Chapter 6: "Mates are for princes, not monsters."

Ariel's wolf howled in his head from late that night till early the next morning.

He felt like he was going crazy.

For once in his life, he felt sorry for actually wishing his wolf came back.

Now that it had come back it seemed determined to drive him mad with howling.

"Will you shut up!"

The birds that perched on the window sill of his castle fluttered away in a flap of wings.

Pigeons.

They were part of the reason the castle was so filthy anyways.

Ariel scrunched his face under the mask he wore as he looked around.

This was the first time he was granted a reprieve in decades and his castle was filthy, his room was a mess, and his wolf didn't see the need to stop howling.

He truly was cursed.

He let out a crazed laugh at that thought.

Like he hadn't been made aware of that fact for the past two hundred years now. He had to live and watch everyone he knew die.

All the lords that were in attendance the day the curse was cast were killed off,

He had killed them himself.

The monster had killed them but he was the monster, so he had killed them.

He had managed to get himself out of the castle and into the woods before he killed his father.

It was nightfall when the madness of the curse finally abated and when he came back, the castle was empty.

Abandoned and he had been locked in.

Well, they had tried to lock him in.

The sunlight cast grim shadows along the walls and the clear state of mind he was in seemed to annoy him.

Ariel moved a crushed couch and the sight of one of the nails made a nasty memory come rushing to him.

His skin had caught on that nail, his calf to be precise. The curse kept him under a madness for most of the time, whenever it willed.

He could sometimes run mad and rave for days, going around the castle and wreaking havoc on whatever happened to be in his way.

The castle had been a place of life and beauty once, now it looked worse than a cemetery and more like a castle for ghosts.

The halls were always silent, except for when the curse took hold again.

Ariel's mood darkened the more he thought about the curse.

He had been under it for the past two hundred years.

He wasn't one to keep track of the number of days he spent exploring the countryside under his father's domain, but that was when he was normal, that was when he was sane and aware of most of the things he did.

Now he was cursed, and the witch had spun a particularly strong one.

Sometimes the curse released him just a few months before the new moon.

Sometimes on the night of the new moon.

Sometimes the moon would send ripples through his head even when he was not under the effect of the curse.

It would feel like he was being burned from the inside.

Two hundred years of pure hell for a selfish decision he had made when he was younger.

He couldn't summon up the courage to laugh.

He might have cried instead but princes didn't cry.

They were strong and they survived even under the thrall of a curse.

"You call what you have been doing surviving?"

Azrael's voice was one that Ariel had heard for the first time when he hit his sixteenth moon cycle.

All the other werewolves heard their wolves for the first time when they were eighteen.

Azrael had decided to speak early.

"It's a pleasure to meet you again, old friend."

Ariel could imagine his wolf giving him a disapproving look at the new scratchy quality his voice had taken.

He had ripped his throat once. 

It had healed but his vocal cords had been damaged.

The magic of the curse kept him safe from everything except suffering. He wouldn't be allowed to die, so his throat had healed up just fine a few days after the gash had been made.

He had lost a lot of blood though and even with a bleeding throat, while he was still the monster, he couldn't be stopped.

He had gotten an infection in his vocal cords and lost his voice for weeks.

Coughed up blood for even more weeks.

And every time he thought he was about to die, the witch would appear to him as a phantom and laugh at him.

She was dead now too.

But her magic still remained.

It rescued him from the brink of death, and it made the suffering even worse after,

"Sob sob, you have a sad life."

Ariel let out a huff at that and looked at himself in the mirror.

His mask was still on. He never took it off.

Anyone looking at him from afar would think he had an impressive stature, tall legs, slim waist and broad shoulders.

He hadn't been like this the time the curse had been cast.

All the new features would fade the moment his face was revealed anyways.

Even he wouldn't want to wish that on someone else.

"She can help you."

Ariel stopped thinking for a moment before he replied to his wolf.

"Who?"

Azrael sighed.

'"The girl, our mate."

Ariel felt even more confused.

"Who?"

"The girl from yesterday Ariel, the one who is the reason you can even talk to me right now. Our mate and the only reason I will agree to live with this horrible curse you brought upon yourself."

Azrael talked too much nonsense sometimes. Ariel touched the gash at the lower side of his throat.

"You mean to tell me you came out because of a girl?"

Azrael scoffed in his head and in a split second Ariel saw the wolf staring back at him with displeasure on its face.

The vision was gone a moment later.

He only shook his head and looked at himself in the mirror again.

"She's not our mate. I'm not a normal person anymore. I don't get to have a mate."

His wolf could feel his sadness, so when Azrael spoke again, there was less of a bite in his statement.

"Says who?"

Ariel only smiled sadly.

"Says me. I'd rather bear this curse alone than drag someone else into it."

He hissed as the new red gash on his skin stung when he touched it.

"Besides, she's not my mate."

"Mates are for princes. Not monsters."

The air had turned slightly chilly and the sun radiated no warmth anymore.

Ariel could feel the curse coming back.