I Bought A Male Escort, Turns Out He's The Lycan King (by lg savage) novel Chapter 181

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Chapter 181

Chapter 181

HUNTER

I hadn’t felt alive in days.

The forest healed faster than I did. Where the red ooze had bled through bark and soil, green had begun to push through again. The air no longer tasted wrong. Shadows were merely shadows now-except when that gut-wrenching pain ripped through me, and I couldn’t control what I did.

Then they gathered in the corners of my bedroom, just watching, witnessing me break over and over again.

My pack now moved through the trees without flinching. They were settling, but I couldn’t.

The pain of rejection hadn’t dulled. It hadn’t eased with sleep or distance. It sat beneath my ribs like a shard of iron. grinding deeper every time I breathed. The bond was gone, severed cleanly; there should have been no pain. Yet those unfamiliar threads still hummed beneath the magic in my blood

It felt like she was still mine. I still reached for her in my dreams but even there she eluded me.

My chest tightened again, and I forced those thoughts away. It was the only way I could remain upright. The only way not to fall apart in front of the pack. They were already watching me, mindlinking amongst themselves, but not daring to ask. I could see the questions in their eyes. The curiosity about what I’d become.

I turned from the trail and headed back towards my house. Not my house, the house Jasper built. I wanted to burn it down again and rebuild it into what I remembered from my childhood Something my parents had been proud of because they’d built it with their own hands.

Perhaps that would be the only way to atone for not fully avenging them. The other way, killing that coward Christos…

I jogged out of the forest as if I could outrun that thought. I was stuck in this limbo, knowing whatever move I made now would cement me as Kitty’s enemy for life. But I couldn’t think past the fact that she wasn’t here. She’d walked away.

She’d left me.

I stopped at the edge of the forest where Tanner directed the younger Lycans through rebuilding drills. He moved through them with sharp efficiency, carrying more responsibilities than he should have.

We’d lost both Elijah and Jasper, and had nearly lost more. The pack needed stability, routine, proof that the world had righted itself.

They looked to me for that proof. The king who’d had their backs and instilled my father’s values. The king who’d finally brought peace to the pack. But I was barely holding myself together.

Tanner approached, not as breathless as the trainees because he spent more than half his life living and breathing these drills.

“I’ve reassigned patrol routes and reopened the outer dens,” Tanner said. “I’ve also informed the allied packs that the corruption is gone and the borders are secure.”

Was it, though? Then what lived in my blood?

I nodded and turned towards the back entrance of the house.

“Should I arrange our return to the Bureau?”

My steps faltered and stopped. Then I forced myself to keep moving, one foot after the other, without another word.

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Chapter 181

April watched me from the steps, her arms wrapped around herself, that brittle smile still in place. Kitty had been gone for days, and I’d seen April hanging around in the corners, but I hadn’t thought of her situation once.

She hadn’t spoken much since the night of the battle. Now, even with that smile, she startled at nothing and flinched at shadows. Her parents carried fear in their eyes wherever they followed her.

Every time she looked at me, I saw the questions she wouldn’t ask. So maybe it wasn’t that I hadn’t thought of her situation, but that I’d been avoiding that gaze. Avoiding her. I was a coward

I’d become a king who put his pain above his people. Like Christos.

“Your Majesty,” she said softly. Then she straightened her shoulders, and her fingers tightened in the fabric of her dress.

My guilt flared up again. When I’d lost my beast, I’d regretted no trying to fix my mistake. But the truth was, I’d never had anyone react like April had. I wasn’t sure I could have fixed it. But now with my gift from Zachary and Kitty, I had to try.

I crouched in front of her so we were eye level, and the image of what she’d looked like when I first met her flashed in my head. I’d reduced her to that same broken state, even if she now miled all the time like everything was alright.

“I should have tried to do this sooner, but I wasn’t sure if I could I said,

my voice hoarse.

Her brow furrowed slightly, but she didn’t ask what I meant. Instead, tears shimmered in her eyes, and she nodded.

I let my beast rise, felt him tangled in the magic, different but the same. Then I reached inward to the influence I kept leashed. One of my many talents. It was more subtle than a command and less noticeable. The power that bent wolves to m will without them noticing, usually.

Did Kitty inherit this, too?

I shoved the question aside and reached for April’s fragile mind, releasing only a sliver of my aura as I let my influence unfold slowly, not as dominance but as warmth. I didn’t invade her mind this time. I released it.

The magic roared in my blood, and I felt something different. The answer came to me as if it were already instinct. I didn’t need to speak the words aloud; I only had to think about them.

‘You are safe. You’re home. I should never have taken your choice from you. Let yourself heal’

Her breath hitched. Her shoulders relaxed. The smile slipped fron her face, and tears fell freely. I felt the jagged panic inside her begin to smooth, and the constant background terror easing like a tide pulling back, until only her strength remained.

The clearing seemed to exhale with her.

“I can’t hear it anymore,” she whispered. “The noise in my head telling me everything was fine when I could see it wasn’t.”

Those were the words I’d said before I knew how twisted the truth was.

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Her eyes widened slightly at that, as if she hadn’t expected those words from me. And then she quickly lowered her gaze.

“Thank you,” she said.

I nodded and stood. It would take her some time to deal with the trauma of what she’d endured. But that was what she needed. Time, not my messing with her mind.

“Will Nathan come back?”

I looked back at her. Her head was still lowered, and I sensed it had taken a lot to ask that. Had I missed something? I

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Chapter 181

replayed every moment I’d seen between them. The way Rivers readied her. The way he’d protected her from Kitty’s rage.

“Why?” I asked evenly.

Her cheeks flushed faintly. “He was kind to me when everything was loud. He talked to me like I wasn’t broken”

Something twisted in my chest. Even Kitty preferred Rivers.

“I don’t know if he’ll return,” I said carefully. “I’ll let him know you’re okay.”

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