The Forbidden Wolf King: Kings of Avalier, Book 4(26)

He looked down at me and after yesterday’s emotional exchange I wasn’t prepared to see the mask of anger that was displayed there.

I sucked in a breath at the sight and he gritted his jaw and moved to walk past me. I stepped to the side, matching his movements but getting in his way. His nostrils flared and pure unbridled rage roiled through him. I could feel it.

How dare he.

“You have no right to be mad at me,” I seethed, holding his dominant gaze.

“You didn’t even let me speak,” he managed through clenched teeth.

I scoffed. “And what could you possibly say that would explain how you just walked away from me? After all the promises you made.”

He looked farther down the hallway where footsteps could be heard and then reached out, yanking me by the shoulders and pulling me into an open doorway.

I growled but allowed him to shuffle me into a room and shut the door. I peered around to see that we were in some kind of library. Books lined dark wooden floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

He rushed forward then, zooming into my face with as much anger as I’d had during our last exchange. Dark circles marred his skin and I wondered if he’d slept last night. “You’re not serious about me walking away, right? You had to have known that it was against my will.”

I scoffed, looking at him like he’d grown two heads. “Against your will? The second your brother showed up and started to call me trash, you shut down and walked away without a fight …”

As soon as I said it out loud, it hit me. Why in Hades had I never thought of it before? His brother was king at the time and therefore had the gift that every wolven king had …

“He controlled you.” I said it with complete shock, feeling badly for how I’d treated him, thinking for all those years that he’d walked away willingly.

“Yes,” he said through gritted teeth, “and never permitted me to return to the summer camp. I can’t believe you would think that I left you like that.”

My heart hammered in my chest at his words, and some part of me, deep down inside, healed. He didn’t leave me. He was taken away from me. There was a difference.

Axil leaned his forehead against mine, like he used to when we were kids. “How could you ever think I’d willingly spend even one day away from you?”

I whimpered then, feeling my own breakdown just beneath the surface.

“My lord!” someone shouted in the hallway, the sound muffled by the closed door.

Axil growled and stepped away from me. I spun, giving him my back just as the door opened. I had to bite my lip to keep from falling into a fit of sobs right there.

“I have an urgent matter that needs your attention, sir,” a male voice said from outside.

Axil hesitated, probably looking at me and waiting for my reaction.

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Axil said.

“My lord, it’s extremely urgent,” the guard pressed. “We have news of war.”

My wolf bristled at that.

War?

Axil reached for me, grasping my shoulders. “Let’s talk later. I’m not done with you.”

I’m not done with you. There was more. Of course there was. There was five years of absence to explain.

Footsteps fell away from me and then the door shut. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Collapsing to the ground I burst into cries reminiscent of the night Axil left me. Fat hot tears fell down my cheeks as I relived what I’d said to him last night. How I’d squarely placed all the blame on him.

He was taken. Forced to leave. It made sense, how he’d shut down as soon as his brother caught us lying together in the grass and kissing. He had been so emotionless I thought he was embarrassed to be found with me, but now I knew he was under the control of the king. A power that Axil now carried in his veins, to render any one of the wolven under his complete control, like a puppet.

That’s what Ansel did to him.

This was all too much to process so quickly. Axil had pined for me this entire time and was held against his will from seeing me?

It was crazy. Surely not for five years?

I cried so hard then. I cried for all the years I’d blamed him, for all the kisses that were stolen from us. The shock of this new information seeped deeply into the very core of my being.

He didn’t leave. But staying away for five years? He’d been king for two. Why not come for me then? I had so many questions but I was too overwhelmed to deal with them. Sucking back my tears, I wiped at my eyes and stood, forcing myself to get it together.

I was going into a doubles fight soon, I needed to stay strong.

No matter what happened with Axil and I when we were kids, it didn’t change the fact that we were different people now. I wasn’t that same love-drunk young wolf he fell for. Life had hardened me, and so had our break-up, whether he intended it to or not.

Taking a steadying breath, I left the library and found my way back to the tents outside. Cyrus was waiting for me and we ran over some drills as I threw myself into my training, pushing everything I’d just learned deep down inside of me.

I couldn’t deal with it right now; it would make me emotional and emotions made you weak. I’d learned that the advisors had agreed to pair Eliza and me up against Ivanna and Charlize and that the fight was tomorrow morning, and so Eliza came by with her coach and we trained together in wolf form first, then in human.