Chapter 6: The Vision and the Vows

“It’s her!!!”

Kai jerked awake out of his nightmare, his body soaked in sweat and head pounding as though someone was hammering nails into it.

“What? Who?” Zeke panicked, quickening toward him. He had just entered the bedroom and was opening the window blinds.

Growling in pain, Kai rasped, “I saw Mum. She said Harlow is the Chosen One… and that Harlow must trust me, or she’ll make the same mistake Mum did. The one that got her killed.”

Zeke perched beside him and took two deep breaths. “I thought about this, too. This lady has a strange hold on you. But what mistake was your mother talking about?”

“No idea.” Kai yanked the bedsheet off his body and jumped on his toes. Without a word, he strode into the restroom, Zeke following behind.

At the sink, Kai splashed the cold water running from the tap onto his face and inquired, “Has Harlow replied the text?”

Zeke tilted his body against the door frame. “No, she hasn’t.”

Switching off the tap, Kai mopped his face with a small towel that was hung on a rack beside the golden-framed mirror.

Then, his head lowered, he held the sink and stood in absolute stillness.

Three minutes passed.

Three full minutes of thinking about everything he risked when he agreed to Harlow’s terms, one of which was very brutal.

The consummating part.

And yet he had said yes.

Because saying no meant losing her. And losing her… meant losing everything else.

“She’s been too quiet. It’s unlike her,” Kai finally broke the silence, his elbows folded across his chest as he turned to face Zeke.

“Give her time. Maybe she’s in shock that you agreed to her rules.”

“That girl is planning something. Harlow doesn’t leave things unresolved. If she hasn’t replied, it means she’s either brewing another poison or—”

“Or maybe she’s trying not to stab you in your sleep,” Zeke offered dryly.

Kai shot him a glare and flounced past him into the bedroom. “Not helping.”

“I’m serious,” Zeke followed, closing the transparent restroom door. “You’re asking her to marry the man she believes killed her father? And you’ve given her no real reason to trust you. What did you expect? Flowers and gratitude?”

Silence shut Kai’s lips again, his jaws tightened as he ran his finger through his long, dark hair. “She doesn’t know the truth.”

“Then tell her,” Zeke pressed. “Tell her about Leon. About the curse and about what will happen to you if she doesn’t...”

“No,” Kai interjected.

His Beta blinked, and Kai’s tone came off devastated yet filled with authority. “She can’t know. Not yet.

“She has the right to.”

“She has the right to many things,” Kai reasoned, “But if she finds out now, she’ll think I’m using her womb to survive.”

“Are you not?”

A deafening hush followed suit. One that said more than either of them wanted to admit.

But Kai’s voice returned to him. “Think what you want, Zeke. I will win Harlow honestly. There will be no manipulation, no seduction, no fate,” he concluded.

“I wish you the best. I just feel everything will be easier if she knows the truth.”

“Zip that mouth,” Kai thundered, causing Zeke to flinch back a bit. Telling the truth when there’s hardly a connection between him and Harlow is synonymous to losing her. “Speak nothing about this when she’s around.”

Zeke knew better not to say a word for the first two minutes. That’s all it takes for his buddy’s anger, specifically toward him, to evaporate.

Then the King turned the tables. “If it was that easy, why don’t you confess your feelings to Lyra after all these years?”

“Don’t...”

The red-haired devil strutted in before Zeke could speak of her. Classy, she wore a mini-skirt and a white crop top that exposed her cleavages and showed how fit and flat her stomach was.

A corner of Zeke’s lips radiated with a slight grin. But the happiness that streaked through him like a comet soon disappeared when Lyra approached Kai and kissed his lips.

Dejection swirled within him.

Albeit, Kai once cleared that the relationship between him and Lyra was sibling-based, it still upset Zeke whenever they acted like they were a thing.

Lyra waved at Zeke and wiped the freckles of water on Kai’s full beard.

“How do you feel now, handsome?” she asked Kai.

He gave a bitter smile. “Better, maybe.”

“Good,” she stated. “A message has just arrived from Goldenblood.”

Kai’s heart raced like a marathon. “From Harlow?”

Hearing that name, flames of jealousy scorched inside Lyra, and only Zeke noticed the imaginary smoke that escaped through her mouth and flushed her cheeks crimson with anger.

“No. It’s from our spy,” she answered, trying not to sound upset.

“Raydes?” Zeke asked from behind.

Lyra nodded. She provocatively reached into her cleavage, pulled out a folded piece of paper a guard had handed her, and extended it to Kai.

“Have it.”

Kai collected and opened it. He didn’t care about Raydes’ tiny signature that marked the top, he just flew straight into the content which read:

“The pigeons are dead. The blood spilled. Someone whispered your name. The Alpha Queen-to-be is questioning everything. And if you are planning to play innocent, my King, now is the time.”

Kai’s grip crumpled the paper before he pitched it away. “The heck is he talking about?”

While Zeke picked up the piece and read, Lyra blurted, “I thought you knew already.”

“That?” He gazed blisteringly at Lyra. “I haven’t even left Athens since I got well. None of my men have. If someone used my name to strike fear in her coronation, they’re not just trying to sabotage us. They’re framing me!”

Those blue-turning-red orbs while he ranted startled Lyra and ripped her heart into shreds, and had no choice but to hurry out of the room in dejection. She loathed whenever Kai acted ‘unlovingly’ to her, although it used to be seldomly.

But it’s more often now that Harlow came into his life and he, with joy, told her he had found his mate. Lyra knew how important this was for Kai, but a new person taking her place increased her fear.

Her heart throbs for him, but she’s afraid she won’t own him, not after she eavesdropped and overheard him telling Zeke he wanted to win Harlow without any manipulation.

Meanwhile, Kai deepened his breath and smacked his forehead. Slowly, he turned to the window and fixed his sight on the low rays of light settling on the edge of the bed.

He was drowning in worries. He needed to earn Harlow’s trust, and someone was doing everything to stop that from happening.

“This is rubbish.” Zeke snapped. “You think it’s Leon?”

“Who else would go this far?” he exhaled sharply. “He must have heard I found my mate.”

Zeke trudged forward. “He doesn’t have enough power for that kind of move, not without help.”

Kai wore a grim expression. “Then he has help.”

Just then, a guard burst into the room. “My King! Urgent news from the southern border. There’s been movement near the Deadlands. One of our rogue spies spotted someone who fits Leon’s description, heading toward the human settlements.”

The King’s head banged. The Deadlands lay just a few miles from the GoldenBlood Pack.

“We have to stop him, Zeke. Harlow’s coronation is in four days. He’s going for her.” He marched to his wardrobe to wear his battle armor. “You, have someone prepare the horse... or the car... Anyone,” he ordered the guard.

Zeke headed for the exit. His fingers were curled on the door’s handle when he half-turned again. “This could be a trap or...”

The sprinting entrance of another guard cut him off, the door hitting his forehead.

As Zeke winced in pain, the guard quivered. “King Kai, he uttered in a tremble. We found something near the southern gates… pinned to a tree.”

“What?” Kai continued to button up the armor, and the guard swallowed.

“A bundle of dead pigeons… and a note.”

“What?!” Zeke snatched the bloodied note and read the content aloud.

“She will never be yours, Kai Dickhead. Neither will the throne nor redemption. You should have killed me when you had the chance.”