Found by the Lycan King by Natalie Winter

Chapter 131 Zenovia | stared at Callahan in shock, my ears ringing.

“What?” “You should see your face. Your expression is priceless.” Callahan chuckled, but | found nothing funny about the way he casually dropped the bomb upon me.

“Are you really sharing the truth with me? Selene...the Moon Goddess. She cursed you?” Callahan let his back rest on the chair and looked at the ceiling. “What would | get by feeding you with lies?” He countered. | had opened my mouth to say something, but | closed it abruptly.

His reality was even absurder than sof the crazy theories | had heard about his curse. Ssaid he was cursed by a witch for sfallacy while others said that he killed his loved ones so fate worked against him.

But nothing | had heard so far ceven remotely close to the reality he was sharing with me.

“How old are you, exactly?” | asked, my foot tapping restlessly on the floor and a slow grin appeared on his face.

“Of all the questions | thought you would ask me, this did not make the list.” | frowned, folding my hands over my chest. | was not sure if | was ready to ask him the other questions. My mind was still reeling from the information dump.

So, | replied sarcastically, trying to hide my nervousness.

“That does not answer my question.” Why was he suddenly being cheeky? Was that a way to show how unbothered he was with the secrets he was uncovering? An attempt to hide his true grief and emotions by acting like he did not care? Callahan let out a sigh.

1/6 11:34 W3 Chapter 131 “I said | am the only one left from “The First Children’, so you have to guess how old that makes me.” My eyes grew as wide as saucers. | did not want to calculate. My brain was trying to process a lot at the moment.

Seeing my perplexed expressions, he added, “I am older than most of the living creatures walking this earth. | am the unlucky one who survived while everyone | knew died. Well, most of them. | did not exactly keep track of the new lycans that Selene kept creating to add numbers to our army.” Callahan said, as his hands coiled into fists.

“You are immortal?” | asked with a disbelieving look.

“I wish you paid more attention to what | have been telling you.” He sighed again and raked a hand through his hair, letting his long hair fall to the sides in a messy way.

| had the urge to touch the hair and rake my fingers through that silky mane, but resisted. | could not distract him right now. Or myself. | did not know when he would open up again if | did what my heart wantedto do to him. With him.

Callahan's face was pained, and every word he spoke was like a self-inflicted wound. The more | asked, the more his cool facade seemed to be slipping away. It was visible in his body language, though he tried to maintain a neutral tone.

“I have been living with this knowledge, this burden for years. Not many know why | am cursed or what exactly happened all those years ago. | believe you are the first one | opened up to.” Callahan revealed, and | looked at him with a look of pure surprise. Not that my expressions had been any different for the past thirty minutes or so since he started speaking.

“Not even Dru? How about Matteo and Elijah?” | asked. They had been living with him for years and were his loyal warriors and friends. Surely, | thought, he must have told them. But his answer was the exact opposite of my assumption.

“Neither of them. They all believe the sthing, that switch cursed 11:54 Chapter 131 1. And | let them.” “But why? You toldthat they keep looking for a solution and you know how dejected they feel to not be able to help you. So why do you let them follow false leads?” | blurted out.

Callahan slammed his hand on the chair. “Because | cannot tell them. The curse forbadeto tell anybody anything. And think about it, Zee. What should I tell them? That their precious Selene cursed me? Should | tell them that the Goddess they pray to day and night to help them find a cure foris the one who putin such peril?” | could only stare at him in shock.

Of all the things | had learned about him, this was beyond my wildest. imagination. At this point, | was just blabbering things that popped up in my mind.

“But...Drusilla...she gets visions. She sees flashes of things revolving around you.....why did you never tell her? She works day and night to find a cure and you hide such a huge secret from her, from your loyal warriors.” Callahan grabbed my hand and shook me, as if to pullto my senses.

“You are not listening. | said the curse forbidto speak of the details. Telling anyone about it would mean their death. | could not tell them the truth and see them die. | am selfish, Zee. | have been the reason for countless deaths, and | live with that guilt every day. | cannot bear to live with the thought of causing them harm. | would not be able to forgive myself if anything happened to my people.” Callahan leaned forward and placed his forehead on mine. | saw the way his face looked more and more troubled. He got up from the chair and walked towards the side table, grabbed a bottle of whisky and poured sfor himself into a glass.

“I...I have not spoken about all this in ages...or in forever. Those were the dark days and there was nothing but blood and massacre all around me. We would keep fighting and the pile of dead bodies always kept increasing.

Selene...she was obsessed with taking Mirabel down, but Mirabel’s witches and wizards had something we didn’t.” “What?” My voice was barely a whisper.

He let out a humorless chuckle. “A protector, Selene did not care about 3/6 11:54 W apter 131 those who died fighting for her. The severely injured were discarded as easily as the dead and she kept creating more lycans than tending to those who were injured.” He took a pause to look at me, knowing how | was an ardent believer in the Moon Goddess. Every werewolf was.

We worshiped Selene like a mother and prayed to her for our well-being. | knew Callahan was not lying. | knew it with an unwavering certainty. His eyes spoke to me, not just his mouth and I could see how much it was hurting him to make this admission...but to hear that the Goddess you worshipped all your life could have been so cruel...it was jarring.

Callahan kept sharing the incidents of his past as | sat staring at him, opening my mouth several times but closing it again when | would turn speechless.

| racked my brain but could not find the right words to console him, to find a way to calm him down.

“Days would turn into nights as the witches and wizards would try horrible magic spells on us to slow us down, to thwart our advances. In return, Selene gave us inhuman strength, lightning fast reflexes and turned us into monsters that could fight for hours without feeling pain.” Callahan took a sip from his glass and looked outside the window, particularly toward the sky where the moon was shining brightly.

We all believed Selene resided in her palace on the moon. But C story toldit was the truth, though not as sweet and fluffy as w believed it to be.

“I saw several of my comrades die horrifying deaths. We were all bl with high resistance to pain and could keep fighting despite severe wounds. But even then...at spoint, the body would give up. I...I sa my loyal warriors bleed to death and the life slowly seep out of their ey as | would just sit and watch. That was all | could do.” “Did... Selene not provide healers? Magic potions or something?” | asked, though based on his answers so far, | knew that was not the case.

My heart was finding it hard to believe my Goddess could be like this.

Callahan kept staring at the moon as if he was accusing Selene from earth, and she was silently hearing him.

“She did absolutely nothing but make us fight until we died. Sometimes, | 4/6 11:54 Chapter 131 truly wish | would have died in those battles, too.” “Please don’t say that, Cal.” | tried to not sob at the thought of not having him around me.

He kept staring at the moon and downed the rest of the glass in one go, slamming it a little hard on the windowsill.

Luckily, the glass didn’t break and cut his skin.

“And then | realized this madness had to end. We could not continue living like this. | could not spend restless days and sleepless nights seeing my people die and living with the guilt of not being able to save them.” “But...you could not save them all. You are not a....” | began, but trailed off as he looked back at me, his eyes shining with agony.

“I am not a God? Yeah, | know that. But if the so called Goddess abandoned us, who were my soldiers supposed to look up to? | was the commander in chief, so | was responsible for them.”