The Lycan Prince’s Golden Mate

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Chapter 5

Fiona's POV

The door swung open, and a damp chill—laced with the smell of wet earth and rust—rushed in and smothered what little warmth the fireplace had managed to coax into the room.

I crouched on the floor, eased my fingers apart from my cheek, and looked out through the gap.

Caleb stood in the doorway, his frame so tall it seemed to swallow all the space around him.

It had apparently been raining outside—not heavily, but enough to leave him soaked from head to foot.

His expensive bespoke shirt clung to his body, tracing every line of muscle beneath.

Droplets still fell from the ends of his hair, gathering into thin rivulets that traced the sharp line of his jaw.

Yet his face wore an expression of eerie, unsettling calm. The corners of his mouth even held the ghost of a smile—as though the one who had been publicly stripped bare and made a laughingstock in the conference hall just now was not him at all, but some stranger who had nothing to do with him.

Next to his composed ease, my sorry state felt as low as mud beneath his feet.

His gaze found me, and his pupils contracted sharply.

"Fiona? What happened to you?"

"Professor Thorne." Arthur cleared his throat. "Your timing couldn't be worse. Victoria—go and have Maria bring the first-aid kit. Blast that silver candlestick, it's cut the little fool."

A silver candlestick?

Caleb nudged the weapon where it lay on the floor with the toe of his shoe. I kept my hand pressed tight against my cheek, not daring to let them see that the wound had already begun to close.

"Use this."

Caleb drew a small bottle of purple liquid from his pocket and took the handkerchief the maid Maria offered.

He unscrewed the cap with careful deliberation and let a single tiny drop of deep violet liquid fall onto the cloth.

Then he screwed it shut again immediately, as though even one drop more would be an unconscionable waste.

"Golden-wolf blood. Specifically for healing wounds caused by silver. The price on the black market is already absurd." He paused. "Use it sparingly. You're only a half-breed—the wound can't run very deep."

He didn't even glance at me. His words were hollow and indifferent.

Then I watched him cross to the fireplace, extend both hands toward the flames, and warm himself with perfect ease.

The firelight played across his damp profile as wisps of steam curled upward.

His composure was so complete that this might have been his private salon, not the room in which my fate was being decided.

I sat motionless on the floor, the handkerchief pressed to my face.

The cool dampness of it crept across my cheek. In place of pain came a spreading, soothing numbness—flesh knitting itself back together beneath the cloth.

"Thank you, Professor Thorne."

I kept my expression cold, letting my jaw carry the stubbornness I was holding in.

"But I believe we are finished."

"Is that so?"

Caleb rose and walked toward me.

Each step of his leather shoes on the floorboards landed with a heavy thud, as though each one was pressing down directly on a nerve.

"I, on the other hand, believe we have made up."

He fixed those blue-gray eyes on me—the patience of a grey wolf waiting out its prey.

I couldn't help taking half a step back, handkerchief still pressed to my face. That stare made every inch of my skin crawl.

"If you're willing to honor the engagement," Caleb said at last, his voice as cold as the rain outside, carrying not a trace of warmth, "I can pretend today never happened."

"Absolutely not."

My pupils contracted sharply.

It was as though an invisible, ice-cold hand had seized my heart and was squeezing it hard.

I could barely endure his shamelessness. This wasn't merely a naked insult—it was an assault on basic intelligence.

After everything that had happened, how could he possibly think I would stand there and exchange rings with him as if nothing had occurred?

"Fiona."

Arthur struck the floor twice with his oak walking stick.

"Go upstairs. Return to your room. I have things to discuss with Professor Thorne in private."

I wanted nothing more than to put distance between myself and that shameless man. Every second under his gaze was worse than swallowing something rotten.

I gathered my skirt and fled up the stairs. The moment I pulled the door shut, I slid down the wall to the floor.

I moved the handkerchief away and looked in the mirror.

The wound was gone. The skin was smooth and unmarked.

I drew a sharp breath and stared at the faint violet-red smear left on the cloth.

Golden-wolf blood, sold on the black market. A single ounce fetched hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The sovereign remedy for silver wounds. Hard currency in the werewolf world.

I closed my eyes and breathed in, greedily, the scent on that handkerchief—the scent of my mother's people.

Memory swept me back, hazy and swift, to the warmth of my mother's arms in childhood—

She was the most beautiful saint of the Golden Wolf clan, with long hair that fell in natural curls as soft and golden as fleece, and amber-gold eyes that always held an inexhaustible tenderness.

I missed the scent of her. I missed the ancient lullaby she would sing when she held me.

But I could not sink into it. Could not let it take me under. I had to stay completely clear-headed.

Caleb's arriving unannounced in the dead of night was no casual visit—I was sure of it.

I pried up two floorboards, exposing the beams below.

Through the gap I could see the sitting room beneath, and hear every word of Arthur and Caleb's conversation with perfect clarity.

"They struck her? With that?"

Caleb picked up the silver candlestick from the floor, those blue-gray eyes locked hard on Arthur.

"As long as she is still my fiancée, no one has the right to lay a hand on her."

"Spare me the act, Thorne."

Arthur's walking stick came down on the floor with a sharp crack. His voice was cold and flat. "The video of you and that student is already all over the top of the university forum. What will it take before you come to your senses—does it need to run on the screen in Times Square?"

"That's none of your concern." Caleb bared his fangs with open contempt. "The hunt is in a werewolf's nature. You humans aren't exactly paragons of fidelity to your mates, either. I was simply doing as the locals do—getting an early taste of the human body, so I won't be retching from that half-breed's foul stench every night once we're wed."

As he spoke, his gaze slid sideways to Victoria, and a scornful smile crossed his face. "Unless my information is wrong, your one and only daughter, Miss Sterling, does not in fact share the distinguished bloodline of your original wife. So, Mr. Slater—do we really want to keep pursuing this line of conversation?"

"Tell me what you actually came here to do tonight, Professor Thorne."

A muscle jumped in Arthur's cheek, and the neatly groomed whiskers above it shifted with the convulsion.

"Why, to bring a gift to my dear fiancée."

Arthur clapped his hands twice. His driver came in from the car carrying a handsome leather case and an invitation, its envelope rich with the scent of sandalwood.

"I'm relieved, incidentally, that the important personage did not witness the little scene in the conference hall today. Otherwise I honestly cannot say whether I would have managed to preserve my better judgment and composure—rather than simply wringing the little lamb's neck on the spot."

His tone as he said it was one of genuine, barely contained fury. I was fairly certain there was only one candidate for the "little lamb" in question.

"The important personage?"

Arthur coughed lightly and smoothed his mustache with one hand. "You mean the one whose vote could carry real weight in the next cabinet election for the Coexistence Council? Prince Volkov?"

"Precisely."

A rare reverence passed across Caleb's face—the deep, sincere submission that the werewolf world reserved for its highest authority.

"What I cannot fathom is the reason. He sent word at the last moment that he would not be attending. Thank heaven that wretched little episode was never laid before his eyes."

I lay flat against the floorboards and took in their conversation word by word.

When they mentioned Alexander, they were even speculating about why he had pulled out without warning.

But I knew exactly where he was.

At that very hour, ambushed and wounded, he had been sheltering in the library—alone in a room with me.

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