The Lycan King's Forbidden Craving - Chapter 170: Chapter 170

Crimson Pack.
“Do you have children?” Mea, the girl on Duncan's lap asked.
“I’m about to,” he replied, staring at the bold little girl who came and asked him directly if she could sit on his lap.
He wondered if she’d do the same if he were dressed in his royal attire instead of as a common traveler.
Mae has long curly brown hair that accencutated her adorable look.
“Can I be their friend?” Mae flashed her incomplete teeth cutely.
“Very well,” Duncan replied.
The women had been drooling over Duncan ever since they got here. Some even approached, offering their help.
Arianna felt a pang of jealousy hearing how the women whispered about Duncan.
But she already knew something like this would happen.
Her mate was larger than life, with smooth skin and long, fine sliky hair. He was the epitome of perfection and sexiness.
“You have beautiful eyes,” another kid said. “Can you marry my mother?”
Arianna, who was helping an older woman in a sickbed, almost choked.
Duncan lifted his chin at Arianna's direction. “That’s my wife there. So, no, kid, I cannot marry your mother.”
The kids glanced at Arianna, whose face reddened at Duncan calling her his wife. That was new, and she loved it.
The kid’s mother simply smiled sadly. She would have gone for it, but she respected a male already mated.
Other women bit down their lips in disappointment.
“She is beautiful,” the kid who had suggested marriage admitted, staring at Arianna.
The sight of Duncan having kids around was beautiful.
He’d be a great father.
“You’re carrying a child. That’s lovely,” the old woman said to Arianna.
“Thanks.”
“You have a great, handsome husband. I haven’t seen such a beauty before,” another woman spoke, but the one beside her nudged her to stop gawking at another female’s mate.
They are at the pack’s Almhouse investigating likes they had planned.
Due to the king’s illness for three years, corruption within the realm had worsened, and of course these small packs, consisting mostly of women and children, struggled to survive amid poor nutrition, crime, and trafficking.
The Crimson Pack was one of many.
One of countless packs brushed under the rug by those in power.
Their lands, though rich in soil, yielded nothing for themselves. Everything they earn was seized under the pretense of alliance and protection.
The food they were promised? Rarely arrived.
The protection? Nonexistent.
The cries they sent? Smothered before they could reach the Citadel.
“Many of us were branded ungrateful for speaking up. We were told we had no right to question the lords… that our lives were owed.” the old woman said.
Arianna sat by her, wiping her face gently. The woman’s breath shook with every word.
“My husband…” she continued, voice trembling, “He said we had no choice. That we needed coin or we’d starve. He offered to sell our first daughter. I said no. We fought hard and one morning… He took her and never came back.”
Arianna gave her a gentle squeeze on the hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, dear Elise. It’s nice to finally see a stranger caring about us.”
Arianna had told them her name was Elise. It was her middle name, one her father gave her.
She saw the pain, the desperation, the reality that never made it into the pristine scrolls carried by the king’s messengers.
The realm was vast, and not even Duncan’s rule could reach every shadow.
Arianna met her mate's gaze across the room, still seated, surrounded by children, letting one braid flowers into his long hair while another showed him their wooden toys.
He was also listening to the woman’s story, and she could tell he was trying to contain his anger.
No wonder, at first, these people were hesitant to let them in, but this old woman in Arianna’s care accepted them and gave them food from the little they had.
Having grown up in her own pack, Arianna had seen what power could do. How the thirst for more could twist a noble name into a curse.
Some packs clawed their way up by crushing those below them, feeding lies to the court while stripping everything from the weak. And it worked because no one ever looked too far beneath the surface.
But Arianna would.
Once she became queen, she would be Duncan’s extra eyes, his ears, his voice in the places his power didn’t reach.
She would find those buried beneath the silence and give them a chance to breathe again.
“I don’t think it’s okay to speak about it, Nana. You warned us not to speak with strangers, now you’re the one doing it,” a girl around seventeen spoke from the corner. She was tending to another old sick male. She cast Arianna a skeptical look.
“I can tell those who are good and bad apart, Diana. Could swear these two visitors are highborns.”
Arianna froze.
Duncan said nothing, keeping his focus on the children admiring his silky hair.
“Highborns?” The girl laughed. “They’ll never hear us. They’re the reason why we’re suffering.”
“Anything is possible,” the older woman said.
“The realm is in chaos because of the king’s woman. They say she bears the devil’s blood,” a brown-haired woman stitching spoke.
Arianna blinked. Devil’s blood?
“Devil? I thought they mentioned Dragon,” a blondie spoke.
“Dragons are devils. There is no difference,” Diana said, walking to sit by her grandmother to check the wound Arianna had dressed.
The old woman had diabetes and was at risk of dying anytime soon.
“I’m going to the gathering to see what she looks like. Someone said she might have horns and can control fire,” the blondie said.
“That’s not possible, Helen. Shut up,” Diana said.
Mae left Duncan and went to Arianna, wanting to be on her lap, and she obliged.
“It doesn’t matter what she looks like. She is the king’s mate and will soon be the queen. What matters is what she does and not just be a figurehead… but honestly, I’m not hoping for anything.”
“Why not?” Arianna asked calmly this time. The women shifted their gaze to her.
The girl shrugged, her lips pressing into a thin line.
“Because they all come, dressed in silk and smiles… say the same things, promise to listen and help.” Her tone wasn’t bitter. “But at the end they'll forget about it. We don’t hear from them again. Because we don’t matter.”
“You matter,” Arianna said, holding the child on her lap a little tighter. “You all do.”
The women looked at her again, the air stilling. Their faces unreadable—wary, cautious. Not from rudeness, but from history. They had trusted too many smiles and noble words before.
“I want to believe you. But belief won’t fill our stomachs or bring back our sisters.” Diana said.
Duncan glanced at the old woman who had kept her eyes on him the entire time. She gave him a weak smile, and he understood what it meant.
The old woman perhaps already knew who he was.
“We don’t care about the bloodline that the Queen carries. The dragon, war, and all the stories we’ve heard. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is the future she'll bring,” a man spoke this time.
“I doubt any thing good will come out of it,” Diana muttered.
“Then you should come see her tomorrow,” Arianna suggested.
“Maybe,” Diana nodded. “You both seem like a good person though.”
“How can you tell?”
“My grandma says you’re good, and Mae, my little sister on your lap, doesn’t come close to anyone but whoever she is free and comfortable with,” Diana replied, and the kid on Arianna’s lap flashed her a cute smile.
A loud thud interrupted them. Shouts and cries echoed from a distance.
“Oh my God, don’t tell me it’s them?” Helen said.
“But it isn’t Friday,” the blondie panicked.
The children shifted with fear as heavy footsteps approached. Arianna immediately sensed something was wrong.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Soldiers. They’re here to take the crops we harvested. They come every second and last Friday of the month. For them to be here all of a sudden means they are here to take a person.”
Duncan’s aura shifted.