Lycan's Affection
The Jade of Love and Betrayal

"That is a lie," Conaan said suddenly, his fists clenching, the dark veins of his forehead popping. "You and your daughter are incorrigible liars, Anderson. A scroll? By my father? I was the one who saw his wolf leave his body. I saw his human take his last breath. How dare you talk about last words with me?"

Anderson walked the small distance between them, his eyes set in determination. Conaan met him, his height already intimidating, his hand clenched into a fist.

"Then surely, if you are really that good a son, you would recognize your father's writing."

Conaan squinted, and without a word, stretched his hand to Lucas. Lucas immediately gave him the scroll, and Conaan brought it to his eye level, before opening it.

The strokes of the ink were light, graceful, and in royal cursive. The same cursive only King Javier himself had been able to teach him because no one else knew how to draw strokes so light.

"King Javier saw how infatuated Eleanor has made you. And in fact, his sickness, at first, was nothing but a ploy to get you to take Esmeralda as a wife. When you refused due to her own mistake..."

"Mistake?" Conaan interjected, just as Eleanor stood, her eyes filling up.

It was one thing to know her mistakes had come between her and the man she had been mated to, but for her to realize there had been a lot more...

"Esmeralda made no mistakes. She never does make a mistake. Whether it was trying to pin the pregnancy from her mate on me by tricking me into a night with her, rejecting her mate for a prince or setting the children's village on fire. None of it was a mistake!" He hauled the scroll over Anderson's head, causing the man to move immediately.

The council immediately broke into hushed whispers, some talking about how Esmeralda set the village on fire, others more concerned with Conaan's disrespect of a late king's sacred last words.

"Your highness! Those are the words of a late king and your father!" One of the council members said, running to the fallen scroll. "You should not disrespect it that way."

"You shall not tell me what to do," Conaan replied through gritted teeth, then closed his eyes, trying to keep his anger in check.

He rarely got as angry, and he knew what he was capable of when he did.

Silence reigned for a long minute, and he turned slowly to Eleanor. She had her head lowered, her lips slightly parted.

"Eleanor," he said, his eyes thin.

She looked up to him, her eyes opening up.

"Take my hand."

She turned to the council members, then at her uncle who was still fuming, his lips slightly trembling.

"I said, take my hand." Conaan's voice was firm, and low, the sort of low that told her he was struggling to keep himself in check for her.

Slowly, she covered the small distance, then placed her hand in his. His hand was warm, maybe from the anger or the rush of blood, but it felt warm.

She met his eyes for a brief moment before he turned away, then started to make his way out of the grand hall.

"Will your opinion change if you come to know that King Javier himself had paid for Meredith to sever the mate bond on Eleanor's part?"

Eleanor stopped even before Conaan did, and turned swiftly. Anderson had turned to them too, and he held a small truimphant smile.

"What did you say?" Eleanor asked, her voice shaky, the dam that held her tears back breaking down.

"King Javier, on the night Conaan found you to be his mate, sent for Meredith once he got back from the temple. He asked her to sever it. To sever whatever it is that has you bound to his son. To let you go loose. Because Conaan's was too strong, they could only sever it from your part, because you were already wandering, exchanging amorous letters with a werewolf."

"Anderson!"

"Yes, Conaan. Would you not be interested to know what happened to his most priced jade? He gave it to Meredith. He gave it to me to deliver it all the way to the seven crescent hills where Meredith lives!"

Eleanor's hand slipped away from Conaan's, her eyes reddening. Conaan turned to her, his resolve breaking inside.

It all added up. Conaan had found his mate that night at the temple, with his father, the beta and gamma as witnesses. And the same crew had accompanied him to the beta's house the next night.

He remembered asking King Javier where his jade had gone, seeing how dear it was to him, since Conaan's mother had gifted it to him after their mate bond was officially sealed.

King Javier had waved it off. Turns out...

"How do you expect me to believe that nonsense? Sever a mate bond? What do you think it is? A string?"

"That is infact, what it is, Conaan and Meredith, everyone here knows her. She is the closest to the moon goddess. Her own sorceress. It had been quite easy. She severed it, and the scar on your face given to you by your own mate, is a proof of her work."

Conaan felt his heart fall. If the mate bond was severed on Eleanor's end, had he been holding on to a string with no end? With no one on the other side?

Had he been sifting through the clouds with no one to break his fall?

He blinked, his chest slightly heaving. "Bring Meredith to me."

Anderson gave a small chuckle. "I knew you would say that, so I brought her myself."

Eleanor looked towards the entrance, her vision of everything blurred. The scar, everything...is that why she had been able to leave?

It wasn't that Conaan had carried her own share of the mate bond, it was just that she didn't have it at all.

It broke her in more pieces than anything else.

"Your highness. Meredith is here."

Conaan closed his eyes, then turned to the woman. She was a smallish woman, with blank white eyes, and the crescent on her forehead. Her lips broke into a small smile.

"I have not seen you for a long while, your highness."

Conaan didn't reply, his eyes catching a familiar sight on her right thumb.

His very own father's jade.