Vanished Sisters: The Lycan King's Slave Island Chapter 151

Natasha's POV

The days on Ashclaw blurred together in a monotonous rhythm of labor and exhaustion.

We'd been assigned to one of Lord Fergus's subordinate overseers—a stern Lycan woman named Ingrid who managed a household of about thirty human servants. The work was varied but manageable: mending clothes, weaving simple cloth on hand looms, tending the vegetable gardens, hauling water, scrubbing floors. The kind of domestic labor that kept our hands busy from dawn until dusk.

But at least we were safe. No one here tried to kill us. No one looked at us with hunger or cruelty in their eyes. We were just three more human slaves among dozens, unremarkable and unimportant.

It should have been a relief.

Instead, it felt like a prison.

I sat on a low stool in the sewing room, my needle moving mechanically through the fabric of a torn shirt, but my mind was elsewhere. It had been five days since we'd arrived on Ashclaw.Five days since I'd learned the impossible truth.

Mordred was alive.

The news had spread through the servant quarters like wildfire. Whispered conversations, excited gossip, disbelieving exclamations. The King had transformed back into his human form right in the middle of his own execution.

My first reaction had been overwhelming relief. He was alive. He hadn't been executed. The man I loved still walked this earth.

But that relief had quickly given way to a different kind of pain.

Because if Mordred was restored, if he was truly himself again, why hadn't he come for me?

Five days. Five days he'd been human, and not a word. Not a message, not a summons, nothing.

Maybe he didn't remember me. The servants who'd brought the news said the King had no memory of his time as the beast. Seventy years, gone like a dream. If that was true, then our time together—the feeding, the connection I'd felt, the bond I'd been so certain existed between us—all of it was lost to him.

Or maybe he did remember, and I simply hadn't mattered. Maybe I was just another human slave, forgettable and insignificant.

The thought made my chest ache with a pain that had nothing to do with physical injury.

"You're thinking about him again," Davelina said quietly from her position at the loom across the room. It wasn't a question.

I wanted to deny it, to tell her she was wrong, but what was the point? She knew me too well.

"No," I said anyway, my voice flat as I focused intently on my stitching. "I'm not."

Davelina gave me a look that said she didn't believe me for a second. "You're lying."

"I'm not," I insisted, pulling my thread too tight and puckering the fabric. "I'm just trying to work."

"Right," Davelina said, but there was something in her voice—a slight tremor, a hint of defensiveness—that made me look up.

Her cheeks were flushed, and she was staring at her weaving with unusual intensity.

"What about you?" I asked, setting down my sewing. "Are you thinking about Lord Fergus?"

"No," Davelina said quickly. Too quickly. "Of course not. Why would I be thinking about him?"

"Because you fed him your milk and saved his life?" I suggested. "Because you spent hours in his chambers doing god knows what while he recovered from the wolfsbane poisoning?"

"We didn't do anything," Davelina protested, her face growing even redder. "I just... I fed him. That's all. It was purely medicinal."

"Right. Medicinal."

"It was!"

We stared at each other for a moment, and despite everything—despite the fear and uncertainty and grief—I felt a small smile tug at my lips.

"We're both terrible liars," I said.

"The worst," Davelina agreed, and she smiled back, though it didn't quite reach her eyes.

We returned to our work in silence, but the unspoken truth hung between us. We were both thinking about them. About the Lycan lords who had claimed pieces of us we hadn't meant to give. About the impossible connections that had formed despite every reason they shouldn't exist.

And we were both wondering if those connections had meant anything at all.

Lucy, who'd been quietly darning socks in the corner, suddenly looked up.

"Natasha," she said quietly, glancing toward the doorway to make sure no one else was listening. "I need to tell you something."

The seriousness in her tone made me set down my sewing. "What is it?"

Lucy moved closer, lowering her voice to barely above a whisper. "Lord Fergus's men have been asking questions about you. Lots of questions. They've been talking to everyone who worked with you at Howling Citadel, asking about your behavior, your duties, who you spent time with."

My heart began to race. "What kind of questions?"

"Everything," Lucy said, her eyes wide with concern. "How long you'd been at the citadel, what work you did, whether you ever acted strangely or differently from the other servants. They asked me too, yesterday. Wanted to know if I'd ever noticed anything unusual about you."

"What did you tell them?" I asked, my voice tight with fear.

"Nothing!" Lucy said quickly. "I mean, I told them you were always kind to me, that you worked hard, that you seemed like a normal servant boy. But , they were very thorough. Very... intense. Like they were looking for something specific."

"Did they say why they were asking?" Davelina interjected, her face pale.

"No, but—" Lucy started.

The door to the sewing room suddenly opened, and we all jumped.

A soldier stood in the doorway, wearing Lord Fergus's colors. His eyes scanned the room and landed on me.

"You," he said, pointing directly at me. "Nathan. You've been summoned to Lord Fergus's private residence. Come with me. Now."

My blood turned to ice. Lucy's warning, the questions, and now this summons—it couldn't be a coincidence.

"What?" I managed, my voice barely steady. "Why? What does he want with me?"

"That's not my concern," the soldier said curtly. "My orders are to bring you to him immediately. Don't keep Lord Fergus waiting."

I looked at Lucy desperately, silently begging her to tell me what else Fergus's men had asked, what they might know. But she just stared back at me with frightened eyes, unable to speak with the soldier standing right there.

Davelina's hand found mine under the table, squeezing so tight it hurt.

"Go," she whispered urgently. "It'll be alright. Just... be careful what you say."

I nodded, my throat too tight to speak, and stood on shaking legs.

The soldier gestured impatiently for me to follow, and I did, my mind spinning with possibilities and fears.

What did Fergus know? What had his investigation uncovered? Had someone discovered my secret?

As we walked through the compound toward what I assumed was Lord Fergus's private residence, I tried to prepare myself for whatever was coming. Tried to think of explanations, excuses, ways to protect my secret if it had been discovered.