The Lycan King's Wrong Obsession novel Sorin Carter (by Circeleari) novel Chapter 19

The marble floor bites into my knees, cold seeping straight throgh the thin fabric of my skirt My palms are pressed into fists so tight my nails dig crescents into my skin Behind me. I can hear the leather shifting as Roslin flexes the whip in her hand. She’s hesitating

Of course she is Big, bad Roslin–Luna’s favorite lapdog–suddenly doesn’t have the guts to leave marks on someone who might bite back.

I glance over my shoulder, voice sharp.

“Just fucking do it already. I’m not here to give you foreplay.”

Her jaw ticks. For a split second I think she’ll drop it. Then the lash cracks down, slicing hot across my back. My body jerks forward. “Ah!” the groan rips out of me before I can swallow it down.

I slowly lift my head, teeth grinding as I push the hair out of my eyes. Across the room, Camila sits cross–legged on her velvet chair, her silk dress draped perfectly around her body. She’s watching me though I’m entertainment at the theater. Her smirk makes my blood boil.

“Don’t tell me you’ll forget the number,” she drawls, her voice smooth as poison. “How about you count for us, Sorin?”

I glare at her, my forest green eyes locking onto hers. Another whip lands across my shoulder blades, fire exploding under my skin. My throat tightens, but I don’t give her the satisfaction of looking away.

“One.”

The next comes faster. I bite my lip so hard I taste iron.

-Two.”

The lashes rain down, each one searing, each one yanking another groan from my chest. My vision blurs, sweat stinging the corner of my eyes, but I force my voice steady.

-Three.”

-Four.

My spine bows under the sting of five, six, seven—but I keep counting. The air feels thick, heavy with the sound of leather striking flesh and Camila’s quiet satisfaction.

By twenty, my arms are trembling. By twenty–five, blood slicks down my back in slow, hot rivers. My voice is raw, but I keep spitting out the numbers through clenched teeth.

Twenty–nine.”

The last one hits harder than all the others, like Roslin wanted to finish with a flourish. My body lurches forward. My arms give out. I collapse onto my elbows, chest heaving.

Thirty,” I rasp.

For a second, silence. My ears ring, pulse pounding. I’m still on my knees, my whole body shaking, when Camila rises from her chair. Her heels click against the marble as she approaches. try to push myself upright, but my muscles are useless.

Her hand hooks under my chin, yanking my face up until I’m staring into her perfect, painted one. Her perfume suffocates me, cloying and sweet.

“I am the Luna,” she says slowly, each word deliberate, pressed into my skull. “And when the King returns–with that little

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16:33 Sat Dec 20 CA‘

a

Chapter mi

buch he claims will be his Queen I’ll make sure her life here i worse than death”

The words sink in out instead of breaking me, they twist somering in my chest Alaric He’s the one she’s talking about He’s the one bringing some woman here

It should be me

The thought burns, sharp and bitter, and I can’t help it the core of my mouth pulls into a smirk Even half unconscious blood dripping down my back, I find her threats funny

He won’t be bringing anyone because the Queen he so desperately wants is in the pack already

Her eyes narrow, fury flashing. She doesn’t hesitate. Her palm ccks against my cheek so hard my head whips to the side Stars explode across my vision. Then

Darkness swallows me whole.

nothing.

I wake up to cotton. Soft, clean, too soft for someone like me. My back screams in protest when I shift, pain flaring like someone poured fire across my skin.

“Don’t move.”

Marg’s voice cuts from behind me with a flat warning. “You’ll bleed all over the sheets.”

Then Tully’s softer voice follows, closer to my car. “Stay on your stomach, Sorin. Please. Just rest.”

I blink against the dim light, throat dry as dust. “How long was ?”

Marg doesn’t look up from where she’s dabbing at my back with cloth soaked in something that stings like hell. “Six hours.”

Six. Fucking, Hours,

Silence stretches. My head is heavy, but curiosity gnaws at me. Iurn my eyes toward Tully, who’s sitting cross–legged beside the bed, worry written all over her face.

“She’s never gone this far before,” Tully murmurs, almost to her If.

My brows knit. My voice comes out rough. “You’re not even shoked? Your Luna just had me whipped like an animal,”

Tully freezes. Her mouth opens, closes. Then, without a word, s turns her back to me. She lifts the hem of her blouse over her shoulders, baring her skin. My breath catches.

Scars. Old and faded, some newer, jagged across her back in ugly lines.

I push up on my elbows despite the pain, staring, “What the fuck”

Marg stops mid–dab, her jaw tight. Slowly, she steps back frome bed. Her skirts rustle as she turns away. With no expression, she lifts them high enough to show me the back of fer calves. More scars. White, raised ridges crisscrossing like someone carved maps into her skin.

The room tilts. I’m speechless.

“This happens to most of us,” Marg, says flatly, dropping the fab back down. “You can count on one hand the Omegas who don’t carry these marks. They’re either too old to bother whipping… or dead. Camila prefers us dead over disobedient,”

Tully sits quietly, pulling her blouse back into place.

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16:33 Sat, Dec 20 G GA

Chapter 19

Marg’s gaze nicks to me, cool and detached. “You got the worst it. It usually doesn’t go past fifteen. You got thirty?

The number punches the air from my lungs Thirty

“And the king?” I manage, voice hoarse. “He has no idea?”

60%

Marg shrugs, unbothered. “For months. His Majesty’s been busy ending letters to the woman he’s obsessed with A Luna from another pack. Showering her with jewels, gifts… forgetting his own house even exists”

Her words are a knife. That was me. I was part of the problem. That bastard just can’t keep it in his pants.

She continues, her tone clipped. “The Beta’s out half the time negotiating with other packs. The Gamma’s drowning in paperwork the King leaves behind. Camila isn’t supposed to be Luna–she has no real training nor even the title–but they needed someone to stand in. She looks good for appearances. Outside the pack house, her reputation shines.”

I remember how those kids ram to her when we first arrived. She’s loved outside.

Marg sets the bloody cloth down, her expression hard. “Inside, we know the truth.”

“But-“I was about to continue when the sudden clang of the pack bells splits the air. The sound echoes through the stone corridors, so loud and urgent that I jolt upright on the cot despite the pain.

Marg and Tully both freeze. For a moment, the room is dead quiet except for the fading ring of metal. Then Tully snaps into motion, her hands scrambling to shove jars of salve and rolls of loth back into the wooden crate like a thief hiding evidence. Marg mutters something sharp under her breath, helping her push the stuff under the cot.

“The bells-” I rasp, sitting straighter, wincing when my spine screams at me. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Shit.” Tully fumbles, cheeks flushed with excitement, not fear. “We have to get back before anyone notices we’re gone. You –” she points at me with her ink–stained fingers, “-stay here. Don’t move. The head maid will skin you alive if she sees your back wrapped. She thinks injuries are all dramatics anyway.”

“Yeah, real nurturing,” I mutter.

Marg snorts. “Thankfully, the salve we rubbed on you reeks so strong it’ll cover your scent. As long as you don’t parade around like an idiot, no one’s sniffing you out.”

I narrow my eyes. “Cover my scent? What are you two hiding me from, exactly?”

But they’re already halfway to the door. Tully pauses, her lips twitching into this wide, almost childlike grin. “The bell means the King is at the borders. Which means he’ll be here-” she checks the clock on the far wall, “-in less than thirty minutes. Thirty fucking minutes! And he’s bringing the Queen.”

My stomach flips, cold and sour.

Marg rolls her eyes. “I’m just excited to see Luna Camila’s face cack once the King parades another girl in front of her.”

That makes Tully snicker like a gossiping teenager sneaking liquer.

But I’m frozen.

The future Queen.

The words sting more than my wounds.

I force a smile to keep them from noticing, but inside, it’s like something is being carved out of me with a dull blade. That should’ve been me. That was supposed to be me. And now… now it’s someone else riding beside him, wearing what should’ve been mine.

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the disks in mire some they semmit ne lacking duren the hall and I’m eft the butte

beyond the done wall very tick of the k

My doangios are shed apart when a high pushed anamme fough the air teple Hid termed Farded Mute you**

I shove out the Fot, igning the ah in my hack, and yanka at trom the hook by the door there fan rapes against the cam skin on my neck, tamn I don’t care impodown cordon, my dear anying me faster than dund be

la muning The sound grows bounder with each a cheering hing, the kind of hystone your only hear when people one

step

care

by the mine I make it outable, the crowd has swallowed the city The Imperial Parkerentral upper lined with people pressed shoulder to chalder, dies vilnating with enes if the very ground trenddes under their lande

And then see i

it geams under the sun, Hanked by melve wolve the size of perfect rhythm Then couts silmuner black and silver, mmmm Law adrenalinens people to lower petals into the air,

My throat dries count. Because inside that carriage

The King

The bastard who tried to help

ng hems, their paws pounding into the odd destin

But then Featch the whispers around me, voices.cutting through the noise,

“That’s the one the cur huge he said he’d ride with the Queen”

“She’s really herethen?”

“I wanna see her face! The Queen!”

My stomach knots so hard I can barely breathe.

A tug on my sleeve makes me glance down. Alle girl, couldn’t be older than six stresst the carriage with wide eyes, her brown braids bouncing as she tugs free from her mother’s gripd dants into the street

“Your Highness!” she yells, her small voice piercing through the ns. “Let me see the Queen!

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