Chapter 77: Raven’s Obsession

Author’s pov~

Raven set his glass down on the obsidian coffee table, the crystal clinking softly against the black stone.

"Yes," Raven said, his dark eyes hardening.

"She must have been adopted by the Crescent Pack. After she ran into my grandma, the only thing she asked for was help finding her birth parents. That is the whole reason she agreed to come here."

"If the Crescent Pack was her own blood, why would she be desperately searching for her origins? She is here for the records of what happened to her parents. She somehow believes that her true birth pack’s name is hidden somewhere in these royal grounds."

Keiran leaned back against the plush leather, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass, his sharp jaw tightening as the memory slotted cleanly into place.

"That explains last night," Keiran murmured, swirling the amber bourbon in his glass as a faint, cold memory flashed behind his pitch-black eyes.

"When I caught her in the restricted library area, she tried to play it completely cool. She looked me dead in the eye and claimed she came there looking for me to discuss our group project. But the moment I stepped out for a few seconds, her hands were already drifting over the old ledgers. Even when I came back into the room, her eyes were frantically scanning the top shelves, searching for something. I didn’t confront her about it right back there."

"She is desperate to find out what happened to her real pack," Raven said quietly.

Zyran frowned, setting his crystal glass onto the obsidian coffee table with a sharp clink. He leaned forward, resting his broad forearms on his knees as his dark gaze locked onto Raven.

"If you already knew that she was here for the ledgers about her birth parents, why didn’t you just take her there yourself and help her find them?" Zyran asked, his deep baritone laced with pure frustration.

"Why play these games? Obviously, only the Lycan Kings have high-level access to those restricted archives. If you wanted to help her, why didn’t you just take her hand and walk her right up to the vault files?"

Raven’s gaze turned deadly serious, his dark eyes fixing cold and hard on Zyran.

"Because she didn’t tell me anything," Raven replied smoothly.

"When I asked for her parents’ names, she said she didn’t know. But even before she set foot in this academy, I went in there myself to find the ledger. I personally searched through every birth record, every old entry, looking for any trace of her name... And do you know what I found? Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

Raven took a slow breath, his dark posture growing even more rigid. "I knew there was nothing in that library that could help her find her birth parents. I knew it, and that is why I didn’t take her there. I thought it would stop her. But still..."

Raven shifted his gaze, his dark eyes landing directly on Keiran.

"...she somehow found her way inside anyway."

She really has no fear, does she?

"She really did," Keiran replied, a small, proud smile twitching at the corner of his sharp lips. He let out a low, dark chuckle, leaning back into the leather couch.

She had more fire in her than half the Alphas in this academy combined.

"Wait, wait... I don’t get it," Blake interrupted, throwing his hands up in total confusion as his gaze darted back and forth between Raven and Keiran.

"What do you mean, Raven? If you knew there are no files that have her name in there, then why wouldn’t you just tell her? If you had just told her the truth from the start, she wouldn’t have to come to this academy in the first place!"

Blake leaned in closer, his dark brows drawing together.

"Why hide it from her? And... Why do you want her to stop looking for her birth parents?"

Raven looked down at the dark golden liquid in his glass, his expression unreadable, yet suffocatingly intense.

"If I had said that there are no records of hers in here... then yeah, she wouldn’t have come in here," Raven said softly, every single word heavy with dark intent.

"She wouldn’t have stayed a single day. She would have just walked away, trying to find some other way outside these walls."

Raven paused, his grip tightening around the crystal glass until his knuckles turned bone-white.

"I can’t let that happen. I won’t let her walk away."

The room grew tense. The three princes exchanged dark, puzzled glances.

Keiran’s dark brows pulled together into a cold line.

"What do you mean you don’t want her to know that there is nothing in here that she needs? Are you intentionally keeping her chasing a dead end?"

"If I tell her the truth, she leaves," Raven stated, his voice brutally simple. "She will leave to try and find another way. And the moment she steps outside our territory, she becomes a target again."

"Well, yes! Of course she will!" Blake said.

"If she wants to find out about her birth parents, then she is going to try to figure it out somewhere else! That’s just common sense, Raven! So what’s your plan? Anyhow, she will find out about it eventually, so why keep her in the dark? What happens when she realises you lied to her just to trap her here?"

"I want time," Raven said.

"I need time... to confirm that she is my mate. And for that, I want her near me. I need her right where I can see her, touch her, and protect her. By hiding the truth, it is the only way to get some time and make her stay near me."

Blake stared at him for a long, quiet second before a sharp, playful smirk pulled at his lips, though his eyes remained deadly serious.

"Okay..." Blake purred softly, tilting his head as he leaned across the glass table.

"That’s a real sweet, tragic strategy, bro. But let me ask you the real question... What if she is not your mate? What if the Moon Goddess didn’t pair you two together? She was already rejected by her first mates, chosen by the Moon Goddess. How could you, the ancient Royal Lycan bloodline, possibly be the second-chance mate of an omega?"

The room went completely dead silent.

Raven didn’t flinch. He didn’t hesitate for a single second. When he spoke, his voice was sharp, dead serious, and dripping with a raw, lethal dominance.

"Mate or not... I will make her my Luna one way or another. She will be my mate, and the Second Throne’s Luna."

The entire room froze.

Zyran stopped halfway through taking a sip, Blake’s smirk instantly vanished from his face, and Keiran’s eyes widened just a fraction.

He’s lost his mind.

Was he insane?

The three Lycan Kings sat in stunned, unbroken silence, their sharp eyes locked onto Raven—realising right then and there that the scentless, wolfless girl from the woods was no longer just an assignment.

She was his obsession.