Alastairion's POV
I stood over the unconscious woman as my feet sank into the wet grass, watching her chest rise and fall steadily.
Nearby, the smell of blood from the two dead wolves began to fade, washed away by the heavy rain.
The storm tonight was extremely violent and dark enough to keep me paralyzed.
Since that night many centuries ago, the rain had always felt suffocating and heavy. A feeling I couldn't run from, unless I went to another city where there was no rain at that point in time.
It blurred my senses and made me feel as feeble and docile as a human. As 'ordinary' as these beings.
But tonight was different.
The air felt electric, and I could track every single drop that hit the ground.
My predatory instincts were sharper than ever. I could even smell the stench of blood cooling in the dead wolves, and beneath that, the fast, panicked heartbeat of the strange woman at my feet.
Just when I was about to lean down to check if she was running a fever, the sound of footsteps reached me then.
Before he could even draw closer, I smelled the loyalty and concern on him.
Atticus.
He skidded to a halt a few feet away, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
I could hear his heart thudding against his ribs like a panicked drum.
For a long moment, the only sound was the roar of the rain and the distant rumble of thunders clapping.
Lightening streaked the sky, briefly illuminating the woman in the grass.
I could hear and smell it all without feeling a pinch of pain.
Atticus took a sharp intake of breath.
"My... my King..." he stuttered, his voice trembling and was almost lost to the wind.
I ignored him as my attention was entirely focused on the woman.
Her dark hair spread out like a stain of black ink in the wet grass, and I stared at the softness of her throat.
I heard the wet squish of a material before feeling its dampness on the back of my skin as he covered me with it.
It was a long coat.
"You... you killed a human?" Atticus's voice cracked, rising in pitch as shock took hold.
He stepped closer, his steps cautious until he stood just behind me. I could feel the heat of his anxiety and the disbelief radiating from him in waves.
To him, the scene must have been a horror picture: his King, naked and drenched in blood under the storm, standing over the limp body of a small, helpless female human.
My mind, however, drifted back to the moment of my madness. She had touched me when I was at my weakest, and I had instantly lost all control.
The kiss was never my intention; the very idea was ludicrous, a violation of the sacred laws that kept our kind separate from theirs.
I was a Lycan King, of the purest bloodline, and she was nothing more than a stray human I'd stumbled upon in this rain.
But then I recalled the ancient prophecies. They spoke of a rare, near-mythical phenomenon where certain humans whose very presence could call forth a primal desire in a Lycan or other, a hunger not unlike the way our raw power could hypnotize and lure humans to their doom. It was described as a glitch, an act that was meant to be detrimental to the human involved.
But as our lips met, I felt my injuries begin to heal and the darkness in my mind finally cleared.
It was as if I had sucked the energy out of her. That should not have been the case.
She is supposed to be dead.
The shame of the kiss was a bitter, foul taste in the back of my throat, but it was quickly overshadowed by a growing, nagging suspicion.
This couldn't have been a simple human encounter. Surviving that, and the way my own wounds had vanished only led to one possible conclusion.
"She's... not human," I finally spoke to Atticus as the rain poured around us.
