrets, shielded him from every person who tried to touch him. As if I had not watched him for years, memorizing every shift of his expression, every breath he took, every weakness he fought to hide.

Roana. That outsider. That unworthy creature who somehow slipped under his guard.

I had watched him soften for her. Touch her. Protect her. Look at her with the same careful warmth he once reserved only for Elle.

My jaw clenched so tightly I felt something near my ear crack. I pressed my palm against the table to steady myself. My fingers pressed so hard the d groaned under my grip.

He talked about boundaries. Rules and Respect.

He forgot something very important. He forgot what I am. He forgot that it was me who was by his side and at the end of the day, It would be me who would be by his side forever. Not Elle, Not Roana but me. Only me.

The shadows in the room flickered, shifting as if responding to the upheaval inside me. My blood hummed with a familiar pulse, a dark rhythm that lived under my skin like a second heartbeat. The air grew colder. My breath no longer fogged- even though the room temperature dropped.

I smiled.

It wasn’t a pleasant smile. It stretched too slowly, tugging at the corners of my mouth in an unnatural curve, revealing a glint

Chapter 71

of teeth like I had been waiting to bare them.

“He wants to protect her,” I murmured. “He wants to choose her” My tongue clicked softly against the roof of my mouth. “How sweet. How naive.”

I walked toward the window with slow, deliberate steps. The moonlight touched my skin, turning it pale, almost translucent. My reflection in the glass looked wrong-my pupils too wide, my smile too sharp, my posture too still.

“If Roana disappears,” I whispered to my reflection, he will return to where he belongs. He always does. Pain brings clarity. Loss awakens loyalty. And he belongs to Elle. To us. To the destiny that was written.”

I slid my fingers over the glass. It was cold. Pleasantly cold.

“And if he insists on going against fate,” I continued softly, “then I will simply remove the distraction.”

My reflection grinned back at me.

“Roana. The outsider. The mistake.”

My fingers curled slowly. My nails scraped the window.

“She should have never been here.”

A shift in the air behind me broke my moment. A ripple of darkness formed near the back wall, the shadows crawling upward like roots made of night. The temperature fell again as the figure stepped out of the dark-silent, obedient, faceless.

My shadow guard.

He knelt without a word, head bowed to the floor. He questioned me why I did that ten years ago. But I didn’t want to reply.

A thrill ran through me. Power always tasted better when it was forbidden. “Rise,” I commanded quietly.

He rose, movements smooth as water.” My Lady. Seems like you finally found a ground to stand on!” His smirked deepened,

“You heard everything,” I said. “Did you not?” I asked folding my arms.

He nodded once.

The room felt alive with the vibration of a truth silently acknowledged.

I walked toward him, circling him like a predator examining its most loyal weapon. My steps were slow. Controlled. Too controlled. Even my own body felt detached, guided by something deeper, something darker than thought.

“Roana,” I whispered, the name tasting like poison in my mouth. “The one who stands where Elle should be. The one he dares to protect. The one he believes is his new future.”

I leaned close to the shadow guard. My breath ghosted against the darkness covering his form.

“I want her gone.”

The shadows around him rippled, like excitement. Or hunger.

“Not kidnapped,” I continued, my voice lowering until it almost cracked with the pleasure of imagining it. “Not threatened. Not warned. No. I want her erased. Like she never existed.”

My pulse slowed, my heart thudding in a steady, monstrous rhythm of certainty.

Jufnd No ccent to trace. No clues to follow. Nothing left for Cassian to mourn. He must come to me like he came

Chapter 71

The guard’s head lifted a fraction, acknowledging the command without words.

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“I want it clean,” I said, tapping a finger against his shoulder. “Quick. Silent and Discreet. And painful enough that fate feels

it.”

The madness that had been simmering in me earlier now pulsed freely through my veins. My thoughts steadied into a terrifying calm-like the quiet before a forest burns.

“If she is removed,” I whispered, “Cassian will wake up from whatever delusion she cast over him. He always returns to order. He always returns to his place. And Elle…” My smile grew again. “Elle deserves her destiny. Not some outsider who walked into our world by accident.”

The guard waited for the final order.

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