Fated To Three, And I Broke Them All

Verity:

I flinched as the lycan came at me. My body reacted before my mind could.

I stumbled backward, and my heel caught on something on the ground, sending me down hard.

Pain shot through my hip as my palms scraped against the rough earth.

Then he landed right on top of me.

I sucked in a sharp breath and threw my arms over my face, curling into myself as his heavy weight came down on me.

But before it could fully crush me, the weight suddenly disappeared.

Something struck him from the side.

The lycan was ripped away from me so violently that his body flew through the air before crashing into the ground several feet away.

I stayed where I was, too shocked to move.

For a second, I couldn’t even lower my arms.

My chest rose and fell rapidly as I dragged in one deep breath after another.

Then I slowly pulled my arms away from my face and lifted my head.

Someone was standing between us.

My hands pressed into the dirt as I pushed myself up.

I looked at the man, and my breath caught all over again.

The Fox King.

It was him.

He was real this time.

I actually touched my scalp and the back of my head, making sure I hadn’t hit it and passed out.

Because last time, I’d tried to convince myself that maybe I’d lost consciousness and dreamed the whole thing.

But no.

This time, he was right in front of me.

The same man who had appeared before.

The same man who had saved me in these very woods.

Above him, the eclipse had begun swallowing the moon, darkness slowly creeping across its surface.

And there he stood beneath it.

The remaining moonlight slipped through the branches and fell over him, making him look so majestic that, for a moment, I could only stare.

I swallowed, still struggling to catch my breath as I remembered what he’d told me last time.

That he would find me again.

And that we were mates.

The lycan got up, snarled, and charged at him.

The Fox King didn’t move until the last second. He stepped aside, caught the lycan by the neck, and threw him against a tree.

The trunk shook from the impact, but the lycan was back on his feet almost immediately.

He lunged again, his claws swinging for the Fox King’s chest. The Fox King leaned back, letting them miss him by inches.

The lycan struck again and again, and the entire time, the Fox King blocked every attempt with either his hand or his fan.

Then he caught the lycan’s wrist and carefully twisted his arm before slicing it with the sharp edge of his fan.

The lycan roared and swung harder.

But that was the thing.

He was fighting like a monster.

The Fox King wasn’t.

I’d thought the lycan was the most powerful and monstrous thing out there, but what the fuck was the Fox King?

He looked like he was barely even trying to win.

The lycan finally grabbed him by the collar, his other arm trying to wrap around his body, but the Fox King was no smaller being.

He immediately snapped his fan open again, slicing the lycan from the middle of his stomach all the way up to his neck.

Then he kicked him, sending the lycan flying backward.

The Fox King lunged after him.

At this point, they had moved too far away for me to see them clearly. But I could still hear everything.

Trees shook and branches snapped somewhere in the distance, mixed with snarls, growls, and the sounds of their bodies crashing through the woods.

I couldn’t move.

Something had caught my attention, something I hadn’t noticed last time.

The Fox King didn’t look like a fox at all.

He had a tail.

And this time, I’d seen it clearly enough to know that it didn’t resemble a fox’s tail.

It looked more like a werewolf’s.

I couldn’t see any other part of his body beneath everything he wore, but from what little I’d managed to catch during the fight, he looked almost half-human and half-transitioned wolf.

So why the Fox King?

What was the lore behind it?

As I was thinking about all that, a blood-curdling scream tore through the woods.

The lycan.

He sounded like he was in pain.

I ran toward the sound. At this point, my jacket was all torn, leaving my legs bare. The branches had left scratches all over them.

I came to an abrupt stop when I saw the two of them.

The Fox King was on the ground, one knee planted firmly on the lycan’s chest, pinning him beneath his weight.

They had both gone completely still.

But there was fear in the lycan’s eyes.

Then those eyes shifted toward me.

Right in front of me, his face started to change. The monstrous features slowly faded as his human face emerged.

Roman.

My boyfriend.

I couldn’t believe that all this time, I’d been dating a lycan.

The crazy psychopath who had been stalking me all this time was also a fucking lycan.

Why had he picked me specifically?

I had no clue.

It seemed like I had a tendency to get myself into very messy situations with powerful men.

He stared at me, his eyes softening.

"Verity," he uttered.

Hearing my name from him sent goosebumps across my skin.

His hand trembled as he raised it toward me, silently asking for help.

I stared at his outstretched hand for a few seconds before slowly shaking my head.

"No," I voiced.

Roman’s expression changed.

I didn’t know why he looked so shocked.

A snarl tore from his throat, and his face immediately began shifting back.

His features twisted as the monster took over again, his teeth baring at me.

The Fox King didn’t hesitate anymore.

He pressed the sharp edge of his fan against the side of Roman’s head and forced it sideways with so much strength that his neck snapped.