Adrianna's POV"I guess I should be happy," she laughed through her tears and then sniffed. "That Adrianna is finally at my mercy, but I'm not."Curiously, I asked. "Why?""Then it means I'm weak," she chuckled. "And I'm letting the enemy win, I'm letting Audrey take control of me."She paused, changing her sitting position for the thousandth time. She did not seem to be comfortable with her sitting position. "I understand you the most Adrianna," she said with a friendly smile."No you don't," I said sharply, fighting my tears.Agnes was relentless. "Just like you, my family betrayed me as well. Who do you think sold me into slavery?" She asked.I didn't respond to her. "My mother told me to make the sacrifice for my siblings. My stepfather was the one who sold me and my mother watched him take me away.""And look at you now," I scoffed with an eye roll. "Don't try to act like you understand me," I snapped at her. "Oh please!" Annoyance flashed in her eyes. "You act like you have se
Castilla’s POV When the joyful face of my father graced my eyes, all I could muster was an unmasked hatred toward him. Ares the great warrior king was now as powerless as one could ever imagine. While our people shed their blood on the battle line, he wasted his energy on minor vices, lavishing his energy on sleeping with different women working in the palace every day. Women who were almost the same age as me. My father made my skin crawl, several times I wondered or had the fear he would force me to his bed.Larog's words echoed in my mind: “He wants to kill you, Callista, You are a menace to his position and he will certainly not hesitate." I wondered if his affection towards me was as false as what I now had towards him. Was he behaving this way to feel less guilty about the fact that he planned to kill me later?To get out of this predicament I had no other option than to attack first.The main dining hall was more like a sight out of a fairy tale with the candlelight which made
Third Person's POVA loud scream could be heard quite early in the morning coming from the king's chambers. It was feminine, followed by the clatter of chinaware on the floor. It was heard by almost no one except Larog who lay in bed beside Castilla. The guards around the king's chambers were fast asleep like someone had drugged them. The scream did not wake them up either, they simply lay there like a log, still and unmoving. Slowly, Larog crept away from the bed trying his best not to wake Callista. They had spent the night together, making love. He knew that what he had said about her father seemed to bother her so he had made her forget her thoughts last night with his touches. He walked through the palace that was dimly lit with torches and great intervals. The morning's air was chilly and felt eerie to him. As though he could feel a cold embrace. His heart was palpitating as he approached the king's room. He cocked his head suspiciously at the guards who lay on the floor now
Larog stumbled into the dilapidated building that Audrey was using as her hideout, the creaking door echoing through the dimly lit chamber like a death knell. Shadows danced on the walls, cast by flickering candles that seemed to tremble in the silence. His ragged breaths misted in the chilly air, and his battered body left a trail of bloodstains on the stone floor. He had journeyed through the midst of the raging war frantically all in the name of trying to escape the veil. "Audrey... the black veil," he gasped, his voice cracking like brittle twigs. "It was on King Ares' corpse. I saw it myself." His words were almost incoherent, heavily tainted with fear. "The black veil has returned!" He cried out, pushing the door of the room he knew she would be in. "We have to do something or it will come after us.""Slow down," she sighed, walking towards him. She placed a hand on his chest and felt his heartbeat was very abnormal. "You need to calm down Larog she whispered soothingly.""How
Lady Asher stood at the window, the pale light of the moon showed her lips compressed and her eyes like steel. It highlighted the hardness of her face, the lines of her age were visible. It was impossible to deceive her – her eyes – black and shiny as polished stone contained only evil.Castilla sat down quietly next to her being prepared for an attack from her grandmother and others; her eyes battling with resolve and annoyance. Her hands became balls of anger, and the feeling traveled through her veins, stiffening her muscles like a storm gathering in a bottle.Lady Asher frowned and stared at Castilla, her words dripping with reproach; “You were hasty, Castilla. What you just did is capable of destroying everything we have so desperately built for years," she told Castilla with deep disappointment evident in her voice. Castilla fixed her eyes on her grandmother’s eyes, she had a tight jaw and steady tone. “I had no choice, Grandmother it was for the best, the South pack needed str
Adrianna's POVThe room was shrouded in darkness, the only noise present being our thick breathing while we awaited Cornell’s arrival. My heart beat loudly in my chest, sounding like a drum in my ears with every beat. Even with my attempts to toughen up my nerves, fear still hung around in the back of my thoughts. I inclined my head to look at Agnes and noted her eyes glowing mildly in the dim light, her expression that of fear and anticipation. She sighed every now and then. "Is he meant to be here by now?" I asked."Yes," she responded. "Perhaps he has something to attend to." She shrugged. Almost as soon as she said that, the door groaned, Cornell entered, his presence dominating the weak light coming from the hall. With the ease of someone who had done this many times before, he moved. I noticed the anxiety coming from Agnes as she readied herself for the conflict."Time for your sedative," said Cornell, flashing a wicked smile as he came toward us with a syringe. "Who knows if
Cyrus's POV**The atmosphere was tense and the air was filled with the smell of the fight, of men and sweat, of blood and fire. The once-pristine walls now bore scars of chaos: shattered rock, broken timber, and broken pieces of all things around. We were in the middle of the dead soldiers and we all paused for a moment, panting, trying to catch our breaths. A complete and utter void filled the air, the only whispers of sound coming from the groans of the injured and the far-off ringing of metal.I looked at my friends and estimated how tired they were, as well as how tired I was myself. Agnes was as white as a sheet with dark circles under her eyes, yet she did not hesitate. Otherwise lively eyes, now had a ghostly appearance, the despair of which we had just experienced mirrored in them. Although their sunken eyes looked lifeless, they burned with determination. He was usually calm but now he looked tense with his movements being more articulate than usual. Adrianna stood stiff, her
**Lord Xeik's POV**A candle was lit on the wooden desk creating shadows on papers scattered all over the table in front of me. The quiet in the room was almost suffocating in a way, the only other sounds being the sound of paper being shuffled as I went through the pack’s accounts. As the new and temporary monarch, I had to understand what was going on in the pack thoroughly. It was a lot more work than being the war minister.I sat back in my chair, studying the very disarranged pile of papers on the table. These documents disclosed much more than these typical expense statements displayed. Beneath the rows of the paper of account and records, there were vague signs of something more diabolical. My mind began to put together the evidence and what I discovered left me feeling weak in the knees.There was one document I found interesting. It detailed regular payments to a town I had never heard of home for shape-shifting creatures within our territories. This surprised me because, acc