Claiming the Rejected King

Two hundred years ago, my queen left behind a letter and vanished without a trace.

The Lycans of the court told me she was dead, that she would never return.

I didn’t believe them. I searched for her relentlessly for one hundred and ninety years.

In the last ten years, I finally gave up the hunt.

But then she returned, with a human man by her side, and said to me, "Step down from the throne of the Lycan King, and I’ll allow you to remain by my side as my consort."

I smiled bitterly and replied, "We’re no longer mates. There’s no need for me to step aside."

She scoffed. "You’d give up so easily the chance to stay with me?"

She didn’t know. Ten years ago, I had already severed our mate bond and marked another as my queen.

==============================

"If you relinquish the throne, I’ll grant you the chance to stay by my side."

Alicia leaned into the man’s embrace, her tone dripping with arrogance as she addressed me.

"If it weren’t for the alliance between the Northern Territories and the Stone Pack arranged since birth, I would have never become your mate."

"For two hundred years, I lived in anonymity among humans, and I found my true love. The throne belongs to me now."

Her words dragged me back to the memories of two centuries ago.

Shortly after our marking ceremony, Alicia had left a letter and disappeared.

The Lycans of the court used every method to find her, but none could uncover her whereabouts.

They told me Alicia was dead.

But I refused to believe it. I searched for her for one hundred and ninety years.

Only now did I learn that she had deliberately hidden her trail, unwilling to accept the bond between us.

I let out a cold laugh and shook my head.

"Alicia, you’ve been gone for two hundred years. Ten years ago, I performed the sacred rejection ritual to sever our mate bond—" Before I could finish, she cut me off with a sharp, mocking laugh.

"You would willingly sever the bond? Then why is that vase of snow lilies still sitting in this room? Isn’t it here because you’ve been clinging to the past?"

She pointed to the vase of snow lilies, the very ones she had picked from the mountains for me two centuries ago.

But after she left, I moved to another residence and never set foot in this room again.

I opened my mouth to explain, but she swept her gaze across the room and sneered.

"Everything here is exactly as I left it. If you weren’t still in love with me, why would you have kept it unchanged all these years?"

Hayden chimed in at the perfect moment, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

"King Langston, truly a devoted mate. Even the decor hasn’t changed. Though it’s a shame Alicia hasn’t thought of you once in these two hundred years."

"We’ve spent three lifetimes together in the