Lycan — 30 (Patreon)

Author's note: Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a wonderful week. Mine has been... HECTIC and it's only Tuesday. I've obtained THREE requests, and I am extremely excited to start developing them. Hopefully, I'll get to the first request tonight and maybe post it tomorrow along with Sovereign.

⭐️ Please consider submitting your request. I promise it's anonymous and I'll try my best to make them happen -> Request box

Y/N took a small step back from the curb, her thoughts tangled as she rejoined Harry, who was still finishing up a conversation with a woman from the pack. His eyes flicked to her immediately—he could sense something. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

"Everything alright?" he asked, handing her the smoothie.

She hesitated, then took a sip. The sweetness did little to distract her from the chill creeping down her spine. "Yeah. Just tired."

Harry handed her the smoothie, his thumb brushing lightly against her fingers as he did. “Here,” he said, smiling softly. “Told you mango was the best one.”

Y/N took it with a small nod, trying to keep her expression neutral—even casual. But her mind was still spinning from the encounter with Aiden. She couldn’t shake the look in his eyes… or the way he had known something he shouldn’t have.

“Who were you talking to?” Harry asked, nodding toward the spot where she’d been standing moments ago. His tone was even, but Zion stirred in the back of his mind.

"She’s tense. Her scent changed. She’s lying."

Y/N turned quickly, forcing a light laugh. “Oh—just some woman from the line. She thought I looked familiar. Small-town things, you know?”

Harry squinted slightly, not entirely convinced. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” she said too quickly. “It was nothing.”

Zion growled low, almost snarling in Harry’s mind.

"She’s hiding something. Her heart rate’s up. Her voice is tight. Someone was there, and it wasn’t some stranger."

Harry didn’t press further, though his jaw ticked as he glanced back toward the street. “Alright,” he said, forcing a casual shrug. “Let’s go home”.

“Ok,” she replied, managing a smile. But she couldn’t meet his eyes.

Harry looped his arm around her shoulders and began leading her away from the stand. The weight of the smoothie in her hand felt heavier now. Zion’s growl hadn’t faded. And even though Harry didn’t say it out loud, he was already making a mental note to find out exactly who had spoken to her—because whatever she was hiding, he was going to find out.

The sun was dipping low by the time Harry and Y/N returned to the pack house. The air was cooler now, and the earlier warmth of the walk had faded into something heavier, something more tense. Y/N still hadn’t said much, but her silence spoke volumes. Harry hadn't pried—not yet. Zion remained restless in his head.

As they stepped inside, Harry’s phone buzzed sharply in his pocket.

Michaela.

He answered immediately, pulling away from Y/N with a quick kiss to her temple. “What did you find?” he asked, stepping into the hallway for privacy.

Michaela’s voice was low, even for her usual composed tone. “You need to come to the clinic.”

Harry froze. “Tell me what you found.”

A pause. Then, “There was something carved into his chest. Not deep enough to kill him—but deliberate. Intact, even after everything else. It’s a symbol—something ritualistic. I’ve already started combing through the archives to see if we’ve seen it before. But Harry… it was done postmortem.”

Harry’s breath hitched. Zion went deathly quiet, like a predator sensing the shift before a storm.

“That’s not all,” Michaela added. “I took samples from underneath his fingernails—he fought back. There’s foreign DNA.”

“Do we have a match?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous now.

Another pause. “We ran it through the pack’s system and through Iron Claw’s records too… no hits. But there was something else.” She hesitated.

“What?”

“There were trace amounts of another scent on him. Familiar. Faint—but there. I’ve isolated it and triple-checked with the samples we keep on file.”

Harry was already gripping the edge of the hallway doorframe, as if bracing himself.

“It matches Y/N.”

Harry didn’t speak. For a full ten seconds, his entire world stilled. Zion growled—not at her, but at the implication. The violation. The manipulation.

“I don’t think she was there,” Michaela clarified quickly. “Not recently. But she must’ve had contact with whoever did this. Maybe through an object, or…”

“Or someone touched her,” Harry finished quietly, eyes narrowing.

Michaela exhaled. “Exactly.”

Harry hung up and turned slowly, walking back toward the living room where Y/N was sitting on the couch, the smoothie untouched in her hands.

He crouched in front of her, his tone gentle but firm. “You need to tell me exactly who you spoke to today, Y/N. Every word. Every detail.”

Her eyes widened.

Because she knew.

He knew.

And now—whoever killed her father had touched her.

Y/N blinked down at him, her grip tightening on the cup between her hands. “What are you talking about?”

Harry didn’t answer right away. He watched her. Closely. Like he was trying to read beneath her skin, beneath her heartbeat. His jaw tensed.

“I just got off the phone with Michaela,” he said slowly, carefully. “She found your scent on the body. Fresh enough to raise suspicion—but not in a way that makes sense unless you came in contact with someone who was at the scene.”

Y/N furrowed her brows. “Harry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been with you. I haven’t touched anyone, I haven’t—”

“Don’t lie to me.”

His voice was quiet—but cutting. Sharp enough to draw blood. Zion surged forward in his mind, clawing at Harry’s control. “Why is she lying to us?” the wolf snarled. “Why would she protect him?”

“I’m not lying,” she said again, standing now, indignant. But her pulse jumped in her neck, and Harry saw it. Felt it.

“I smelled the shift in you the second I handed you that smoothie,” Harry said, standing too. He towered over her now, but not with menace—with desperate restraint. “Zion noticed it first—your heartbeat changed. You were tense. You were covering something.”

Y/N turned away from him, her voice soft. “I was just overwhelmed. Everything going on, my father…” She trailed off, trying to sound tired. Distant. But she could feel his eyes burning into the back of her neck.

“She’s hiding him.”

Zion's voice rumbled with bitter rage. “She let him close. She let him scent her.”

Harry stepped forward, crowding her space now. “Who did you see, Y/N?”

She said nothing.

“Was it someone from Alsfield?” he pressed.

Nothing.

“Was it someone who shouldn’t be here?”

Still, silence.

His hands clenched into fists at his sides, fighting the instinct to shake the truth out of her. “Do you even understand how serious this is? Whoever you talked to—he’s not just a suspect, he touched your father’s body. His DNA is on Robert. Yours is on him. And that means whoever it is… has been close enough to hurt you.”

Y/N turned back to face him then, her eyes shining with unspoken fear—but also with something else. Something unreadable. “I didn’t recognize anyone,” she said finally. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Harry stared at her, chest rising and falling with the storm inside him. He didn’t believe her. Not fully. And it was driving him mad.

“I want to trust you,” he said, voice tight, “but right now… Zion is losing his mind trying to figure out why you’d protect someone connected to your father’s murder.”

Her expression faltered just slightly.

“You don’t have to lie to me,” Harry added, softer now, but no less intense. “You just have to tell me the truth. Before this gets worse.”

The silence that followed was long and heavy. Y/N turned her gaze away, her arms wrapping around herself.

And in Harry’s mind, Zion was pacing.

“If she won’t protect herself, we will. We find him. And then we end this.”

Harry’s eyes lingered on her face a moment longer—searching. Hoping. Waiting for her to cave and give him something. Anything.

But she didn’t.

And that was all he needed to know.

He stepped back, slow and heavy, like the weight of her silence had settled onto his shoulders.

“Alright,” he said, voice hollow.

Y/N flinched, hearing the shift in his tone. It wasn’t anger now—it was something worse. Disappointment.

“Harry…”

He raised a hand to stop her, his gaze avoiding hers. “Don’t. You made your choice.” He turned his back to her, walking across the room toward the door. “I’m not going to stand here and fight with you. I’m not going to beg for honesty, not from the one person I thought I didn’t have to question.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Her chest ached, but she stayed frozen where she stood.

“I don’t care how good your reason is,” he added, his voice quieter now, but edged with steel. “If someone is behind what happened to your father—if someone was close enough to scent you, to know your name—they are dangerous. And I will find him. With or without your help.”

Zion stirred again, his voice sharp and decisive inside Harry’s mind.

“We start tonight.”

Without another glance, Harry left the room, the door clicking softly behind him.

And Y/N stood alone, still holding the smoothie in her hand, cold and untouched.

Her eyes burned—not just from fear, but from the sting of what she’d just lost in his eyes.

The following days were cold, dark, and lonely for Y/N — in more ways than one.

The pack, once warm and welcoming, now felt like it had turned its back on her. Whispers followed her wherever she went. Eyes lingered too long. Doors didn’t open as quickly. And though no one said anything outright, she could feel their disappointment. Their mistrust. The rumors had spread like wildfire: that she’d protected a stranger, that she had ties to someone dangerous. That maybe she wasn’t who she claimed to be at all.

The sting of rejection bit deeper because she could feel it. Not just in the way they looked at her, but in the subtle, pulsing bond that connected her to the pack’s energy — a bond that was now laced with skepticism and cold indifference.

But nothing hurt as much as the empty space beside her at night.

Harry had moved into another room.

She knew it wasn’t out of hatred — that wasn’t in him. But Zion’s disappointment ran deep, and that wolf was just as much a part of Harry as his heartbeat. Y/N could feel it. Every time Harry passed her in the halls without touching her. Every time his gaze brushed over her and then quickly looked away. Every night she lay awake, sensing his presence only rooms away, but just out of reach.

She missed his warmth.

She missed his hands on her back and the quiet way he used to say her name when no one else was around.

But now, silence reigned. It wasn’t cruel — it was restrained. Controlled. Like Harry was holding himself together with threads and keeping his distance to keep from breaking.

And still, every cell in his body ached to be close to her.

Every muscle in him tensed when he heard her steps down the hall. Every instinct screamed to go to her, to pull her into his chest and breathe her in. But Zion held the line — and Harry let him. Because a Luna who wouldn’t trust her Alpha... what did that mean for the rest of them?

So he stayed away.

And Y/N stayed cold.

And the bond between them strained under the weight of silence, both of them wondering if it could survive the secrets still left between them.

So, she turned inward. If no one else would help her, she’d help herself.

She began quietly. During early mornings, before anyone else was awake, Y/N slipped into the pack’s archives—old books, handwritten ledgers, and half-decayed folders. She pored over history records, territory exchanges, and family bloodlines, trying to connect anything to the strange symbol Michaela had found on her father’s body.

When that didn’t lead anywhere, she turned to the one person who still looked at her with kindness: Sienna. Together, they met under the pretense of casual visits, but always ended up revisiting old records from the Iron Claw pack too. Sienna never asked about Harry or the rumors. She simply handed Y/N tea and helped her search.

Y/N even began sneaking into Michaela’s medical records room, carefully reading over autopsy reports late into the night, comparing Robert’s death to those of other victims. The more she read, the more unsettled she felt. There was a pattern forming—a signature, almost—and it wasn’t random. It was personal.

She started keeping a notebook. She listed every strange detail: the location of each body, the symbol, the scent—subtle traces no one seemed to be connecting.

And most terrifying of all: Aiden kept showing up. Not directly, not confrontationally, but always nearby. Always watching.

The question burned brighter with each passing day: who was he, really? And why did he know things no one else should?