My Mate Hid Our Bond For Years To Save My Life — So He Gave Up The Throne For Me
Part 3
The heavy wooden door of the cottage shuddered under a series of sharp, authoritative knocks.
Megan froze, the ceramic mug in her hands slipping just a fraction as the peaceful illusion of the last month shattered into a million jagged pieces.
They thought they were finally safe from the King’s reach, but the royal guard detail at their cottage door proved the nightmare was only just beginning.
Would Tyler be dragged back to the very hell they had just escaped?
She pulled the door open, her heart hammering a frantic, terrifying rhythm against her ribs.
Standing on the small, frost-covered porch were four massive men clad in the dark, heavy armor of the royal guard.
Their hands rested entirely too close to the hilts of their enormous, silver-forged swords.
The cold morning wind whipped around them, biting at Megan’s exposed skin and carrying the sharp, metallic scent of impending violence.
Megan instinctively took a step back, her mind racing with desperate, terrifying calculations.
How many could Tyler fight off in his current state?
How fast could they run for the tree line?
Would they even make it past the front steps before the arrows flew?
Before she could even draw a breath to scream, a massive, warm hand clamped down firmly on her shoulder.
Tyler stepped into the doorway, his broad frame shielding her completely from the outside world and the hostile men standing upon their porch.
A low, dangerous growl ripped through his chest, a sound born of pure, primal protective instinct that vibrated through the floorboards.
But the guards didn’t draw their weapons.
They didn’t shout demands or attempt to push their way inside the small, rustic home.
Instead, they stepped back, parting perfectly down the middle with disciplined precision to reveal a small, cloaked figure standing behind them in the snow.
The figure reached up with a gloved hand and pulled back her heavy velvet hood, revealing a mane of striking, immaculate silver hair and a face lined with decades of ruthless royal politics.
It wasn’t King Craig.
It was Brenda, the formidable Queen Mother.
“Ah, there you are,” Brenda said, her sharp eyes twinkling with a terrifying mix of amusement and cold, calculated appraisal.
“I assume you know exactly where my grandson is hiding.”
“Grandmother,” Tyler breathed, the immense, suffocating tension draining out of his broad shoulders in a sudden, rushing wave of relief.
Brenda didn’t wait for a formal invitation, nor did she ask if she could enter.
She was royalty, and the entire kingdom was her domain.
She swept past the heavily armed guards and stepped directly into the small, rustic living room, bringing the bitter cold bite of the winter wind and the scent of pine with her.
She reached up, taking Tyler’s pale face in her hands, her thumbs brushing affectionately against his sharp cheekbones.
“There you are, my boy,” she murmured, her voice softening just a fraction, a rare display of genuine emotion from the notoriously stoic matriarch.
“Finally, the light has returned to your eyes.”
For Megan, the sudden, jarring intrusion was a violent whiplash, dragging her abruptly back to a harsh reality she had tried so desperately to forget.
It felt like an entire lifetime ago that she had first carried a delirious, burning Tyler into this very room, pleading with the Moon Goddess to spare his life.
Just a few weeks prior, the world had been ending in spectacular, tragic fashion.
Tyler had shown up at the edge of the dark forest, stumbling and violently ill, his body completely rejecting the sheer physical distance he had put between himself and his fated mate.
When a wolf was separated from their chosen mate by force, the bond didn’t just quietly fade away—it festered, turning inward and violently attacking the host’s immune system.
For three agonizing, endless days, Megan had sat perfectly still beside the narrow, uncomfortable cot in the dark corner of Dan’s secluded cottage.
She had pressed damp, cool cloths to Tyler’s burning skin, helplessly watching the strongest, most resilient man she had ever known wither away into a shadow of himself.
His powerful, muscular frame had trembled violently beneath thin wool blankets as he fought an invisible, torturous war within his own bloodstream.
Every ragged, shallow breath he drew had felt like a rusted, jagged knife twisting maliciously in her own chest.
It had been a brutal, unforgiving reminder of how incredibly close they had come to losing absolutely everything they had ever cared about.
“You almost died,” she had murmured to him one night, the quiet, suffocating darkness of the tiny cabin offering absolutely no comfort or solace.
But eventually, the terrifyingly high fever had miraculously broken.
And with the sudden breaking of the fever came the profound breaking of the heavy, suffocating silence that had defined their fraught relationship for years.
Megan vividly, painfully remembered the night he finally woke, his golden eyes clear and sharply focused for the first time in days.
The dying embers in the stone hearth had cast long, flickering shadows across the rough-hewn floorboards, bathing the room in a warm, orange glow.
The feral hunger between them, successfully suppressed for so long by duty, fear, and circumstance, had ignited into a desperate, uncontrollable collision of souls.
It had felt exactly like starvation finally being sated, a profound, spiritual merging of their very essences that left Megan dizzy, physically aching, and overwhelmingly grateful for his survival.
“I don’t need rest,” Tyler had rasped that night, his large, calloused hands coming up to cup her tear-stained face in the dim, romantic light.
“I only need you.”
He had pulled her into a claiming, desperate kiss, pouring every unspoken emotion, every hidden fear, and every ounce of longing through the previously dormant mate bond that now hummed violently between them.
She had felt his immense love crashing over her in massive tidal waves, overwhelming and entirely undeniable, washing away the bitter, incredibly lonely months she had spent in miserable exile.
When he had finally pulled back, resting his heavy head against her chest, a profound question had gnawed relentlessly at her soul.
A jagged, painful edge of doubt she could no longer ignore now that the absolute, unvarnished truth was laid bare before them.
“Tyler,” she had said softly, tracing the strong line of his jaw.
“Why hold back all these years?
Why not just tell me we were mates from the very beginning?”
He had stiffened instantly beneath her gentle touch, the relaxed, comforting warmth of his muscles turning to rigid, unyielding stone in a matter of seconds.
“Because of my father,” he had finally admitted, the words echoing like a loud, violent gunshot in the peaceful room.
Megan had been thoroughly confused.
She had genuinely thought King Craig, the powerful Alpha of their massive pack, would have wanted his only heir to find happiness and stability.
But Tyler had completely shattered that naive, childish illusion with a single, devastating sentence.
“He already knows, Megan,” Tyler had said, sheer, heartbreaking resignation coloring his deep tone.
“The King knows we’re mates.
He’s always known.”
The shocking revelation had hit Megan like a brutal physical blow to the stomach, completely recontextualizing every single interaction she had ever had in the royal palace.
Tyler had confessed that he knew she was his destined mate the absolute second he laid eyes on her across the crowded courtyard.
But it had been painfully, terrifyingly clear that King Craig had deliberately brought the orphaned Megan to court with a twisted, incredibly manipulative plan already in mind.
Megan remembered her first confusing, overwhelming days at the royal palace.
She had been a naive nobody, a girl from the borderlands suddenly thrust into the opulent, cutthroat epicenter of royal power and deception.
King Craig had personally taken her in, providing lavish, overly expensive quarters and an impossible, generous allowance, framing it all as an act of unmatched, benevolent generosity.
She had foolishly thought he was a true, noble leader caring for a helpless lone wolf in need of a pack.
“At first, I honestly thought his plan was to pit me against you,” Tyler had carefully explained, his voice tight with heavily suppressed, violent anger.
He had thought his father was trying to motivate him by introducing a rival for his affection and attention, someone to keep the young, arrogant prince on his toes.
So Tyler had acted incredibly cold.
He had stubbornly kept his distance, playing the convincing part of the indifferent, arrogant heir to perfection.
He had done it strictly for her protection, and for his own, terrifyingly aware of the immense danger constantly hovering over them like a dark cloud.
“I just wanted you close to me always,” he had confessed, the raw, unadulterated vulnerability breaking Megan’s heart into pieces.
But the terrifying, hidden truth was much darker and far more insidious.
King Craig had planned all along to use Tyler’s instinctual, unbreakable attachment to Megan as ultimate political leverage.
If Tyler ever refused a direct royal order, the King had explicitly, continuously threatened to send Megan away, banishing her to the treacherous, monster-filled outer territories.
Megan had been absolutely nothing but a disposable pawn, a living, breathing weapon meticulously forged to control the rightful heir to the massive throne.
And the breaking point, the moment it all fell apart, had been the tragic night of the infamous engagement party.
The night the royal palace had grandly, publicly announced Tyler’s impending political marriage to Heather, a high-ranking, beautiful noble from a neighboring, powerful pack.
Tyler had gone to his father’s private, heavily guarded study, desperate and pleading for mercy.
He had felt their ancient mate bond snap more firmly into place that very evening, and he had foolishly, hopelessly believed that fated bonds were universally sacred for their kind.
He had told the King they were as good as fully bonded, bound by the Goddess herself.
But King Craig had not been moved by ancient, sacred traditions or the undeniable will of the Moon Goddess.
He had been livid, his rage shaking the very foundations of the palace.
He had demanded Tyler marry Heather immediately, forbidding him from ever looking at Megan again.
And for the first time, he had explicitly, directly threatened to physically hurt Megan if Tyler even thought about disobeying his direct command.
The sheer, blinding terror Tyler had felt that night had slammed into Megan, raw and entirely suffocating.
He hadn’t wanted to agree to the political, loveless marriage, but he had been absolutely terrified for her life.
He had agreed to the wretched engagement solely to buy them some desperately needed time to form a plan.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Tyler,” Megan had cried, gripping his large hands tightly in hers.
“You protected me when no one else would.”
But Tyler had been drowning in years of built-up, toxic self-loathing.
When Megan had finally run away from the palace in the dead of night, unable to watch the man she loved marry another woman, the King had instantly lost his only leverage.
With nothing left to threaten him with, Tyler had left too, abandoning his duties and searching the entire continent for her.
He had formally, publicly renounced his birthright claim to the throne, walking away from absolute, unchecked power without a single backward glance.
“None of it matters anymore,” he had vowed.
“You’re what matters.
Only you.”
That very night, overwhelmed by a sudden, incredibly primal need to claim what was hers, Megan had bared her pale wrist to him.
She had wanted to finalize the ancient bond, to make it permanent, physical, and entirely unbreakable.
“There’s no going back if I do this,” he had whispered, his golden eyes flashing with a dark, deeply possessive spark.
She had nodded, her breath catching painfully in her throat as she offered herself to him.
Tyler had taken her wrist gently, his warm lips brushing against her frantic, jumping pulse before he finally, deliberately bit down.
He had bitten hard enough to break the delicate skin, a deliberate, claiming pressure that left the perfect, permanent scarring imprint of his teeth.
The sharp, localized pain had vanished almost instantly, replaced by a massive surge of overwhelming, molten pleasure that flooded forcefully through their newly cemented connection.
She had felt entirely complete, tethered securely to him by a glowing, golden thread that pulled their very souls together across time and space.
“Your turn,” Tyler had rasped, offering his own unmarked skin.
She hadn’t hesitated for a single second, lunging forward and biting down hard on the solid, warm muscle of his broad shoulder, marking him completely as hers forever.
When she had pulled back, panting, the clear, bloody imprint of her teeth had remained on his tan skin, stark and undeniably perfect.
“He can’t reach us now,” Tyler had murmured, wrapping her in a fierce, incredibly protective embrace.
“We only belong to each other.
Always.”
The days that followed that sacred, beautiful night had passed like an idyllic, isolated, perfect dream.
Dan had returned to the cottage from the distant, bustling market town, his weathered face splitting into a wide, genuine grin when he found Tyler standing casually by the iron stove.
“I won’t tell the King where you are,” Dan had promised, clasping Tyler’s hand in a tight, loyal brotherly grip.
“Stay as long as you like.
The cottage is entirely yours.”
And they had stayed, wrapping themselves securely in a warm cocoon of quiet, blissful domesticity.
Megan could hardly believe the profound, fundamental difference in Tyler’s entire demeanor during those secluded, peaceful weeks.
The cold, heavily controlled, entirely unapproachable prince who had kept absolutely everyone at arm’s length for his own survival was completely gone.
This new Tyler was incredibly warm, wonderfully open, smiling easily and laughing loud enough to echo cheerfully off the sturdy timber walls.
He was finally himself, entirely, wonderfully free from his father’s toxic, constant manipulation and the crushing, impossible weight of the heavy crown.
But the blissful weeks had inevitably, inexorably turned into a full month, and the harsh, unforgiving reality of the violent world beyond the forest had begun to bleed in.
Dan had started arriving with visibly trembling hands and dark, exhausted circles under his eyes, whispering urgently about the massive chaos tearing through the once-peaceful capital.
With Tyler’s sudden, unexplained disappearance and his formal, written renunciation of the throne, the royal line of succession was fundamentally, catastrophically broken.
King Craig was absolutely furious, unleashing his unchecked rage on the terrified court and the surrounding, bewildered packs.
Foreign delegations were aggressively demanding answers, loudly threatening devastating trade embargoes and bloody border skirmishes.
The once-mighty, unified kingdom was quietly, inevitably, tragically falling apart at the seams.
Megan and Tyler had begun making quiet, desperate, frantic plans to flee to a neighboring, sympathetic territory, seeking permanent asylum anywhere far from the King’s ruthless, long reach.
They had carefully packed small leather bags, hoarded dried food and water, and studied ancient, crumbling maps by flickering candlelight late into the night.
They had truly thought they were prepared for anything.
They had truly thought they were finally safe from the royal family’s drama.
But all those careful plans had completely evaporated the moment the heavily armed royal guards appeared ominously on their frost-covered porch.
Now, standing frozen in the small, rustic living room, the crushing, inescapable weight of the royal court had found them once again.
Brenda finally let go of Tyler’s face and turned her incredibly sharp, relentlessly calculating gaze toward Megan.
The older woman’s eyes swept slowly up and down Megan’s frame, missing absolutely nothing, assessing her worth in a matter of seconds.
“Craig is going entirely, completely out of his mind,” Brenda said bluntly, walking past them toward the small, crackling hearth and holding her gloved hands out to the warming fire.
“The palace is in absolute, unmitigated chaos, a pathetic circus of terrified nobles and incredibly angry diplomats.
But the King has no one to blame but his own staggering, blind arrogance.”
Brenda turned back, her intense gaze turning incredibly sharp, completely pinning Megan in place.
“You are mated now,” the Queen Mother stated, though it wasn’t a question, it was an undeniable, factual observation.
“Truly, properly mated.
I can smell the ancient claim on you both from a mile away.”
Megan instinctively, protectively reached up to touch the scarred, permanent bite mark hidden beneath the thick collar of her wool sweater.
“And significantly more than that,” Brenda continued, her eyes dropping slowly, deliberately, to Megan’s stomach.
A small, barely noticeable but entirely unmistakable curve had begun to show beneath Megan’s loose, comfortable clothing.
Megan’s hand moved instinctively to her belly, a fierce, primal, overwhelming protectiveness flaring hotly in her chest.
Tyler immediately stepped closer, his strong arm wrapping securely around Megan’s waist, pulling her flush against his side in a defensive posture.
“You carry the future of the entire kingdom,” Brenda said, her voice dropping to a reverent, awe-struck, incredibly serious whisper.
The silence in the room stretched, incredibly heavy with the terrifying, massive implications of her words.
“Nothing is more important than the succession of the bloodline,” Brenda continued, her tone shifting back to absolute, undeniable authority.
“Even Craig cannot deny that fundamental, ancient truth.
And you, my boy, are still the rightful, blood-born heir to the throne.”
Tyler’s jaw clenched, his grip on Megan tightening until it was almost painful.
“I renounced my claim,” Tyler said, his voice incredibly cold and hard as forged steel.
“I walked away.
The throne and its problems are his problem now.”
“You renounced it under extreme, undeniable duress,” Brenda countered firmly, stepping closer to her stubborn grandson.
“Absolutely everyone in the upper echelons of the court knows it.
The high nobles will completely support you.
The common people will riot in the streets to support you.”
She leaned forward, her eyes burning with a fierce, unwavering, terrifying determination.
“I propose you return with me to the capital today.
Reclaim exactly what is yours by birthright.”
Tyler shook his head immediately, a low, incredibly dangerous warning growl rumbling deep in the back of his throat.
“Absolutely not.
I won’t risk Megan’s life.
I won’t risk our unborn child.
If my father even tries to touch her—”
“Your father is a cowardly politician,” Brenda interrupted, waving her hand dismissively in the air.
“He is a ruthless, scheming manipulator, yes.
But he is also a pathetic coward when faced with true, undeniable strength.”
Brenda let out a long, heavy, exhausted sigh, her shoulders slumping for just a fraction of a second, revealing the immense, crushing age she usually hid so incredibly well.
“When my mate died, the overwhelming grief completely consumed me,” she began, her voice dropping to a haunting, vulnerable register.
Megan listened, utterly captivated by a piece of heavily guarded royal history that had been intentionally scrubbed from the official pack archives.
“I became entirely, completely numb.
I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep.
The entire pack was terrified they were going to lose their Luna.”
Brenda looked directly at Tyler, her old eyes shining with unshed, bitter tears.
“It was Craig who made sure I wandered off into the frozen, deadly wastes,” she revealed, the horrifying words dropping like heavy, crushing stones.
Tyler froze, his eyes widening in absolute, undeniable shock.
“He deliberately told his personal guards to look the other way.
He purposely left the massive iron gates open during a blinding, lethal blizzard.”
Brenda’s face hardened, the brief vulnerability completely vanishing beneath a terrifying mask of cold, calculating fury.
“He was actively, intentionally hoping I wouldn’t come back.
I had been making the crown look weak in my overwhelming grief, and he wanted absolute, unchecked power without the Queen Mother constantly looking over his shoulder and judging his actions.”
She turned her intense, piercing gaze back to Megan, a strange, profound, incredibly deep gratitude softening her normally harsh features.
“He thinks I don’t know the absolute truth, but I do.
And he knows exactly who ruined his perfect, murderous, treacherous plan.”
Megan stared at her, the pieces of a massive, years-old, confusing puzzle finally clicking perfectly into place.
All those years ago, when Megan was just a lonely teenager wandering the dangerous outer borders looking for food, she had found a half-frozen, dying woman buried in the snow.
She had bravely dragged the heavy woman into a small cave, built a massive fire, and kept her alive for three grueling days until the royal search parties finally arrived.
She hadn’t known it was the Queen Mother.
She had just seen a woman dying of cold and absolute heartbreak.
“You found me, Megan,” Brenda said softly, her voice filled with profound emotion.
“You protected me, you saved my life, and you entirely thwarted his evil plans.”
Megan’s breath hitched in her throat, the sheer, staggering magnitude of the revelation completely washing over her.
“He has held a bitter, festering, incredibly hateful grudge against you ever since that day,” Brenda explained.
“That is exactly why he brought you to court.
Not out of charity, but to keep his greatest humiliation close, and to use you as a disposable pawn to completely control his son.”
Megan stared blankly at the crackling fire, her mind reeling violently with the new information.
All these years, she had genuinely, foolishly thought the King had been incredibly grateful for her saving his mother’s life.
She had truly thought he liked her well enough, at least as much as an arrogant King could like an orphaned commoner.
How incredibly, dangerously, terrifyingly wrong she had been.
His petty, wounded, fragile pride had almost cost her her entire life, and it had almost cost her her fated mate.
Megan slowly, deliberately reached for Tyler’s hand, threading her trembling fingers firmly through his strong ones.
She looked up at the incredible man standing protectively beside her.
She had seen the kind of man he truly was these past few weeks, finally free from his father’s suffocating, toxic shadow.
He was incredibly kind.
He was fiercely, undeniably protective.
He was endlessly patient and incredibly wise.
He would make a truly magnificent, legendary King.
But mostly, she realized with striking clarity, he would be a free King.
He wouldn’t be ruled by constant fear or endless, petty manipulation.
And that was exactly what she desperately wanted for him.
Not a miserable life spent hiding in the dark woods, constantly looking over his shoulder for assassins.
She wanted him to stand proudly in the light, to lead their people exactly the way they deserved to be led.
“I think we should do it,” Megan said softly, her voice easily breaking the heavy, suffocating silence of the room.
Tyler snapped his head toward her, his eyes incredibly wide and frantically searching her face for any sign of coercion or fear.
“Megan, no,” he argued immediately, panic lacing his tone.
“It’s a trap.
It’s too incredibly dangerous.
I can’t protect you in the very heart of his power.”
“Tyler,” she said, squeezing his hand as tightly as she could, pouring all her immense love and unwavering, absolute confidence through their unbreakable bond.
“I’m not afraid of your father anymore.
His power came from our secrets, and we have absolutely no more secrets.”
She reached up, pressing her palm flat against his broad, muscular chest, feeling the steady, powerful, reassuring rhythm of his heart.
“And the kingdom desperately needs you, Tyler,” she continued, her voice growing significantly stronger, more incredibly resolute.
“They desperately need the kind of Alpha you’ll be.
The kind of King you were always, undeniably born to be.”
Something profound, something ancient and incredibly powerful shifted in Tyler’s expression as he looked down into her eyes.
The deep, lingering, paralyzing doubt that had plagued him for years slowly faded, completely replaced by a cold, brilliant, unstoppable determination.
He saw the absolute, unwavering faith shining brightly in her eyes, and he drew incredible strength from it, letting it fuel the immense fire in his soul.
He turned back to face Brenda, his posture straightening completely, his aura expanding massively to fill the small room with undeniable, overwhelming royal authority.
“All right,” Tyler said, his voice echoing with the undeniable, earth-shaking command of a true Alpha King.
“We’ll go back.
And we’ll take it all.”
Brenda smiled, a fierce, terrifyingly proud, incredibly dangerous expression that promised absolute, total ruin for her enemies.
“Good,” the Queen Mother said simply, nodding her head in respect.
“Pack your things.
The royal carriage is waiting outside.”
As they quickly gathered their few, meager belongings, Megan felt a profound, incredible sense of peace finally settle over her.
The exhausting fear that had chased her out of the capital was entirely, permanently gone.
Whatever brutal, bloody political battles lay ahead of them in the opulent, treacherous halls of the palace…
Whatever violent, unpredictable storms they would have to weather as they ripped the heavy crown from Craig’s desperate, greedy hands…
They would face absolutely all of it together, a permanently united front bound by ancient fate and forged in incredibly hot fire.
And as Tyler took her hand, leading her out of the quiet cottage and into the biting, freezing winter wind, she knew they were entirely unstoppable.
They weren’t just returning to the palace to beg for their place.
They were returning to completely conquer it.
THE END
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Disclaimer
This story is a work of fiction inspired by real events. Names, characters, and details have been altered. Any resemblance is coincidental. The author and publisher disclaim accuracy, liability, and responsibility for interpretations or reliance. If you would like to share your story, please send it to [email protected].
