I Bought A Male Escort, Turns Out He's The Lycan King (by lg savage) novel Chapter 226

Chapter 226

KAT

<67%8

I 10 vouchera

After Hunter left, he took something from me with him. I hadn’t meant to show my emotions, even for a second, and that pain had gutted me. My body still burned where he’d touched me, but my mind was blissfully quiet.

Even the lodge felt too quiet. Muted, like someone had turned the volume down on my life. The voices in the other room were lower. My movements were slower. Even the fire I’d started in the hearth cracked instead of popping, the sound dull and distant. I sat curled on the couch, my knees pulled to my chest, my gaze fixed on nothing in particular.

I couldn’t get warm. A chill had settled deep inside me.

Nathan stormed out of the bedroom and down the short hallway to the lounge where I was, fury written clearly on his face, but it wasn’t even a ripple in my senses. I watched him pace near the window, his boots thudding softly against the wooden floor. He stopped every so often to glance outside like he expected something to happen.

After ten minutes, April came into the room, her head down as she headed to the kitchen. I tasted the heartache in the air, and her timid wolf was still cowering, but it hardly registered. The smell of coffee filled the air, and then April sat at the small kitchen table in the corner, the furthest away from Nathan and me, wrapping one hand around her steaming mug. The faint smell of wolfsbane, antiseptic, and magic mixed with the scent of coffee. At some point in the night, Nathan had come back to take care of her. There was a bandage on her hand peeking from the long sleeves of her sweater. Her movements were still careful.

They didn’t speak.

I tracked them both until April’s mug stopped steaming, and Nathan stopped pacing. He dragged a hand through his hair and turned towards April. He’d let his hair grow out a little, so it had started to curl like Kostas’s.

“You should and lie down,” he said.

“I said I’m fine,” April whispered.

“They poisoned you,” Nathan growled. “Do you have any idea what would have happened if you hadn’t gone to Hunter?”

April didn’t respond; she didn’t even look up at him. The air buzzed with Nathan’s frustration, but I felt like from inside a bubble.

was

sensing it

“I didn’t ask him to call you,” she said after a while.

Nathan stepped back as if April had punched him. Silence settled in the room. If I didn’t have this ice slowly spreading in my veins, I’d probably have dragged myself out of there and let them have their privacy, but I still didn’t move from my spot on the couch.

“I know you see me as disposable, Nathan Rivers. You don’t have to pretend,” April said.

She stood, leaving her untouched drink on the table, and walked out of the small kitchen, Nathan intercepted her before she walked back down the hallway.

“Is that what you really think?” Nathan hissed.

I’d been forced to watch Nathan fucking that human by the pool at his mansion, where he had his playroom. I’d seen him fuck April in said playroom. It wasn’t just what April thought; everybody thought the same.

But I’d also witnessed the complicated feelings that rose inside him during that time.

Nathan closed the distance between them. The kiss was careful a first, and a burst of something sweet and bitter at the same time scented the air. Longing. Lust. Pain. Love. I only knew it beause it had filled my own chest not too long ago.

1/3

14.59 Wed, Apr 8 s.

Chapter 226

* 67%#

10 vouchers

Nathan stilled, and then his hand slid to her waist. I watched their mouths move together, watched the tension drain from their bodies as they sank into each other.

Still, I sat there, the ice completely taking over my body. I felt no discomfort or the urge to look away.

Nathan deepened the kiss. Little sounds that I was not meant to hear filled the lodge. His fingers curled into the fabric of her shirt, and April’s injured hand rose to his shoulder, gripping him tightly.

Then she winced and broke away from him. Nathan was immediately at her side, regret on his face.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She nodded, but even I could see that was a lie. Nathan was usually good at hiding his emotions, but I felt all of them then, beating against my little bubble.

I waited for something inside me to react. When it didn’t, the realisation settled as slowly as the ice that now filled my chest. I wasn’t numb because I was tired of masking my emotions from Hunter. I wasn’t detached because I was distracted.

I just didn’t feel anything; not about them, not about Hunter, and not about the people gathering in the city to hurt me. I’d succeeded in what I’d set out to do after Hunter marked me again.

I moved my stiff body, lowering my bare feet to the floor. When I stood, neither of them noticed. Nathan was still whispering warm words to April while leading her gently back to the bedroom.

I walked to the door and slipped out. Hunter had visited late in the morning, but it was already night again. The cool air barely registered against my cold skin. I moved down the steps and onto the path without thinking. The quiet forest stretched around the lodge, and the magic over me buzzed more than before. Nathan had probably gone overboard and strengthened it to protect April.

My bare feet crunched softly on the gravel. I didn’t register any pain. I just kept walking, ignoring the damp earth and sharp stones. Usually, the forest grounded me. The scents, the sounds, the awareness of everything alive around me. Tonight it felt distant.

I reached the edge of the wards, my gaze on the road ahead, the scene of the fight last night. My mind flashed back to how terrified April had been. And then watching her and Nathan back there, it had been like watching strangers kiss.

Maybe if I reached for Hunter, opened up to him like I’d done that morning.

I closed my eyes and tried, but there was nothing. No warmth, no pull, not even a flicker of emotion. The pain I’d felt before every time I did that was gone. My chest tightened slightly, but even that felt muted.

Was this what a shutdown felt like? Or was something actually wrong with me?

The bond was there, I could feel it. But even my wolf just lay coiled inside my chest, unbothered about what was happening.

“I should feel something,” I whispered.

A faint movement stirred at my feet. My shadows slid outward, retching across the ground, moving automatically like they were responding to something I couldn’t identify. I watched the spread, but even that didn’t spark anything in my chest. I wasn’t alarmed or curious, and I didn’t care if they were out to hurt someone. I didn’t even feel the urge to call them back.

A crack echoed in the distance. My head snapped around to the sound, and a scent drifted to my nose. Wolves. Another hunting group, moving quickly but silently. My ears picked up the soft footfalls on the earth, the steady breathing, and the quickening heartbeats.

My senses woke up. All of a sudden, their scents hit my nose, as the bubble around me had burst. My wolf stood on alert, and the shadows coiled back to me, waiting for my command. For the first time since Hunter left, I felt something. Only one thing. The same thing that had driven me since the night I caught Justin.

2/3

Wed, Apr 8

Chapter 226

The thrill of the hunt.

Bloodlust.

And this time, I didn’t try to stop it.

3/3

E

Comment