Vanished Sisters: The Lycan King's Slave Island Chapter 203

Mordred's POV

The view from the battlements was worse than I'd imagined.

I stood on the high walls of Howling Citadel, the cold wind cutting through my blood-stained clothes, and watched as my kingdom turned against me. Fergus stood to my left, his face carved from stone, arms crossed over his chest. Gregor was on my right, and the silence between us was thick enough to choke on.

The crowd had grown exponentially in the few hours since we'd returned from the battlefield. What had started as a few hundred angry citizens outside the gates had swelled into thousands. They filled the open ground before the citadel, spilling out along the roads like a dark, seething mass. Torches flickered in the gathering dusk, casting dancing shadows that made the crowd look even larger, more menacing.

And they were still coming.

I could see them in the distance—more people streaming in from the surrounding settlements, drawn by Sebastian's riders and the promise of witnessing their King's judgment.

"How many now?" I asked, my voice rough from the day's events.

Fergus didn't look at me, his eyes fixed on the crowd below. "At least five thousand. Maybe more. The count keeps rising."

Gregor let out a harsh breath through his nose but said nothing. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.

Below us, the chanting had begun again, rhythmic and relentless, like the beating of war drums.

"Remember who our enemies are!"

"Remember who our enemies are!"

"Remember who our enemies are!"

The words hammered at my skull, each repetition like a physical blow. I gripped the stone parapet, feeling the rough texture bite into my palms, using the pain to anchor myself.

These were my people. The people I'd fought for, bled for, nearly died for. The people I'd spent the last months trying to protect and lead back to some semblance of order after two decades of my madness.

And they were calling for the death of my mate.

"We've had to pull two full companies inside the walls," Gregor said finally, his voice tight and controlled. Too controlled. "Captain Vane reports the outer perimeter is barely holding. Three incidents in the last hour of civilians trying to rush the gates."

I watched as a group of soldiers below struggled to push back a surge of people pressing toward the entrance. The crowd was like a living thing, pulsing, testing the defenses, looking for weakness.

"If this continues through the night..." Gregor trailed off, but we all knew what he meant.

If the crowd turned truly violent, if they decided to storm the citadel, we'd have to choose between defending ourselves and slaughtering our own people.

"No human can be Queen!" The new chant rose up, louder than before, more vicious.

"No human can be Queen!"

"No human can be Queen!"

I closed my eyes briefly, trying to block out the sound, but it was impossible. The hatred in those voices was palpable, a living thing that seemed to seep through the very stones of the citadel.

"They're organized," Fergus observed quietly. "Someone's coordinating them. Feeding them these chants, keeping them focused."

"Sebastian," I said flatly.

"Obviously." Gregor's voice was sharp, bitter. "His riders have been spreading word all afternoon. By tomorrow morning, we'll have ten thousand people here. Maybe more."

There was something in his tone that made me turn to look at him. His hands were clenched into fists on the stone parapet, his knuckles white.

"Say what you're thinking," I said.

Gregor didn't look at me. For a long moment, he just stared down at the crowd, his jaw working. When he finally spoke, his voice was dangerously quiet.

"I'm thinking about the decision I made three months ago," he said. "When you sent word that you'd recovered your sanity. When you asked for my support in rebuilding the kingdom."

He turned to face me, and I saw something in his eyes that made my chest tighten. Not anger. Not yet. Something colder. Calculation.

"I brought five hundred of my best warriors," he continued. "I committed my resources, my reputation, my political capital. I stood beside you in council meetings and told the other lords that you were fit to rule again. That the madness was behind you."

"And I'm grateful—" I started, but he cut me off.

"I took a risk," he said, his voice hardening. "A significant risk. Because supporting a King who'd spent decades in bestial madness wasn't exactly a popular position. But I believed in you. I believed you could lead us back to stability."

He gestured at the crowd below, at the chaos, at the torches and the chanting and the barely-contained violence.

"This," he said, "is not stability."

"Gregor—"

"When did you know?" he asked, turning to Fergus. "When did you realize she was his mate?"

Fergus's expression didn't change, but I saw his shoulders tense slightly.

"When the King first regained his sanity," Fergus said quietly. "About three months ago."

The silence that followed was deafening. Even the chanting from below seemed to fade into the background.

"Three months," Gregor repeated slowly. "You've known for three months."

"Yes."

"And in all that time—" Gregor's voice was still quiet, still controlled, but I could hear the fury building beneath it. "—in all the conversations we've had, all the planning sessions, all the discussions about the King's recovery and the kingdom's future, you never once thought to mention that he had a human mate?"

"It wasn't relevant—" Fergus started.

"Not relevant?" Gregor's control finally cracked. "Not relevant? I brought my forces here based on incomplete information! I committed to supporting a King without knowing that he'd formed a mate bond with a human! Do you have any idea what that means?"

"I was protecting the King," Fergus said, his voice still maddeningly calm. "When he first recovered, his position was precarious. His mind was fragile, his control tenuous. If word had gotten out that he had a human mate—"

"So you decided to keep me in the dark," Gregor interrupted. "You decided that I didn't need to know this crucial piece of information when I was making my decision about whether to support him."

"Your support was necessary—"

"My support was based on a lie!" Gregor's voice rose now, echoing off the stone walls.