Chapter 3 Wasn't memory a punishment?

CHAPTER THREE

Wasn't memory a punishment?

VINCENT – THE KING OF EMERIS

A growl vibrated deep in my chest. 

I had carried her with me for five years, the girl in the alley, the one who had looked at me with softness and awe, who had pressed a flower into my palm, who had haunted my dreams ever since, who made me believe that a beast like myself was worthy. 

Fuck. I should have killed her. I should have ripped out her slender neck and left her to die in a pool of her blood … but I hadn’t expected to see her. I had been caught off guard. 

And now, she was here, the last place she should be.

“You brought the Princess here!” Atlas, one of my generals, stormed in, voice sharp with fury.

I ignored him. Every breath I took dragged against my lungs. The smell of blood clung to me, but the taste of her was worse. I couldn’t get it out of my head. 

Slowly, the war room filled up, and so did the stench of failure. We failed. Our job had been to kill every royal. We didn’t. Carden was still alive, and worse, the Princess of Volantis was in my Kingdom. 

“You are hurt, My King.” Electra walked to me, and I looked at my hand.

I’d patched it up on the way back, but blood soaked through and ran down my arm. She had stabbed me. No one came close to hurt me, but she, a tiny princess, had stabbed a dagger through my hand. Whatever this insanity I felt for her was … I needed to shut it down.

Zade, my second-in-command, shut the wooden doors behind him and warned. “Speak your piece, choose your words carefully and be quick about it.”

“Eldora and Volantis are still standing,” Drakeswood spoke through gritted teeth. 

I watched him vent as Electra unwrapped the bloody clothes and cleaned my hand with salt water. 

“How exactly did you manage to fail this mission?” Atlas demanded. 

The only reason he was allowed to speak that way was that Zade was his son. He wasn’t speaking to me. He wouldn’t dare. I held no sentiments for him. 

“It wasn’t a failure, Father. We slaughtered their council. Ronan is dead. Kerrigan and his wife are dead. Carden won’t make it past nightfall, and his mother will soon follow. This was not a failure.” Zade shot back, pulling off his blood-soaked gloves. 

“How can you say it’s not a failure when their kingdoms still stand?” He slammed his hands on the table. “When you’ve given shelter to the other half of that future! We lost forty-one men on a wild goose chase. Our allies are vanishing, six children died before sunrise from the plague, and Greer is still fucking dying! The healers are grasping at straws, and the witches are mourning. Yet, you have Carden’s bride –”

I turned my head slowly and looked at him.

The words Carden’s bride rubbed me the wrong way.

His face turned ashen, and the words died in his throat; his mouth clamped shut.

My claws were digging into my palm, flooding my fingers with blood. It dripped to the ground slowly. My wolf prowled in me, restless and angry. The hunger was worse, pressing against my sternum until it was all I could feel. 

I shut my eyes and pulled my hand from Electra. 

I pressed it against my temple and gritted my jaw. Heat spread through my entire body and threatened to engulf me. 

Greer was still sick. The witches who might have saved him, and every infected person, had been rounded up and burned at the stake by Eldora. That was the moment this changed. That was the reason I stormed in there, determined to ruin their fucking celebration. Meeting her, the girl who had haunted my dreams, wasn’t part of it. 

“Get out. All of you.” My voice was barely above a whisper. 

I opened my eyes, feeling my fang ache. My vision darkened and flickered at the edges. 

Someone swallowed thickly, and they walked out. 

Zade and Electra remained. 

“You’re both bleeding all over the floor.” She said moments later, taking back my hand to finish the wrapping. 

“I’ll survive,” Zade grunted, falling into the seat with exhaustion. 

“Unfortunately.” She sent him a smile. 

“How is he?” I looked at her, pushing past the knot in my throat. Greer couldn’t die. He had to live. 

“Still the same.” She whispered, stepping away from me. “Why is the Princess here, Vincent? What do you want to do to her? Punish her? Bleed her dry?” 

What could I say? That I fancied her? That I, the hybrid King of Emeris, had a fucking crush? Did she even remember me? Wasn’t memory a punishment?

My throat tightened, and I shrugged. “We’ll find out. Tell me about the children. Have you found anything new? Give me something, Electra.” 

“I cannot give you anything.” She told me somberly. “My sisters had something we could have used to stop the plague, but as you know, Eldora found them, strung them up, and burned them at the stake. Now, we are back to square one, with no way to save our people. What we need now is a miracle from the Gods …”

Footsteps echoed from down the hall, and I sat upright, glancing at the door moments before it opened. My senses were a curse and a blessing.

A moment later, one of the guards entered, breathless. 

“The – the princess – she – she escaped!” He announced, gasping for air. 

I froze, wondering if I’d misheard him. What the fuck?

“Escaped? How the fuck did that happen?” Zade growled, red in the face.

“She attacked the maid sent to check on her and jumped –”

I got up and moved with the wind. 

My Vampire speed took me as far as I needed it to be. It didn’t take long to find her. She had made it as far as the east wing, leaving a trail of blood in her wake. Her fear was thick in the air, and my wolf latched onto it. I could hear her heartbeat as if it was in my chest. My tongue tingled at the memory of her sweet blood. I found her in seconds, weak and covered in blood, but still running. 

She turned around and screamed as I picked her off the ground and pushed her against the wall. 

The same face that had haunted me for five years was now wide with terror, a terror I had put there. 

I was a beast, after all.

Her heartbeat exploded beneath my palm, and I bit back a groan. She was so small, so … breakable … so easy to claim. 

My hand went around her soft throat, and I narrowed my gaze at her. “Where do you think you are going, Princess?”