I Bought A Male Escort, Turns Out He's The Lycan King (by lg savage) novel Chapter 240

9:48 Thu, Apr 30

Chapter 240

Chapter 240

KAT

I woke up barefoot in the middle of the woods.

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For one long, breathless moment, I thought I was still dreaming. Moonlight silvered the trunks around me, turning bark to bone and branches to knives. Damp earth pressed between my toes, and moss clung to my heels. My breathing came too fast and shallow, each inhale scraping my throat raw.

I wasn’t in bed. I wasn’t in the cabin. I wasn’t even close.

I turned sharply, my pulse leaping as I searched the clearing behind me. There was nothing there. No path, no broken line through the undergrowth. No sign that I had ever come this way. Trees crowded in from every direction. The tall pines were woven so tightly together that they blotted out half the sky. Their tops swayed in the wind with a dry whisper that sounded so much like real voices.

What the hell-

I spun again, slower this time, as I forced myself to think. Somewhere nearby, water moved over stone in a steady rush. A river. I had to be near the riverbank that cut through Mal’s land.

My heartbeat steadied slowly. There was no immediate danger around me. No scent of blood or predators. And there were no hostile auras pressing against my skin.

Only wrongness.

I tried to remember leaving the cabin, or how I’d got there in the first place. Pulling on clothes, opening the door, walking into the night. There was nothing. My mind slid over only blank spaces.

My gaze snapped downwards. The shadows had already been out before I became aware of my surroundings. Thin black ribbons stretched from my feet and moved over roots and stone with minds of their own. They climbed tree trunks in lazy spirals, slipped across the back, then poured back down again. Others drifted deeper into the forest as if following tracks only they could sense.

They were not attacking anything; they were wandering, like I was. Or searching.

But they only ever came out when I was in danger. Was something hunting me now? Had it already found

me?

Strangely, instead of panic, I felt a cold detachment, as if the part of me that should have been terrified had been locked away. I could recognise fear, I just couldn’t reach it.

I inhaled slowly and sensed the magic humming through the earth beneath me. It was familiar and controlled. Mal’s. I’d watched him sink wards into his mountain before. I’d watched the roots of power thread through the soil and stone.

If his magic still held, then my shadows had no reason to be prowling.

I stared at the tendrils winding around my ankles.

9:48 Thu, Apr 30

Chapter 240

“No.”

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My voice came out rough as I commanded the shadows around me. I pulled at them instinctively, but they resisted for a second before returning to coil around my ankles like smoke. That second was enough to chill me more than the night air. It had been a while since I’d mastered them, since I’d broken through and gained all control. So why had they pushed back?

I closed my eyes and searched my body for answers. All I found was cold. Ice threaded through my veins, replacing warmth. My limbs felt heavy and sluggish, but beneath that heaviness, something thrummed with unnatural energy. It was restless and awake. Maybe waiting.

My wolf was silent inside me. Not sleeping, not pacing, just quiet. Magic wrapped around her, too, smothering her presence even though she hadn’t been trying to take control. She should have been snarling at this situation, trying to hunt the enemy. She should have been clawing at my ribs to get out.

Maybe she was as confused as I was.

Or maybe she was afraid.

I’d never lost time before. I’d never woken somewhere I hadn’t chosen to be. The last thing I remembered clearly was lying in Hunter’s arms after meeting the man in the park. His body warm against mine, his hand heavy over my waist, and his breathing steady against my neck.

Then fragments hit me in jagged flashes.

Hunger.

A terrible, gnawing hunger that had eclipsed all thoughts.

Darkness.

Movement.

The decision to shut out the bond completely.

My hand rose to my chest. The true mate bond pulsed weakly, frayed and distant but present. I waited for the usual tangle of emotions to rise-anger, grief, resentment, craving. Nothing came, not even hate. That bitterness I had been feeding for weeks was simply gone. It wasn’t healed or forgiven; it was just absent. Suppressing him used to take effort. Now the emptiness came as naturally as breathing.

I took a step, and pain flared through my body so sharply I hissed. Then more fragmented memories followed. Carter’s face above me. The force of his boot driving down. My bones breaking and screaming. Blood and dirt in my mouth. I’d almost died. Who’d saved me?

The strange energy under my skin buzzed harder, answering that thought. It was the same energy that had lingered after the attack in the park.

A whisper brushed across the back of my mind. They weren’t words, but something I instantly understood. An invitation.

The shadows lifted from the ground again and strained deeper into the trees.

9:48 Thu, Apr 30

Chapter 240

“No.” I said, louder this time.

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They recoiled, then strained forward once more like leashed hounds. I turned and forced myself to walk in the opposite direction. Whatever was calling me had already stolen time from me. Whatever it was, I needed distance.

A few steps later, my body jerked to a stop so violently I nearly fell. My legs locked, and my spine arched. Cold flooded my veins in a hard rush. My own feet, my own legs, yet they no longer felt like they were fully under my control.

Another whisper slid through me, closer now than it had been before.

‘Come.’

My chest tightened. I dragged one foot forward, then another. Every muscle fought me, but the pull wasn’t on my body. It was inside me, hooked somewhere deep in my magic.

The shadows burst free in answer. They tore from my feet and took their phantom wolf forms, racing ahead between the trunks. They were silent and fast, and certain of where they were going.

A branch snapped to my left, and I spun towards the sound. My gaze sliced through the darkness, but there was nothing, not even the inkling of someone’s aura. Then a scent hit me. Sandalwood. Orange blossoms. Male skin.

Hunter.

Still, no emotions came through the bond. There was no heat or rage, not even relief.

His faint aura finally brushed against mine, and he stepped from the darkness a second later, wearing only a pair of sweats, his hair rough, eyes locked on me. He was breathing hard like he’d run the whole mountain without stopping. For once, he didn’t look composed.

He looked terrified.

“Kitty.”

The old name scraped over my nerves. It belonged to a different version of us. A weaker one.

“Katerina,” I corrected.

His face changed instantly, pain flashing there before he buried it. But he recovered fast and closed the gap between us in two strides. He caught my shoulders, and even in the darkness, I saw the worry on his face.

“You vanished.”

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