38. Be The Daughter Of A Supposedly Insane Murderer

Hunter

One night became two, and then countless. Hunter couldn't get enough of her, and he did nothing to hide it.

Soon, his affair with Madeline spread, much like wildfire, and he had to face his parents.

"No."

"Father, please," Hunter pleaded, but his parents were adamant. He'd known they would never accept Madeline, but considering the fact she was his mate, he'd thought it could be fixed.

He'd succeeded over the past months in getting her out of the brothel. He built them a tiny hut in a village far from the castle, and she seemed content being there. She seemed happier, younger, a savage innocent beauty. He wanted to keep that, and her. He didn't want to be king if it meant she couldn't be his queen.

He told his parents that, and they had him confined to his chambers for months, heavily guarded. Not even his prowess could get him out when more than a score elite guards were positioned at every entrance of his chambers.

Every day apart from her tortured him, and the distance between them was much too far for the bond to reach. He couldn't feel her, and the pain was eternal, unending.

One day, however, he scented her, and when he tried for what have been the millionth time, the door gave under Hunter's weight.

And there Madeline was in the hallway of his castle, a soft smile gracing her lips and Hunt's eyes dropped to her round belly.

He laughed, joy and disbelief warring within him as he raced for her, lifting her off her feet and twirling her in his arms. He told her she was the most beautiful pregnant lady there ever was. He told her he loved her. He kissed her and brought her to his room, unable to keep his wolf's hunger at bay.

Madeline gripped the headboard, pushing against him as he drove into her over and over again, until his mind was his own, until their bodies were so fused together, he couldn't tell where she ended from where he began. It took all day, all night. To relearn what she felt like, what she smelled like, what she tasted like.

And when morning came, a fully dressed Madeline said, "Your parents sent for me."

Hunter rolled out of bed, shoving his feet into his pants. "I'll come with--"

Madeline shook her head, her voice soft as she refused. "No. It's me they have a problem with, Hunt. You can't always head first into a battle for me. I'm more than capable of handling this myself." She smirked, her chin rising. "Besides, how hard could it be to make them like me?"

He loved Madeline's confidence, but he knew his parents. It was already strange enough that they called her over.

She fluttered over to where he stood and cupped his cheeks. "You worry so--"

Madeline stopped talking and her eyes emptied out, like she was there, yet she was somewhere else.

"Maddy?" Hunter said, shaking her shoulders, and she blinked twice, her face drained of all color.

“I’m fine,” Madeline said, forcing a smile, and Hunter knew better than to push her when she didn’t wish to share.

He walked her out of the room, stopping outside the receiving hall. “I’ll be right there if I sense anything is wrong.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’m with you, always.”

Madeline smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes as she whispered against his lips, “Always.” She kissed him, and it was nothing like her usual tease. It was soft and slow, like she had all the time in the world, like she couldn’t quite…let go. Before Hunter could give in to the unquenchable desire rising within him and take her back to his chambers, Madeline pulled away and slipped into the hall, shutting the door behind her.

He paced the length of the door for a time, managing to agitate the guards outside. It was quiet, and he could have sworn he heard soft laughter.

He trusted Madeline. The woman had a way with words. There was no way his parents could hate her if they heard her speak. Prince Hunt itched to barge in and talk to them instead, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t disrespect Madeline’s decision to talk to his parents alone. Defend herself, if need be. Appeal to them to let him…go. If not for anything, but for their child.

Hunter was an only child, but his cousin, Ryodan could easily take his place as heir. He wanted none of it. He only needed Madeline.

Someone screamed, and there was such roaring in his head that he jerked back, covering his ears. Hunt turned, his breaths sharp as he pushed the door, and the smell of blood hit him first.

On the foot of the dias, his father laid on his belly, blood pooling beneath him, and not too far, in the arms of his mate, his mother was…

Hunt stumbled a step forward. Perhaps the blood didn’t shake him as hard as the sight of Madeline holding the dagger that stopped his mother’s heart—the dagger that was still in her unmoving chest. His mother’s pale eyes stared at the chandelier, unseeing. Gone.

Someone roared. Hunter roared. He half-ran, half-crawled to his father, gripping his shoulder with hands that trembled. He was alive. Barely. Bael, the captain of the guard, and his vice stepped in beside him, staring at the scene, aghast. “Fuck,” Bael breathed. There was so much blood.

Hunter looked back. His mother hadn’t been so lucky. “Take him…” He breathed hard. “Take him to the physician,” he ordered the vice, abandoning his father. His chest caved, shock spreading like a deadly venom. Still, he walked, not quite seeing anything else.

Madeline looked up, and her eyes were wide with terror. She scrambled back, dropping his mother’s limp body with a thud, and she wiped the blood off her hands on her sky-blue dress. “We were…we were talking. They were listening, they smiled—” her words were hysterical rasps. “The dagger…the men, they came from outside—” She paused and looked at her bloodied hands. A broken sob left her lips as she wiped them again and again on her dress. “I held it and—I couldn’t stop it—”

“You killed her,” Hunter finished, brushing a hand over his mother’s eyelids and he closed them with surprising calm.

“No,” Madeline sobbed, scrubbing off the blood on her skin until she bled. “I didn’t—I wouldn’t hurt you like that. I love you.”

It was the first time Madeline ever admitted to him that she loved him, and though he’d waited for those words for a long time, he barely heard her. The windows and entrances were shut, as they usually were when the King and Queen of Dawn were having private conversations that couldn’t afford to be leaked to outsiders. There was no way anyone could have come from outside.

Still, she inched closer, reaching for his hands with her fingers that still had his mother’s blood on them. Hunter flinched, and Madeline let her hand fall. “I didn’t do it. I swear it, on my life, though it’s not worth much. Tell me you believe me.” A tear slid down her cheek. “Please.”

Perhaps, had it been someone else, he might have considered the possibility of it all. But his mother was dead, and Madeline had wielded the dagger. In that moment, all he saw was her body, and the blood on Madeline’s hands. He couldn’t even look at her without seeing that one picture in his mind’s eye; her delicate fingers that had touched him lovingly, curled around that bloodied dagger.

“I have no reason to. Not even sending assassins to kill me could have pushed me to—"

Hunter cocked his head, straightening. “What?”

Madeline’s violet eyes rose from his mother’s body, and they were filled with tears and insanity. “You weren’t home. I protected us. Myself and our daughter. I fought against the assassins your parents sent to kill me, all of whom relayed a message to me before I killed them: It’s nothing personal. Whores shouldn’t dine with royalty.”

Lies. Hunter knew his parents, and when the need called for it, they were ruthless. But killing a harmless, defenseless woman through assassins…it wasn’t their way.

Suddenly, it all fit together. Perhaps, it was the rage that clouded his judgement. Perhaps it was the sight of his father being carted away by the guards. The Alpha King of Dawn had been attacked in his own home. He’d been caught off-guard because Hunter had let Madeline go in there alone. How much harm could a petite thing like Madeline cause anyway?

So much damage, apparently. He knew nothing of her past, had lived in the present with her, had given her all of him, and she had taken from him instead, because of a…misconception. “And that’s why you did it?”

Madeline jerked. “You think…” She clutched her chest. “You think me capable of killing your parents?” When Hunter didn’t respond, anger flared in her violet eyes. “Then you are a fool, a naïve child. Always have been. Always will be.”

Hunter lunged for her; to kill or to hold her, he didn’t know, but Madeline was fast. Or maybe he was holding back, because deep in his heart, it didn’t matter if she went on a murdering spree. He loved her. He didn’t see the dagger until it was inches away from his face. Pain erupted on his left cheek as she cut him. Hunter vaguely registered Bael calling for more guards.

“Don’t hurt her,” he said, clutching his bleeding cheek, but Bael was already moving, hitting her with the full weight of his sword.

For some reason, he couldn’t move. Not as he watched her fight. She parried Bael’s blows, not easily, and he saw the strain it dealt her.

But he wouldn’t move to help or save her. Not after what she had done.

“Stand down!” Hunter found himself barking when Bael’s sword got to close to Madeline’s belly. The Captain shot him a deadly look. “Never forget the Queen was mother to all. I don’t care who the fuck she is to you, Hunt. She killed her.” Of course, that was pain and grief shinning in his friend’s eyes. She’d raised him too as hers.

Bael angled his sword for Madeline, and Hunt…he wouldn’t move to stop him. Madeline saw the hesitation, and her eyes darkened, distrust, betrayal and several other severe emotions he couldn’t name flickering in them. She was a blur of movement, dodging, and Bael groaned when the back of her dagger smacked into his temple, hard. There was a sickening crunch that cleaved the air, and Bael dropped unconscious.

Madeline panted, fingers gripping her belly, and a whimper escaped her, her delicate features tightening with pain. Hunter moved a step forward but she held up her dagger. “Touch me and I’ll kill you.”

He believed her. He halted, fists clenching. His ears picked up on the sound of rushed steps along the hallway. More guards. “Drop the dagger, Madeline. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Fuck you,” she spat, inching back toward the shut windows. “I’m not Maddy anymore? You don’t love me anymore? Whatever happened to always? You’re going to let them take and torture me?”

“You killed my mother!”

“I didn’t! There were men. They came from outside!”

“Then fucking explain why the same dagger I carved for you during solstice four months ago is in my mother’s chest!” He closed the distance between them, raising her hand and the new dagger in it that she’d unsheathed from her thigh to defend herself with. “The same fucking set, Madeline!”

Her eyes widened, as if she’d only just taken note of it, but Hunter had caught her in the lie. “I don’t know how…I didn’t…” She choked on a sob and stared at her hands. “I didn’t do it! I swear!” She turned to the windows. “They were open, and I couldn’t see—”

“Madeline!” Hunter roared, unable to take anymore of it. “If you admit to it now, I just might be able to save you before the council arrives.”

Madeline pushed him off her. “I don’t need saving! I didn’t do it! I told you, there was someone out—"

“There was no one else!” he yelled. “This was all you! Have you truly lost your grip on reality that you can no longer—"

She swung her fist and his head reared back as she broke his nose. “Don’t call me mad. I’m not insane!”

Hunter snarled and grabbed her arm, yanking her forward. Pain suddenly shot through his torso and he looked down in the same moment that Madeline did. She’d stabbed him. His brows furrowed and his hand slid down hers as he stumbled back, stunned.

“Hunter,” she whispered, her eyes wide. “I didn’t mean to—”

He scoffed, clutching the bleeding wound. “I should’ve known better. You were a mistake.”

She stiffened, and he could swear he saw love flash in her eyes for the briefest of moments, before an empty void replaced it. “Perhaps. When you’re not blinded by your emotions and grief, come find me. I love you, Hunter. You made me want to truly live. You gave me love. You are everything I’ve ever wanted and needed. Don’t make me wait too long. Come back to me.”

She ran for the windows, pushing them open, and she jumped out of it. She got away, somehow avoiding the heavy patrol of guards in the castle. She made it out, and Hunter hated himself every time for the relief he felt when the guards reported that she wasn’t found. The bounties placed around the city didn’t yield results either.

His father died later that week, the dagger having being laced with poison, and his last words had somehow been, “I forged an alliance with Pack Talon. Keep to it. Shameful that your mother had to die for you to realize she was a nuisance. Whores shouldn’t dine with royalty.”