Chapter 6 The Secrets of the Crown

Lyra

It was the king's eyes and crown that held me. His eyes were an unnatural combination of gold and silver. And the crown on his head looked like a ring of polished ice.

Beneath his photograph was his title and a short description.

HIS MAJESTY KING MALACHI CAIN LUCIEN

King of the Sovereign Crown Pack

Supreme Leader of the Supreme Alpha Council

Geneva, Switzerland

A note beneath the photograph caught my attention.

His Majesty is depicted wearing the Unwearable Platinum Crown, adorned with small pieces of Musgravite.

Platinum Crown?

No human could ever wear a crown made entirely of pure platinum. Platinum was incredibly dense and heavy—about sixty percent heavier than gold and several times heavier than titanium.

For a Lycan king to wear one effortlessly, even in a formal portrait, was more than a display of wealth.

It was a display of power.

He certainly looked regal. He also looked absolutely terrifying.

I swallowed. So this was the Lycan who had just demanded a third of our land.

I kept reading.

The Lucien dynasty had ruled the High Lycans for centuries.

Their exact territory was classified. Their military strength was classified. Their population was classified.

Almost everything about them was classified.

I opened another page.

LYCAN PHYSIOLOGY

Unlike werewolves, Lycans possessed the ability to remain bipedal even in their shifted forms. Their physical strength, healing abilities, intelligence, and sensory perception far surpassed those of ordinary werewolves. They even possessed the rare ability to mute their scent, making them nearly impossible to track by smell.

Then I reached the section about their aura.

A sufficiently powerful Lycan may exert dominance over ordinary wolves through aura alone.

Exposure may result in disorientation, involuntary submission, loss of motor control, hallucinations, psychosis, or permanent neurological damage.

I leaned back.

Dad's Alpha aura at dinner suddenly seemed insignificant.

I continued reading.

The Council and the Crown maintained their own military force called...

THE CROWN SENTINELS

They weren't merely police. They were trained Lycan warriors authorized to enforce Council decrees across every recognized territory.

Their orders were absolute.

Their primary purpose was to suppress rebellions, enforce territorial decrees, and eliminate threats to the Crown.

Silver weapons were authorized.

I stopped breathing for a second.

Silver.

Even the strongest werewolves could be killed by it.

I searched for something else.

TRIBUTE SYSTEM

Every recognized pack paid taxes to the Council.

Agricultural packs paid crops. Mining territories paid ore. Industrial territories paid manufactured goods. Wealthier packs paid additional monetary tribute.

In return, the Crown guaranteed protection against rogues and other creatures that threatened wolfkind.

It sounded reasonable. Until I found the historical records.

TERRITORIAL TRANSFERS

I clicked. Pack after pack appeared.

Some had surrendered land willingly. Others had been stripped of their territories following what the Council called acts of defiance.

I clicked on one. The pack no longer existed.

Another. Absorbed by the Crown.

Another. Population redistributed.

The Council wasn't a government. It was an empire.

I searched for the Crown Prince.

The results loaded. And there he was.

KHAELYAN CILLIAN M. LUCIEN

His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Khaelyan Cillian M. Lucien

Heir Apparent to the Sovereign Crown

First Son of King Malachi Cain Lucien

Direct descendant of the Lucien Royal Bloodline

An official photograph appeared. The young man stood beside his father.

He was tall. Impossibly composed.

His features were striking, almost unnaturally perfect. But it was his eyes that caught my attention.

Unlike his father's unusual gold-and-silver eyes, the Crown Prince's were completely silver.

I stared at the photograph for several seconds.

There was something unsettling about him. Something cold.

I clicked through the available records.

His age. Older than Jax.

His education. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Smart.

His military record made me pause. Commander. Pilot. Sniper.

I raised an eyebrow.

Okay. So the Crown Prince wasn't exactly sitting around learning how to wave from a balcony.

I continued scrolling.

His appearances at Council ceremonies. Military functions. Diplomatic gatherings. State occasions.

Everything was meticulously documented.

Except his mother.

I typed: Queen Lucien

Nothing.

I rolled my shoulders in frustration and searched again using different combinations.

No name. No photograph. No marriage record. No birth announcement. Not even an obituary.

It was as if the woman had never existed.

I scoffed. "I doubt someone like you was born out of thin air. There has to be something about your mother."

I searched for mating ceremony photographs of King Malachi and historical records mentioning a Queen Consort. Nothing.

I finally gave up and leaned back in my chair.

Something about it bothered me. Not just the missing mother. The entire history of the Lycans felt strangely incomplete.

Why in the world didn't Winterwood Prep ever discuss this? Why wasn't there even a chapter in our history books about the Lycan monarchy? And why didn't my father tell me sooner?"

"Not all wolves should know about the past," my wolf, Astra, spoke quietly through my mind, "and not all wolves should be reminded of it."

"You mean the Ascension War, right?" I stared at the screen.

Astra was silent.

"Why?" I pressed. "What happened, Astra?"

She didn't respond.

I needed answers so I typed: ASCENSION WAR

The results appeared. There was surprisingly little information.

According to the official historical record, the Ascension War was a decade-long conflict between the ancient werewolf hierarchy and the emerging Lycan monarchy.

The first Lycan King had defeated the Twelve Great Alphas of Werekind and established the Sovereign Crown, bringing an end to years of conflict between the two races.

That was it.

No details. No explanation of how twelve Great Alphas had fallen. No description of the final battle. No mention of what happened to their packs.

Just a carefully worded summary of a war that had apparently changed the entire world.

I frowned. "Astra, why is this all I can find?"

Her answer came quietly. “Because the official record was never meant to tell you everything.”

I sat up. "What do you mean?"

"You won't find the old stories on that screen."

My fingers hovered above the keyboard. "Then where?"

There was a long pause.

"In your family's cabin at the edge of the territory."

I glanced toward the darkness beyond my window. "Where my grandfather's things are kept?" I paused. "What am I looking for?"

Astra's voice became almost a whisper. "The Book of Werewolf History."

"How do you know about this?"

"Your grandfather told us when we were pups."

I slowly closed my laptop, walked to the window and looked outside. The winter forest stretched beneath the moonlight, dark and silent.

I raised my eyes.

The moon was enormous...

And red.

A Blood Moon.

For some reason, Astra stirred beneath my skin.

Somewhere beyond the glass, beyond the snow-covered trees and frozen fields of Aurelia Moon, I felt it.

A pull.

Magnetic. Strong.

As though something—or someone—was calling my wolf by name.

Astra pressed against my consciousness, restless and impatient.

"Let me out."

I groaned. "Fine."

I grabbed my backpack from inside my closet. I always kept a change of clothes packed for emergencies. Living in wolf territory meant you never knew when an unexpected shift might happen.

I slipped out of my socks.

Time to shift.