Cole
She’s exactly what I hoped she’d be.
Beautiful, sure. I knew she’d be beautiful. The soft, ocean blue of her eyes reminds me of the sky in the early mornings, when stars still dance toward the horizon until they’re chased away by the sun. She’s dainty and graceful. She’s exactly what a princess should be, as long as she doesn’t open her fucking mouth… but she needs to keep talking. She needs to keep pissing off the Umbra Mortis. She’s the perfect distraction.
I hate that I need her.
I hate that she showed how useful she could be when she unleashed her powers in the library because she’s just as trapped as I am now. But she might be our only hope. My only hope.
I sink behind the desk in the sliver of personal space I've managed to carve out for myself in this massive fortress built in the dead center of the desert. We’re hundreds of miles away from the nearest cities–cities I now rule as Alpha King.
I look down at my hands, curling them into fists as footsteps echo in my direction, cutting through the hallway that breaks my quarters into sections.
Declan appears, looking haggard. “Hey.”
I nod in greeting, too exhausted to even open my mouth.
“Uh, the guy, Luke, is healing up fine. I thought I’d let you know. He got his shoulder damn near torn off, but the healer thinks he’s going to be okay.”
“I need to see him when he’s had a few hours to recover,” I murmur, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a bottle of whiskey. It’s from the batch Alpha King Ryatt sent my father as a Solstice gift two years ago from a distillery in Crescent Falls. I pop the cork and drain the inch or two of golden liquid that remains, praying it dulls the pain shooting through my back.
“I’ll bring him up–”
“Don’t bother. I’ll go to him.”
“He’s still in the dungeon,” Declan winces. “I get moving the girls, but I don’t think I can get him his own quarters without raising suspicions. Henry and I were already interrogated about why he’s here while the rest of the prisoners are being held at headquarters.”
I think of the catacombs stretching across the empty, endless desert. It’s where the order should have stayed buried, hidden from the light of day. It’s where at least a hundred college students are being kept as hostages, their families told to stay away if they want their children to live.
My mouth goes dry. I try to take another pull from the empty bottle. “You don’t have to worry about it. The Umbra’s attention is on me again now.”
Declan grimaces, rolling his ankles before deciding to step into the room and sit on the arm of the faded, dusty chair in front of my desk. “I tried to stop her, you know,” he begins, looking so fucking guilty it might be enough to break my heart–if I still had one to break. “I didn’t know–I didn’t know her boyfriend had–well–she was pissed that day. If I’d chased her down to give her the warning, she wouldn’t have believed me.”
“She wasn’t going to listen, so it doesn’t matter. She never does.”
“What do you mean? Do you know her personally?”
“No,” I reply after a moment, discarding the bottle and reaching for another full one, the last one.
“Look, man, you look beat. You need to sleep at some point. I got this handled. Misty and Georgia–”
“Princess Misty,” I correct him, meeting his eyes. Gods, he looks like Adrian. The memory of my childhood friend, the man who was supposed to be my Beta one day, barrels through my mind and twists through my heart like a knife. Declan is his younger brother. Declan was never supposed to be here. He should be hundreds of miles away, in fact, seeking shelter with his family while I try to undo the mess my father inadvertently made.
“Yeah, I guess. I know her… differently. Not as a princess.” Declan shrugs a shoulder. “Through school.”
“She’s still a princess. That’s her title. You’ll call her Princess Mystica from now on.”
“She’ll think it's weird. She already thinks I’m weird, Cole.”
“You’re not in college anymore, Declan,” I say with more force than necessary. I cut myself off before adding that the university is gone. The social constructs that plague his shy brain don’t mean a Goddess damned thing anymore.
He frowns. “So… what now?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, taking several gulps of whiskey before sliding the bottle in his direction. He looks me over, his eyebrows pinching with concern. Declan takes a drink, chokes, and sets the bottle down again, his eyes watering. He’s young. I always forget he can’t even shift yet. That was probably the first drink of hard liquor he’s ever had.
I close my eyes and choke back a groan as bright pain licks up my spine before fizzing away.
“You know, she’s got healing powers. She could take a look at… it.” Declan rolls his lower lip between his teeth, shrugging helplessly.
I shift my weight in the chair, wincing as the backrest brushes against my back. “There’s no point.”
“But–”
“Declan, please.” I close my eyes, hoping that’s enough of a dismissal, but he doesn’t know me that well yet. At twenty, he’s six years my junior. He was the goofy, annoying little brother of my best friend who we bullied endlessly and he took it. Maybe even enjoyed it because it meant he was with us, and he worshiped the ground Adrian walked on. He’s inexperienced and totally in over his head right now.
I owe it to Adrian to be nice to Declan. To protect him. He made me promise to watch out for him before dying in my arms.
“I just need something to do,” he murmurs, looking down at where I’m sitting from his perch on the chair. “I’ll do anything.”
“Just keep an eye on the cryptology student. I need him. I’ll find a way to get him out of the dungeon and somewhere more comfortable.” Here, possibly, in my own quarters, where he’ll live in secret. There’s a few extra bedrooms. It would work, honestly, but only as long as the Umbra doesn’t start getting suspicious and sends his loyal minions snooping around.
So far, the Umbra Mortis doesn’t seem unnerved by the fact I’m keeping the princess close by saying I’m going to use her as a breeder. I even had word sent to her family about it. That was enough for the Umbra to believe it. It was easy enough to persuade him to see my line of thought in that regard. Her powers running through my bloodline was enticing to him. Maybe in any other circumstance, it would have been enticing to me, too.
“Can you just hear me out for a second, okay? That’s all I need. I just know that Adrian–”
I hiss out a breath in warning.
Declan exhales deeply, nostrils flaring, and continues, “Adrian would’ve wanted you to at least try to heal, right? He’d be sitting here right now, calling you a fucking idiot, asking if you have some weird pain kink and that’s why you’re not doing something about it.”
“This is more than a strained muscle, Declan,” I growl, but he shrugs.
“She could do it. You know she can.”
“She’s too young. She’s not even developing her wolf powers yet.” A late bloomer. Like me, apparently. I didn’t have a wolf until a month after my twenty-first birthday. It was rather embarrassing, in retrospect.
“But she can shoot light out of her fingertips.” He wiggles his fingers in emphasis. “Nathan told me she’s got a weird thing about tears. She’d heal him whenever he had blisters on his ankles, for Goddess’ sake.”
The mention of Nathan has fire burning to life in my soul. I grip the bottle, but Declan hasn’t noticed the rage slipping through the carefully crafted mask of disinterest I’ve been wearing for this entire exchange.
“How close are you with Nathan?”
“Uh, not so much. He’s kind of a dick, honestly. I liked Rodney, that’s how I ended up in that group to begin with. Rodney kinda took me under his wing when I joined the varsity track team.” He looks down at his lap, pursuing his lips. “Fuckin’ Rodney, man. I tried to get him out. His mom–gods.” He runs a hand over his face, feeling the same kind of grief everyone on my side of things must be feeling right now.
We couldn’t do anything to stop it. Nothing.
And I’m supposed to be the King of Tarsian.
But only with the Umbra Mortis pulling my strings.
“Bring me Luke when he’s well enough to talk. Other than that, stand guard with Henry and… Gregory. Make sure no one goes into the suite the princess and her friend are sharing. No one but me, okay?”
He nods, blinking past emotion he’s been trying to keep buried to the best of his ability.
I continue, “If they need anything, make sure it happens, but they can’t leave their suite. They’re safest there–with each other. I don’t trust anyone else with them, but you, and your friends.”
He rises, deciding that’s enough of a dismissal to jolt back into action.
I lean over the desk, resting my weight on my elbows. The searing pain in my back is enough to make me sick to my stomach sometimes, but other times I’m so used to it that I don't think about it until someone touches me. Right now, it’s excruciating. The Umbra Mortis saw to that when I stopped him from further hurting Misty.
I don’t know how Dad went through this for two years.
I grip the bottle and rise, walking through my suite, balancing with my hand braced on doorways as the liquor hits my system and blooms into a warm, heavy haze. I reach the bedroom where a four poster bed I can’t sleep in comfortably rises before me. Curtains sway in the desert breeze blowing sand across the stone window sill.
Once, long ago, before written memory, this entire desert was a lush paradise. This castle would have been beautiful then, but now it's a tomb, a gilded casket in a sea of nothingness.
I lift the mattress and pull a small, wooden box from a hole in the underside. I toss it on the bed and pace back and forth, hoping to slip into a stupor long enough to sleep without pain waking me up again. Hoping to pass the time before that cryptology student is well enough to translate the script and decipher the code lining the egg-shaped object within the box.
I open the lid, scowling down at the palm-sized, heavy, useless piece of iron.
I need to open it if I’m going to save my own life.
I need to open it if I’m going to stop the Umbra Mortis from unleashing hell on my kingdom–and beyond.
I need to open it if I’m going to save Misty’s family–and her.
Otherwise, I’ll go into death knowing I did I what I could… even if that’s only turning the royal family, a family who were once allies–and friends–with my parents, against me… so they can rain their power down on Tarsian, ending the fight I couldn’t finish and stopping the order before it’s too late.
But I need their princess to do it.
I close the box, taking another drink, and stagger out of the room with no idea what I’m supposed to do next.
In my defense, I did try to warn her.