Chapter 55: Chapter 55

My eyes move to Regan, watching us behind her and he nods once, moving toward his office.

“You let him?” She questions and I can see the question in her eyes. She wants to know why I would let him touch me. It is clear she knew about his curse.

“I’m okay. He didn’t hurt me,” I repeat, and she looks at my bloodied sleeve. She moves to push my sleeve up, but I stop her.

“You can go; I can wrap it myself,” I tell her, and her brows furrow.

“Hurry, Zeke will be looking for me soon; I have to swap brothers,” I tell her, and her eyes widen, and she quickly nods her head. Yet saying that while in this state sounds very inappropriate. Amy gives me the first aid kit and rushes out the door. I let out a breath of relief, and Regan wanders back out. He leans against his office door frame, folding his arms across his chest.

“You admitted to letting me touch you,” he states.

“Because it's the truth?”

“Most paint me as a monster; you could have.” he shrugs.

“Only because no one lives to say otherwise,” I tell him, and he tilts his head to the side. He nods slowly. “I suppose you have a point.”

“When was the last time you were with a woman, I mean like slept with one?” He shrugs.

“A few years. I got sick of being used as a way to get to Lyon, I got sick of living with the guilt of killing them too.”

“Why Lyon?”

“Well, most aren’t suicidal enough to go for Zeke. That’s a sure death, he cares little for others.” He states.

“But some still do?” He nods his head.

“And he kills them. Like me he can’t help it,” Regan states.

“The same as you?” I question.

“Kind of. Me marking them kills them. It poisons them. Lyon, his pride and greed are what kill the women he’s with. The last one died because his paranoia got the better of him. He thought she was trying to steal his throne.”

“And Zeke?” I ask.

“He can’t stop, sex becomes addictive, one even starved to death, though most die from exhaustion.

Envy and gluttony.” my brows furrow in confusion at his last words.

“The seven cardinal sins?” I murmur to myself trying to make sense of it. “So what are you?” I murmur.

“Wrath and lust.” He states, and I swallow.

“So part of your curse is the seven cardinal sins?” I ask trying to wrap my head around what he is saying.

“Yes, and only the seven virtues can release us of our curse, only she can,” Regan mutters, and my eyes move over his tattoos, and I finally notice the full picture of what they mean. The runes, I can now tell, are separate from the pictures etched into his skin. It now makes sense why Zeke’s was a snake biting and an apple, the skulls representing death, the snake envy, and the apple gluttony. Yet wrath is a lion? I glance at Regan’s tattoos as he moves closer.

“Why a lion?” I ask.

“Well, it would look funny given I’m a Lycan not a cat shifter.” he shrugs. I nod my head, “So the burning woman is lust?”

“The women's lust and fire is how Litha died, we all have something that represents Litha,” “Zeke’s is the fire?” Regan nods his head and my brow furrow as I think over what he’s told me.

“Wait! You said only she can save you ALL from the curse?”

“Yes, we are cursed to share the same mate, now you know why even if we found her, we’d never be able to break it. We’d kill her or try to kill each other.”

“But your father?”

“Why do you think he’s forcing you to keep Zeke!” he says slowly, letting his words sink in.

“He wasn’t giving me a choice at all,” I whisper as that clarity washes over me like a tidal wave.

“No, my father is a crafty old fool. The choice was never yours Z, he’s trying to make us choose to rule together! He doesn’t care if we kill you, but he’ll use your death as a way to make us comply, threatening our thrones.”

“So you kill me and he’ll take your thrones?” I ask.

“Yes, he’s trying to find a way to control us, you’re just an excuse, a means to do so. And now I am wondering if Zeke has figured that out. He knows he can’t openly kill you, but he’ll never rule alongside me, and I him. If we can’t get along, my father will have no choice but to choose between us and all this?” he points between us.

“I am beginning to wonder if he is trying not to. My father knows we are competitive, he knows instinct will overrule us, and he knows we’ll fight for the spot, yet what I don’t get is what he’ll gain by having us at each other's throats. Using our thrones and kingdoms against us will only start another war. He’ll have to choose in the end anyway. He knows we won’t all rule together, and Zeke? Zeke can never get his hands on that throne!”

“But you have the blood tie?”

Regan nods his head slowly moving closer. “Which means if one dies we all do!”

“So that is what Zeke meant when he said you won’t kill him unless you’re suicidal.”

“But how can you find your mate if there are no Lycan females?”

“That’s the point, we can’t find her because she doesn’t exist, well that is what Zeke and Lyon believe anyway.”

“You believe she does?” I ask him.

“Yes….” he pauses watching me for a second then answers. “I know she does.” He speaks confidently.

“How?” I question.

“Because I saved her,” he tells me, and my brows furrow in confusion.

“So there is another female Lycan?” I gasp.

“Yes, I just need to find the oracle; if I find her, I will find our mate.” He tells me.

“And she’ll break the curse?” I ask, and Regan sighs.

“I don’t know. The only thing I know is our mate is also cursed. Litha cursed her to be the seven virtues;

she’ll either be our salvation or our condemnation.”

“Condemnation?” so, to punish them, she also punished their mate?

“Yes, she has the power to break the blood tie or use it against us. To take everything we have from us, and pit us against each other. If she can do that, then she holds the power against us. One dies, we all die, freeing humanity of the Lycans, but it's a double-edged sword. We find her, and every Lycan will come for her, for she is the last female of our kind, just like they did when they came for my mother.”

Regan growls, his eyes darkening.

“That’s how your mother died?” Regan nods his head.

“She came with me one night. She was forbidden to leave the castle. I had tried telling them for years there is a way to break the curse, but my father and brothers wouldn’t believe me. Wanted to know how I was so sure, but I couldn’t give that information up. The only one who believed me was my mother.

She knew because she helped me.”Regan tells me.

“Helped you what?” I ask him.

“Save Litha’s daughter from death.” wait, the baby! She’s alive?

"She cursed her own daughter?" I ask. Regan nods his head, and I gasp.