The Damned Princess

We were there, me and my brother leading the strongest group of lycans to a small castle hidden in the mountains of Tuscany. The location, the castle, everything looks just like I dreamed of. I’m here, my mate is in there but the situation is not how I imagined.

I know very well that no matter how secretive we act and how hard we try to surprise him with our attack, he knows. He’s very well aware of every move we are making and he’s sitting in there waiting for us.

Daniel is also with us, no matter how much I try to hate him but deep down I know it’s not his fault, it’s always been mine, I’ve just been putting it on others to make myself feel a little lighter. Liam looked at me asking if I was ready, I looked at Daniel once, I can’t let anything happen to him, I have to do this much for V.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and he looked at me. “I know the fire of rage burning in you Pablo, trust me I really do. I know that you want to avenge your parents and they deserve to be avenged but I want one promise from you tonight” I said and he nodded.

“Promise me that you won’t let this fire blind you and distract you from your only priority, finding your mate. I know you never had anything or anybody to live for before, so it didn’t matter if you walked into the fire. But you have V now, you have to be there for her. So, promise me that the moment you find her, you’ll head back to the palace with her without thinking about anybody else”.

He kept his face straight but had a whole storm of emotions in his eyes. “And in return, I promise you I’ll make him pay for all the innocents that have suffered because of him”, I said in a strong voice. He stayed silent for a moment but then nodded at me and said, “I promise you, my mate is my only priority”.

I smiled at him and my brother patted his back. “It’s time brother”, I said to him and he nodded. He signaled everybody to start moving in slowly, Piero was leading a bunch of them. We didn’t let Cris come with us because he was still too weak to fight again.

The directions were very clear, rip the spines out of everything that comes in your sight, and whoever finds the two humans we are here for, gathers all the army and take them and lead in any direction you can, only I stay back. I had a really hard time making Piero understand this, he didn’t want to leave us at any cost but I promised Cris that I’ll bring his mate back alive.

We started moving in silently. I could see my men dropping bodies in every direction. We three were moving in together, we didn’t even need to turn to crush these rogues, this appalling stench of their treachery is enough to make us want to rip them into pieces.

I was on high alert and my lycan was ready to break through, it just needed me to lose my control. My heart was aching to see my love, my lycan wants to run to every corner of this place to find him. “We need to go separate ways to cover more ground”, I said to my brother.

He didn’t look on board with the idea but he knew he had to do it. “Be careful sorellina” he said to me. “You too brother and keep Daniel close to you” he nodded. When he was leaving, I grabbed his hand and stopped him, “if you find him before me, promise me you’ll leave with him without thinking twice” I said with my voice breaking and tears on the verge of falling from my eyes.

“I need you to promise to me that you won’t think of me once and just make sure that my mate is safe, please brother” I whispered in desperation. He hugged me tightly and whispered, “I promise”. I looked at Daniel, he nodded at me telling me that he was clear with what he had to do. We separated and went different ways.

I walked in the castle, while Liam and Daniel were covering outside. My heart was thumping so loudly. This castle was made beautifully, but it did not feel like home. This is so much more than I dreamed of, yet there is no desire to live here. I just want to find them and end things.

The deeper I walked in; the harder my heart was beating. I don’t know why but I knew where this way was leading me and the further I walked in, the more I wanted to run away. The hallways finally led me to a big pair of doors.

I stood in front of them for a few moments gathering strength to open them and find out what or who was behind them. I took in a deep breath and pushed the doors open. I stepped into a huge beautiful room. It was bigger than mine at our palace.

It was decorated in a very classy manner. There was a king-sized bed and behind it was a painting of mine, hung on the wall. I looked around and there were two doors in the room, I opened the first one and it was a huge walk-in closet filled with clothes for both men and women. In a corner, there was something covered with a cloth.

I went to it and pulled off the cover, underneath were more paintings of mine. Some alone, some with Heracles, and just the sight of them nauseated me. On the shelf, there was a huge pile of photographs. There was everybody in these pictures, me with my family, in all the places we’ve been to now.

There were a lot of mine and Jayson from when we went to New York, from the college, from the house in California. He knew the whole time; he was just waiting for the right time to make a move. I could feel the bile rising in my throat, I quickly made my way out of the closet. I looked around and on the bedside table there was a note, in his handwriting.

It said,

“you’ve made me wait too long now Amore, there are two of my men outside the room waiting to escort their queen to the king. Hurry up.

-H”.

I crushed the noted and tossed it into the fire cracking in the fireplace and went back out.

There were two men outside and they bowed down as they saw me, I wanted to rip their spines out immediately but they were going to lead the way so I waited. I followed them quietly and when I knew I could guide myself, I ripped them apart with my bare hands.

I walked towards all the noises, holding the spines of his men in my hands. My heart was hammering against my chest, no matter how hard I tried to think that Liam would have taken my mate away by now, I knew everybody was still here and I had a feeling I was walking towards the worst moment of my life.

I was about to walk into something that looked like a throne room but it had no roof. It was open and in the middle of this castle. You could look down from the balconies and the roof. Right in the middle was a stage with a chair placed on it, there were a lot of people in here and I could smell blood, a lot of it.

I could feel my brother in there and there was a very faint scent of my mate and V. It was enough to break my patience to make some sort of strategy and I rushed out there. He was sitting, on the chair pretending to be the king he always thought he was.

He laughed the moment he saw me and said, “not even patient enough to let my men lead you to me, Amore”. I dropped the spines I was holding in my hands. I looked around, on one side there were about twenty lycans holding my brother with metal chains looking very smug to have the prince in their control.

Heracles got up and walked down a few steps, “tsk, tsk, I pity the kingdom, for such a weak future king will be taking over”. I looked at my brother, there was no way such rogues could hold him down like that, I knew he was up to something but Heracles being him, loves to underestimate everybody else.

I looked in the other direction and saw my mate, in a cell, chained like an animal. I ran to him and went in, he was unconscious. He looked like he had been tortured, he had so many cuts on his body, some were fresh some were stitched very poorly but I could hear his heart beating and that was enough for me right now.

I grabbed him and pulled his head on my lap, “please wake up Jay” I lightly slapped his face. “I’m so sorry my love, I’m sorry you had to go through this hell”, tears were falling down my face. I looked around and V and Daniel were also lying here unconscious. She looked equally tortured, her clothes were filthy and torn down, and Daniel’s neck was broken.

I carefully put my mate down and grabbed V’s face in my hands, “I’ll take you out of here V and I promise no one will ever touch you again” I cried. I tucked her hair back and saw she had a mark on her neck.

Daniel did as we planned. I asked him to mark her, if he thought it’ll be difficult to make it out of here, I know it won’t be fair on V but we had no other choice, it’ll be much easier to save them if they were lycans, she must be in the process of phasing right now.

I planned to do the same but I can’t now. I knew he was watching me like a hawk and if I tried to mark Jay now, things will go even worse. I wiped the tears running down my face and took a long look at my mate one more time and stepped out the cell.