The Lycan King and His Dark Temptation Novel

---- 441.

IT'S JUST A BAD REPUTATION BEOF I wandered through the garden, bored, waiting for that shitty meeting to endit wouldnt solve a damn thing.

One look at the disgust on that Regents face was enough to know we werent welcome here.

And the main reason King Aldric had sent me wasnt being fulfilled either.

Women still fled from me like I carried some contagious plague worse here than even among supernatural females.

Tmean, their elemental men looked like dwarves next to me.

Of course they'd run away in fear.

I huffed, annoyed, those absurd feelings of self-pity creeping into my chest.

Like always, I shoved them down without mercy.

So what if I never find my mate? Better that way.

It would be the final blow to my prideto be rejected by my own fated partner.

"Money is the one thing I have too much of," I muttered bitterly.

My wolf, Soul, remained as indifferent as everwe disagreed on too many things.

But I knew there was no other choice.

Id keep paying for sex with she-wolves whenever the need to fuck became unbearable.

---- Itwas more about reputation than anything else.

That I was huge everywhere, including my massive cock? Yeah, it was true.

In fact, I thought it would be an advantage with the females, but apparently, big wasnt the same as too much.

That some of them had left injured, and that I usually needed more than one woman at a time to be satisfiedI couldn't deny that either.

But those rumors that I had killed countless women, left them bled dry in my bed? Complete and utter bullshit.

Iwas about to go find Quinn and ask how things were going, how much longer this mess would take.

Soul was restlesshe wanted me to shift and run free.

I even considered leaving ahead of schedule, but then something stopped me.

My wolf's ears perked up, his nose catching a scent carried by the breeze.

Odd.

Very odd.

We need to check this outits a female.

I dont know why, but something about her...

| like it." Confused, I quickened my pace, heading toward a secluded part of the massive palace garden.

Tarrived just in timeto see her being assaulted by two men while another barked at her like a rabid dog, screaming that she had used magic, that she had murdered someone.

I didnt even think.

---- In less than a second, I burst from the hedges, my leg muscles exploding as I leaped into action, intercepting the bullet before it could reach her.

Soul roared within mewe could not let her die.

He was furious, pushing for the shift, but I held him back.

That bastard elemental...

I didnt need to be a mind reader to know he was lying.

His irrational hatred toward the female was purely because she was a mage.

Thad saved her from danger and cautiously approachedI needed to make sure she was alright.

I didnt want to scare her, but when she lifted her head and looked at me, I saw the shock and discomfort in her expressive eyes.

And then, her scentnow that I was close, I caught something beneath it.

A warninga raw, unmistakable mark left by another lycan male.

This sorceress already belonged to someone else.

And Ilike a fucking idiotfor a fleeting second had thought...

I thought she might be my mate.

The same mate I claimed I didnt want to find, because I knew she would break me.

But it was the worst lie of all.

I ached for my mate.

I craved her with every fiber of my being.

"Lets go, Soul.

I dont know what you sensed, but its obvious she has a mate.

We helped her.

Thats enough.

Lets not get ourselves into trouble in this realm."