Chapter 4 The Trespasser

The air in my apartment felt wrong.

It wasn’t just the usual stale dampness or the faint smell of paint from the cracked walls. No, this was something else. Something alive. I froze in the doorway, one hand instinctively tightening around the strap of my bag. Every instinct I had, wolf, vampire, whatever broken parts of me that still worked, screamed that I wasn’t alone.

My fingers itched for a weapon.

The soft hum of the overhead bulb flickered once, twice, before I reached for the switch. The light came on — dim and yellow — and that’s when I saw him.

Darius Kade.

Sitting casually on my sagging two-seater couch like he owned the place.

The breath caught in my throat. For a second, my mind couldn’t make sense of it. The Alpha King — the man whose name still sent wolves into silent bows and made vampires bare their fangs in defiance — was sitting in my apartment. The same tiny, crumbling box I called home.

“W–what the hell are you doing here?” I managed to whisper, my hand already closing around the kitchen knife I kept near the counter.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look surprised.

He leaned back, one muscular arm draped lazily across the back of my couch, the other resting on his thigh. The damn thing looked like a child’s chair beneath his size. He was too big, too powerful, too wrong in this space. His black tank top clung to his chest and shoulders, the fabric stretching across muscle that looked carved from stone.

And the tattoos… gods, I couldn’t help but notice them. Black ink spiraled from his shoulder down to his forearm, symbols and lines that looked ancient, maybe even runic. His skin glowed faintly under the light, the shadows deepening the scar that cut through his left brow. His eyes, I’d thought they were blue earlier, but now, in my apartment’s dim light, they gleamed a cold, predatory green.

“I asked what the hell you’re doing here,” I repeated, louder this time, gripping the knife tighter.

“How dare you break into my apartment!”, I growled and turned the light on.

“I could barely call this an apartment, more like a janitor's closet”, his velvety voice said, and he stood up from my unmade bed. My apartment was small, it was cramped and everything was in one place: the bedroom and a few steps was the little kitchen and a tiny bathroom.

The humiliation burned hot in my chest. “Get out,” I growled, the sound almost feral. “Get. Out.”

He didn’t move.

That infuriating smirk stayed right where it was.

And then, softly, like he was commenting on the weather, he said, “Why did you run, little mate?”

My stomach dropped.

No. No, no, no.

My grip faltered on the knife, the metal shaking slightly in my hand. I stared at him, my pulse roaring in my ears. “Don’t,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “Don’t call me that.”

His expression softened, almost amused. “But that’s what you are.”

“I’m not your anything.”

“You are,” he said simply, as if the universe itself agreed.

The room felt smaller suddenly. The air thicker. That strange, electric feeling I’d had earlier, the one that had made my skin buzz and my senses blur, came rushing back all at once. My heart pounded so hard I thought it might break through my ribs.

It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t.

Because the man sitting on my couch was Darius Kade, the Alpha King. The executioner of my father. The reason I’d lost everything. The reason I’d lived in fear and shadows for years.

And yet my body, the traitorous thing that it was, responded to his nearness like it had found something it didn’t know it was missing.

“I should kill you,” I hissed, stepping closer, raising the knife again. “You have some nerve showing up here — after what you did.”

His gaze flickered, something dark passing through it. “I don’t understand why you hate me so much, why all the hostility? I won’t hurt you “, he gently said.

“I hate you with everything fiber of my being, you may have forgotten but I haven't and I will avenge my father whom you killed ”, I barked at him. Trying to shift so I could rip his throat out. And kill him where he stood.

“I know who you are. Your father is mad madman, Jack Soren!”, he slowly said and his gaze turned cold.

My heart skipped. Hearing my name from his lips felt wrong, too intimate.

“Don’t you dare speak about him!” I shouted, the knife trembling in my hand. “You killed him, and you made me homeless. You destroyed my life!”

He stood up then, slow, deliberate, and suddenly the room wasn’t big enough to contain him. His presence filled it, swallowing the air, making it impossible to breathe.

He sighed, like a man growing tired of explaining the obvious, and took a step forward.

“The council of the Eldees and I have been looking for you some even said you must have died.” he said “I didn’t come here to fight with you,”

That made me freeze. I knew they had been looking.

“So now what? You want to finish what you started?”

“Lyra—”

“I’ll make you pay,” I snarled, cutting him off. The fury hit me like a wave. Before I could think, I lunged forward.

The knife sliced through the air toward his throat.

He caught my wrist mid-swing.

I struggled but finally melted into his arms as I began feeling my body heat up. He growled as I felt him hoist me up and pin me against the wall, my body reacted by itself and wrapped my legs around his waist. His chest was firmly pressed against mine but it wasn't the only thing that was pressing against me. I could feel His hardness pressing hard against me.

I quickly came back to my senses when I heard him begin unbuckling his belt, he wanted to claim me right here and I struggled out of his hold.

“Don't come near me!”, I screamed and picked the knife up again.“Get out! And never show yourself here again!”, I threatened.

“I'm not leaving without my mate”, he said and straightened his clothes. “You're mine little hybrid”, he said before moving and disarming me again.

His grip was iron, unyielding. The knife clattered to the floor as I tried to twist free, but his strength was inhuman. I kicked, clawed, tried to sink my teeth into him, but he only tightened his hold.

In one fluid motion, he spun me around, and before I realized what had happened — I was lifted clean off my feet.

“Let go!” I shouted, thrashing.

He didn’t.

One of his arms wrapped securely around my waist, the other pinning my hands against his chest. His body was solid heat pressed against mine, the scent of cedar and storm-wind invading my senses. My feet dangled inches above the ground as he held me effortlessly — like I weighed nothing.

“Calm down,” he said quietly, his voice a low growl against my ear.

“Put me down!”

“Not until you stop trying to stab me.”

“Then stop trespassing!”

I twisted again, but he only adjusted his hold. His breath brushed my neck — hot, steady, infuriating. My pulse went wild.

“Do you feel it?” he asked softly.

I froze.

“Don’t,” I whispered.

He leaned closer, his words a dangerous whisper against my skin. “You feel it, don’t you, Lyra? The pull. The bond.”

My heart clenched painfully. “This is a joke,” I said through gritted teeth. “It has to be.”

“It’s not.”

I felt his chest rise and fall against my back, his heartbeat steady where mine was chaos. “Fate’s cruel sometimes,” he murmured. “You and I both know that.”

His touch sent tingles down my spine. It was like a fire started and was burning under my skin.

“The only fate I’m destined for is killing you!” I spat.

“You would hurt your own mate?”, he whispered his mouth only a breath away from my lips.

“I reject you!”, I spat. But I didn't feel the bond break. I wasn't surprised he was after all the Alpha King he is a descendant of the original Lycan.

“You know that only I can reject you little hybrid”, he said, his warm breath fanning my face.

“I have waited my whole life for you.” he continued and crushed his lips into mine. And I melted in his arms, I had no time to get back to reality when his firm hand clamped over my mouth, another looped around my waist, and I was lifted as if I weighed nothing. My lungs screamed, but he held me with unshakable strength. I twisted, kicking and clawing at him, trying to find an escape, but it was no use. He was too fast, too powerful, a mountain of muscle, the very image of everything I both feared and couldn’t stop noticing.

“Put me down you asshole!” I screamed as I dangled from his shoulders. He didn't say anything as he carried me through the door.

I barely had time to catch my breath when the sound of engines rolling over wet asphalt made my blood run cold. Black SUVs lined the street like predators circling a wounded animal, their tinted windows reflecting the dull glow of the city lights. My heart slammed in my chest, and instinctively, I reached for anything, a stick, a metal pipe, my bare fists. But I didn’t need them.

“You’re going to calm down,” he murmured, voice low and calm, almost seductive, even as I thrashed against him. The scent hit me then, cedar, smoke, and something animal that made my hybrid instincts roar. My pulse raced as a shiver went straight through me. I should have hated him. I did hate him. He killed my father, forced me into hiding, and tore my life apart. And yet, under his grip, a dangerous part of me hummed awake, warning, craving, testing.

I opened my mouth, not to speak but to bite. My teeth sank into his forearm, drawing a thin line of blood. He grunted but didn’t release me. Instead, he tightened his hold ever so slightly. Pain and heat blazed through me, part fear, part anger, part something else I didn’t dare name.

“Pervert,” I hissed, kicking him in the ribs, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and frustration. “Get your hands off me!”

His lips curved into a faint, amused smirk. “I want nothing but to claim you,” he said, his green eyes flashing dangerously. “It’s a wolf’s instinct, little hybrid. My mate doesn’t get to run from me.”

I froze. Mate. The word hit like a dagger to my chest. My body reacted without my consent, muscles coiling, pulse hammering against my ribs. I wanted to rip away, to scream, to tell him he had no right. But a primal part of me, something deep in my hybrid blood, trembled at his words.

“You don’t get to claim anything,” I spat, my teeth bared. “You killed my father! You… you—” My words died as his grip never faltered. Every strike, every protest, every shred of resistance was meaningless against him.

The SUVs’ engines roared to life, and suddenly we were moving. My head slammed against his chest as he carried me toward one of the black vehicles. I kicked again, trying to make him drop me, but his hold was iron. I could feel every movement, every shift of his massive frame beneath me, and my hybrid senses screamed in ways I hadn’t felt in years, alert, alive, panicked.

Inside the SUV, I tried to wriggle free, only to find the doors locked and his hands holding me firmly against his chest. Panic clawed at my mind. The scent of him was everywhere, sharp, musky, overwhelming. I pressed my teeth to his shoulder again, drawing another line of red, more desperate this time.

“Enough,” he growled, low and dangerous, and I felt a shiver of fear and something else coil through me. “If you keep moving I will claim you right here in the back of the car.”

I pulled back, breathing heavily, chest rising and falling in frantic waves. “You’re insane,” I said, glaring at him. “I don’t belong to you, and I never will!”

His laugh was soft but edged with danger, almost a growl. “You already do. And running from it only makes it exciting.”

I struggled, but my arms felt weak against the sheer dominance of his hold. I tried to step back, to push him off, but I couldn’t. Even my hybrid strength, my wolf instincts, my vampire speed, felt muted here. He was a force of nature, a predator that my blood instinctively recognized, whether I wanted to or not.