Betrayed and Claimed by the Lycan King Chapter 271

Ezra's POV

I was left standing alone outside her door, staring at the nameplate that shouldn't have existed. *Lillian Torres.* The woman I had buried five years ago. The woman I had mourned. The woman whose death had nearly destroyed me.

Every instinct screamed at me to turn around, to walk out of this hospital and pretend this nightmare wasn't happening. But then I remembered the doctor's words—she had been crying. That image stopped me cold. Whatever had happened to her, wherever she had been for five years, she was suffering.

I forced my hand to the door handle and pushed it open.

The moment I stepped inside, her scent hit me like a physical blow. I froze, my body going rigid as every memory associated with that pheromone signature flooded back.

Fuck. It was definitely her.

I closed my eyes, remembering how her scent used to drive me wild. How I would catch just a trace of it and lose all rational thought, my body going into overdrive, desperate to find her, to hold her, to claim her. It had been like a drug—intoxicating, addictive, overwhelming. I used to follow that scent through crowded rooms, through busy streets, like a man possessed.

But now? Now it was just... there. Present. Familiar. Like expensive perfume in a department store—recognizable but completely unremarkable. It confirmed she had been mine once, confirmed our history, but it didn't make my heart race or my pulse quicken. It didn't make me want to drop to my knees and worship at her feet.

Not like Isolde's scent did.

*Damn it!* Why was I thinking about her right now?

But I couldn't help it. Isolde's pheromones ignited something primal in me that Lillian's once had, but stronger, more intense. They made my wolf howl with need, made my hands shake with the effort not to reach for her. Just the memory of her scent made my chest tight with longing.

"Alpha Ezra."

Lillian's voice, soft and broken, pulled me back to the present. I opened my eyes and forced myself to move toward her hospital bed, pushing all thoughts of Isolde aside. I needed to focus.

As I got closer, her scent grew stronger, and I paid careful attention to my body's response. Nothing. No flutter of recognition from Prime, no surge of protective instinct, no desperate need to comfort her.

*Complete emptiness.*

"The doctor told me you woke up," I said, keeping my voice level and professional.

Looking at her now, I could see she had been crying. Her cheeks were flushed, her lashes damp, her eyes puffy and red. She looked so small in that hospital bed, pale and fragile. The bruises covering her skin were healing slower than they should—a side effect of losing her wolf, I assumed. She had always been thin, but now she looked almost skeletal, like she had lost significant weight.

What the hell had happened to her? Where had she been for five years?

I clenched my jaw, forcing myself not to ask those questions. Not yet. She needed time to adjust to being safe. When she was ready, she would tell me everything. And when she did, I swore on my pack that everyone who had hurt her would pay.

"Yes, I woke up," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

"And you've been crying."

She looked down at her hands, and I could see her shoulders starting to shake. "I... I'm sorry I... I was scared."

I moved closer to the bed, intending to sit down and offer some comfort. My suit jacket rustled softly as I leaned forward, preparing to lower myself onto the mattress.

Lillian scrambled backward, pressing herself against the headboard, her arms flying up to cover her face as if she expected me to strike her. "Please don't hurt me," she sobbed.

The words hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest, shattering something deep inside me. My heart stopped, then started again with painful irregularity. She thought I was going to hit her. She was cowering from me like I was some kind of monster.

Someone had been abusing her. Someone had been hurting her so systematically, so thoroughly, that her first instinct when anyone approached was to protect herself from violence.

"Lillian," I said, using the calmest, most soothing tone I could manage. I gently took her arms and lowered them from her face. "Relax," I coaxed. "I won't hurt you. I would never do that, you know that."

She was trembling all over, tears streaming down her cheeks, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

"I'm sorry," she hiccupped. "It's just... it's just..." She couldn't finish the sentence.

"Shh..." I interrupted, finally sitting on the edge of the bed and taking her shaking hands in mine. "It's okay. You don't have to explain. I understand."

I reached up and cupped her tear-stained face, gently wiping away the moisture with my thumbs. The gesture felt mechanical, like I was going through the motions of comfort without feeling it.

"I know you'd never hurt me," she whispered. "It's just... I've been through so much. Every little thing scares me now."

I wanted to ask what had happened. I wanted to demand answers, to know who had done this to her so I could hunt them down and make them suffer. But I could see she was barely holding herself together. Pushing for details now would only make her cry harder.

Besides, there was a question burning in my mind that I couldn't ignore: Was I destined to fail every woman I was supposed to protect? First Lillian had disappeared and been tortured for five years. Now Isolde had run from me because of my own controlling, possessive behavior.

What kind of mate was I if I couldn't keep the women I loved safe?

"You're safe now," I told her, looking directly into her eyes, willing her to believe me. "I promise you, no one will ever hurt you again. Silver Moon Group's protection, my protection—you have it all."

"Thank you, Ezra," she breathed.

Then she did something that caught me completely off guard. She leaned into me, nestling her head against my chest, settling into my embrace like she belonged there.

My body went rigid. My heart started pounding, but not with desire or love—with wrongness. Every muscle in my body screamed that this was not right, that I shouldn't have been there, that this wasn't where I belonged.

I mechanically wrapped my arms around her, going through the motions of comfort, but inside I was screaming.

*This felt completely wrong. I shouldn't have been there.*

And then, unbidden, Isolde's face flashed through my mind. Her smile, her laugh, the way she challenged me, the way she made me want to be better. The guilt crashed over me like a tidal wave, cold and merciless.

I was holding another woman while my heart belonged entirely to someone else. Someone who was probably settling into that villa right now, someone who had no idea that the past I thought was buried had just crawled out of its grave to complicate everything.

Fuck.