Taming The Aggressive Serpent Prince

Author's POV:

In the beast world, a war had raged between the Serpent and Werewolf kingdoms for centuries. Neither side was willing to surrender, but the werewolves were clearly losing. They were simply too weak, yet far too stubborn to call it quits.

The Dragons, who formed the third and highest-ranking kingdom, held the most power. That left the Serpents in second place and the Werewolves at the very bottom.

To end the constant bloodshed, the Dragon King brought both sides together. He set down a strict decree to bind them in peace: every male royalty, the princes of the Serpent kingdom, must marry the firstborn daughter of the ruling Alpha. Both sides accepted the terms, and for generations, every ruling Alpha handed over his daughter when the time came.

Now, Alpha Raja was refusing. The third prince of the Serpent kingdom was Kade Vane, the most poisonous warrior in their realm and the youngest son of King Zephyrax Vane. Raja could not bring himself to hand his child over to a creature like that.

"No. My decision is final," Alpha Raja snapped, pushing back his chair and slamming both palms onto the table. His chest heaved as he tried to force confidence into his tone, though his hands trembled slightly against the wood.

"It is just one child, Raja. Do we all have to die before you finally agree to this?" The first minister's voice cracked with raw anger. He glared across the table, his eyes red and swollen.

"Two of my sons died yesterday from snake bite."

"Two?" the second minister interjected, his voice heavy with exhaustion. "We lost over five hundred soldiers in a single night last week." He turned toward the head of the table.

Alpha Raja had already sunk back into his chair. The defensive anger in his face melted into pure sorrow as his ministers forced him to face the brutal body count.

He looked small, crushed under the weight of his own kingdom's collapse.

"We all know who is behind this," Raja murmured, his voice tight with helplessness. "It is Prince Kade. That is precisely why I refuse to hand my daughter over to him."

"We know it is him, but we cannot say it out loud," the third minister chimed in, leaning forward with a panicked whisper. "Calling a prince a murderer out in the open will make the Serpent King furious. Please, Alpha, do the right thing. The prince is doing this because he wants his bride. This decree has stood for decades. Your father followed it, his father followed it, and the one before him did too. Why must you be so stubborn?"

Raja kept his mouth shut, staring at the scarred wood of the desk. They did not understand. He was not trying to be difficult. He would gladly offer his daughter to any other prince, but Kade was different.

Kade was a monster who possessed the terrifying ability to hypnotize others and bend them to his absolute will, a dark power no other serpent held.

"On top of the deaths, Alpha, you are drowning in debt," the first minister pressed, horror bleeding into his tone. "The people are protesting. Hunger is everywhere. Families are terrified to step out of their homes because the killings."

"We will use the Vexin oil," Raja offered quickly, grasping at any thin thread of hope. "We will distribute it to our people. It will keep them safe for now."

The fourth minister, who had stayed silent until now, shook his head with a solemn sigh. "We do not have the raw materials to produce that much oil. And even if we did, where would the people get the coin to buy it?"

A Vexin oil was an ancient defense mechanism crafted during the great war. Rubbing a few drops onto the skin kept serpents at a distance, making it impossible for them to strike.

"My answer is still no," Raja declared, his voice dropping low, rooted in a father's desperation. "We will survive this somehow. No daughter of mine goes to that monster."

"Then you are a foolish ruler," the third minister spat, crossing his arms in disgust.

Before Raja could respond, the heavy wooden doors burst open. Isabella, the fourth and youngest princess, marched straight into the council chamber.

"I will not stand here and let you speak to my father like that." she shouted, her voice ringing clear through the room. Flush topped her cheeks, her chin set in defiance.

The ministers merely stared back at her, showing little shock. Isabella interrupting high-level meetings was a common occurrence, and most of the court viewed her as nothing more than a spoiled, overprotected child.

"That will be all for today," Raja ordered, waving a tired hand toward the men.

Isabella hurried to her father's side, wrapping her hands around his arm and glaring at the council as they slowly gathered their papers.

"You always do this," the first minister sneered, his lip curling in contempt as he stood up. "Closing an urgent council meeting just to tend to your whining child. I expected better when the kingdom is literally burning down around us."

"When the time comes to vote you off the throne, I will cast the very first vote," the third minister added coldly. "You are completely unfit to rule."

All seven ministers filed out, leaving the room heavy with silence.

"Daddy," Isabella whispered, turning to wrap her arms tightly around her father's neck. She could feel the tension in his shoulders and knew how deeply these words wounded him. Pulling back, she gently cupped his worn face. "Dad, let me help. I can use my blood to cure the people who were poisoned."

Raja's eyes widened in sheer terror. He grabbed her wrists, his breath hitching. "Do not even speak of that. It will ruin everything.You will expose yourself as a healer to the entire realm." he whispered fiercely, glancing toward the closed doors as if the walls themselves had ears.

"What is the point of having this power if I just sit here while our people suffer?" She looked down, her chest aching as she nervously picked at her fingers.

Raja let out a long, shuddering sigh. "You need protection, Isabella. The world cannot know what you are," he murmured gently, resting a hand on her head. "If the world truly valued your kind, you would not be the last one standing."

His words hit her hard because she knew he was right.

Isabella had inherited the rare healer's bloodline from her mother. When Raja first discovered his late wife's ability, he helped her to keep the secret.

When Isabella was born with the exact same gift, they hid her power away from the world too.

Years later, her mother died under mysterious circumstances, a tragedy ruled as an accidental death, though Raja knew there was more to it.

Healers were meant to save lives, but greedy rulers quickly realized they could hoard the blood for themselves. They hunted the healers down one by one, killing and draining them completely and storing the blood in glass jars.

That greed drove the entire race into extinction.

Reaching into his desk drawer, Raja pulled out a tiny glass bottle filled with Vexin oil, and placed it into Isabella's palm.

"From this moment on, I want you to rub this oil on your skin every single day," he commanded, his voice trembling with emotion as he looked into her eyes. "Do not step outside your bedchamber once seven o'clock hits. You are the very last of your kind, Isabella, and I cannot lose you too."