The Play-Toy Of Three Lycan Kings-Chapter 401: Marked

ADAM

I sat beside the bed and watched her breathe.

The room had gone quiet after the priest and doctor left, the incense fading into something softer, something almost intimate. The only sound was Sage’s steady inhale and exhale, the faint rustle of sheets when she shifted.

I lowered myself slowly onto the chair near the bed, then found I couldn’t stay there. Restlessness drove me closer, until I was perched on the edge, elbows on my knees, hands clasped so tightly my knuckles whitened.

Could it be? Could my wolf be right all this time?

The question slid through my mind like a blade, fanning the flames of restlessness within me.

Could it be? Could it really be? Oh gods...

Could Sage be the one I had been circling all these years without knowing it? Could she be the answer to a longing that had never truly gone quiet, no matter how hard I tried to bury it beneath duty and conquest and crowns?

My gaze traced her face—the curve of her cheek, the faint crease between her brows even in sleep, as if she carried her worries with her into dreams.

There was power in her stillness, something coiled and waiting, like a storm pretending to be calm.

Maya.

The name surfaced without permission.

I remembered the first time I had noticed her. It had been at a gathering, all noise and laughter and careless wealth, and she had stood out not because she was loud, but because she wasn’t.

Too young, too quiet, watching everything with eyes that missed nothing. Before she was sixteen. Before the test. Before the verdict that she carried no wolfgene and therefore no worth, at least not in our cruel hierarchy.

I had felt it then—a tug, barely there but insistent. Attraction I had no right to feel. I had allowed it, until the doctor’s declaration.

Then, I had stomped it down hard, ashamed of it, afraid of it. And when the bullying started, when my brothers joined in, I had followed. Cowardice dressed up as conformity.

Even then, we couldn’t stay away from her.

She had all three of us circling her without understanding why. We called it mockery. We called it boredom. But looking back now, with the benefit of pain and time, I knew better.

We had deadened something precious with cruelty because we didn’t know how to name it.

The memory shifted—sunlight on water, laughter, the way my breath had caught when I saw her in a bikini that day. The want had been immediate, fierce, possessive.

I had kissed her like a starving man, had wanted more, had taken more than I should have.

I remembered the way she had trembled, the way she had trusted me, the way her eyes had searched my face afterward in the cave, waiting for something I hadn’t known how to give.

When she was accused, when she was dragged away, I had wanted to fight. Gods, I had. But hesitation had cost me everything. She had vanished from the cells, leaving behind nothing but madness and guilt.

I had torn the pack apart looking for her.

Then Dora.

A year later, she had walked into my life like a blade wrapped in silk. Not feisty, not pliant—guarded, angry, distant. She had hated me and my brothers with a passion that felt earned, even when I hadn’t understood why.

And yet the pull had been there again, undeniable, relentless. I had chipped away at her defenses without realizing what I was even doing.

When she disappeared—when she was found nearly dead in the council hall where I had left her to answer my father—I had felt something break inside me.

War had followed. The fragile truce with the witches had shattered. And again, she had been taken from me before I could make anything right.

Six years later, Sage appeared.

Different name. Different face. Same gravity.

My chest tightened as I stared at her now, sleeping peacefully in my bed, as if she hadn’t just rewritten the fate of my entire pack with a dome of impossible power. Same soul?

The idea was too large, too terrifying to accept easily.

Why would she keep coming back?

Why would she hate me and still orbit my life like a curse? Why would she string me along, smile that knowing smile, make promises to my brothers she didn’t mean?

My wolf stirred, restless. Confirm it, it urged. You know how.

I froze.

Her neck.

Hadn’t I marked Maya?

The memory hit me like a blow. That night—intimate, reckless, devastating—I had sunk my teeth into her skin, driven by instinct and something far older than reason. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

I had marked her without fully understanding the consequences.

And marks like that... didn’t fade that easily.

My heart began to pound as I rose slowly to my feet. Each step toward the bed felt like crossing a line I could never uncross. My hands trembled when I reached for her hair, gently pushing the dark strands aside, exposing the smooth column of her neck.

Nothing.

No scar. No visible mark.

Disappointment flared sharp and hot, followed immediately by confusion. I leaned closer, studying the skin, the faint pulse beating there.

Instinct took over. I lifted my hand and rubbed the spot where my mark should have been, my thumb moving in a familiar circle.

The world tilted.

Heat surged beneath my touch, a pulse of power answering me from beneath her skin. My mark—my mark—flared alive, hidden but unmistakable, resonating with my own in a way that made my knees weaken.

I staggered back, breath leaving me in a harsh rush. What in the hell?

How? What? Where... Words failed me. Sage was... Maya? Possibly Dora?

She is the one! Can’t you feel our mark? She has always been ours! Take her!

I ignored my wolf’s madness, shock rendering me immobile even.

She was marked. Sage had my mark... already.

Before I could think, before I could reach for her again, just to confirm, the door burst open with a force that rattled the walls.

"We are under attack, Adam!"