The Talamute Prince

I wake up back in my room. Sitting up I scan the entirety of my cage to insure I'm alone. My mind races overwhelmed by the information. Daravan had been in my old room, but why was he under my bed? Was that why the maids weren't allowed to talk to me about Tasha? My heart seemed to lighten at the idea that she and her father had escaped Patrick's grasp. A genuine smile grew across my face for the first time since I found out who Patrick was.

I stood and began to pace in short strides the full length of my bed. He was in my room which meant he had come for me. He had come to free me from my gilded cage. He must not have known that Patrick had moved me, but now he did. My mind's train of thought slams into the side of a mountain as I hear the door to my room open. I turn quickly to see something that seemed to light up my entire being.

"Good morning, my queen." Patrick has a tone in his voice I've learned to identify instantly, and I can't hide the smirk that spreads like lightening across my lips.

"You seem irritated, your majesty." If he had my powers I'd be dead with the glare he shoots my way. I stiffle a slight chuckle at his disposition. Mostly because it means he didn't get his way. Even if it is nothing more than a small inconvenience that has him down his misery is far better than his happiness; for no other reason than the things that make him happy hurts everyone else.

"It seems that your Talamute prince has freed his friends. They won't get away." Patrick steps slowly toward me with each word he speaks, "I'm going to hunt them down and kill their entire tribe." His fist clintch at his side. I can feel it this time, the heat from my eyes and only my eyes. He stops dead in his tracks.

"What's wrong Patrick?" Sarcasm soaking my words.

"Give me that." he jerks a silver tray from the servants hand and holds it in front of me. The blue of my eyes are flames. I've never seen them this way before. I close my eyes and reopen them to find the flames dimmed. As he tried to step toward me the flames flared back up. I raised my hand in front of me to warn him to back off, and my hand caught my attention as I stare at it instead of Patrick. I'm not sure what was happening but the flames didn't look the same as they always had. For a split second my curiosity paralyzed me. I stood in awe of what was happening. Patrick caught my attention once more before there was enough time to focus on the diffence in my powers.

"If I were you, I'd leave now." I could feel it rising in me everytime he took a step toward me. I couldn't hold it. The flames that usually spread across my entire body and out, now formed a barrier an inch away from my skin. There was a visible line between my fingers and the flames. I stared at my hands with curiosity but at this point I couldn't stop what was coming. Patrick and the others barely made it out of the room as I rose from the floor at least three feet into the air. The room filled with the flames that chased them out the door. I turn my head just in time to see Patrick dive out of my room. The door closed, but not before I caught a glimpse of Darevan peeking through the window adjacent to the opening. I let the flames pour from my body as I close my eyes and drift back slowly to the floor.

"Darevan." I jerk awake. The room is empty. He was trying to come for me and I knew it now, but how do I get to him? Or rather how does he get to me?

I look at my hands that are now soft and gentle no longer the destructive force that everyone seemed to want. There had to be a reason they looked so different this time, other than gaining control, becuase they were still activated by threatening forces. Why did the flames suddenly decide to form so far from my skin?

"Laoonica." I turn to see the room change to a field of grass and suddenly I'm standing barefoot in a field. I knew where I was almost instantly it felt like home but I knew it was the surface of this planet. The flowers that had been dropped into my room now grew in sporadic patches all around me.

"Who are you?" There is a man with jet black hair and crystal blue eyes staring at me. He looked familiar though I'm sure I had never laid eyes upon such a person.

"You'll know soon enough. I need you to escape, Laoonica. You have to find your way to the surface." I study him as closely as possible. He moves to stay the same distance away no matter how many steps I take towards him. He is tall, fair skinned, and his eyes seemed to pierce the very deepest part of my soul.

"I want to, I can't stand being here in this prison, but I'm not sure how." I've stopped any attempt to move toward him. He doesn't move away or advance in my direction. He just stares at me as though he knows more about me than I do him. My mind races trying to figure out who he is.

"Don't be afraid to take the leap. Our lives depend on it." He fades from my vision and I'm left back in my room. I'm on the bed as usual. I think Patrick comes in or has someone come in to move me to the bed after each episode. I hear the door slide open

"Well, that was new. Katherine take some samples." I hadn't seen her since the coronation ceremony. Now I see her as her true self. She seems older than before and the black circles under her eyes tell me she hasn't rested in some time. Patrick was cruel to everyone, and somehow the cruelty to his own family didn't surprise me in the least.

"Leave me be Patrick. I'm not in the mood for your foolish attempts. Maybe my powers are evolving because I'm actually in love this time and not being tricked by the monstrous creature you're no longer hiding." I pull back from Katherine. Her hands are shaking a bit, she must be terrified, but from her eyes it isn't me she's afraid of.

"I'm not here to hurt you, Laoonica. I just want to draw some blood." She came toward me slowly with a needle but when it got within an inch from my skin my powers flickered only long enough and hot enough to melt the metal she had pointed at my skin.

"No." I said with force. I wasn't going to participate in any of his testing anymore. I was a living being not a scientific experiment.

"Bring in the infants." I look in horror at Patrick, then at the door as several servants roll in bassinets with infants swaddled in blankets. The women pushing the babies seemed to be in severe distress but they obeyed his orders with no hesitation.

"You can't keep putting innocent lives in danger just to get what you want." I have a gut feeling that no matter how hard I try I won't be able to let him take blood from me. I look at the babies sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware that they might be facing death as they sleep.

"Try again, Katherine." He demands. Again the needle melts before it touches my skin.

"I'm not an experiment and you will not preform anymore tests on me." I stand and take a step away from them both.

"You are exhibiting new abilities and I will find out why. Let her take your blood." He tries to step toward me and again the flames burst away from my body but hold steady. I know I can only hold them at nay for so long.

"You don't get it, my body is responding to what it sees as a threat. You and your experimentations are a threat and I can't control my body protecting itself." Patrick looks at me then pulls a gun from one of the guards. He proceeds to walk over to the closet baby and puts the gun to its head.

"Let her draw your blood or for every time you say no, I'll kill one of these thirteen kids." A coldness filled his green eyes. All power they had once held over me died in that moment. I formed a flamed spike in my hand ready to launch it directly at him if he flinched toward one of the innocent beings laying helpless before him. This wasn't an angry fireball, this was a weapon intent on ending him. Katherine looked at it for a moment. She turned toward her brother who seemed completely unaware that I would indeed end his life over an innocent.

"Patrick, might I speak to you outside for a moment." Katherine moved from my side over to her brother gently placing her hand on the arm holding the gun. He relaxed a bit moving his figure from the trigger, but my piercing spike remained firmly formed in my hand

"She will do what I say or the baby will die." Katherine removed her hand and glances at the floor.

"It's just I thought of another way to get what your asking for. I'd rather not discuss it in front of her or it won't work." I stare at her the flames around my body fade away with both of them across the room. He glares at me then removes the gun placing it back in the holster. He holds his hand toward the door allowing Katherine to take the lead. The woman who was by the infant he had threaten has tears running down her face as she reaches in and rubs the babies head.

"He's yours isn't he?" She glances up at me and says nothing but she doesn't need to. I look at the others and see the same fear enter thier eyes. He brought the mothers with their infants so that he could do the most damage possible. "Why wouldn't you defy him?" I ask. It is the third woman from the door who answers.

"Because most of us have other children, families, and his majesty has them all. Down to the last cousin under watch and if we don't obey he will kill every last member of our families in front of us then leave us alive in his prisons haunted by thier deaths. I'd rather sacrifice one than all. Besides you're not like him. You have a gentleness in you that you will try your best not to let him do it. We all saw you ready to strike him down if he proceeded." I can't control the tear that finds a path down my cheek. If I couldn't get my body to stop reacting he would make these women suffer a fate far worse than death.

"He truly is a monster." Suddenly without a single doubt I knew who the man was in my dream. I was with child, Patrick's child and even he wanted nothing to do with Patrick. His familiarity was that he looked like him with my eyes. I knew what it was controling my powers now and I wasn't sure how I felt.

"Leave." Patrick came back through the door. He looked over at the mothers. This time there is a look of relief as half don't bother taking the floating bassinets with them running out of my room.

"I would have killed you had you went through with that plan." I give him an unapologetic glare. He looks back and down at my hand where he notices the flame spike for the first time. I hadn't let it go all the way out just incase he came back ready to kill a child. We stand in silence before he follows the women out leaving me to the silence of my cell.