CHAPTER [15] - His family secrets.

Just like how the Knight's had their terrible family secret, so did the Princes.

At the time, Damsel was still young and didn't think much of it. His parents were very busy when they were younger and would send a chauffeur to pick him up from school, those times he was too rebellious and ran away after school. Each day, he felt like hating the world, while other kids had their parents to pick them up, he had to be taken home with a stranger, and the only thing that was waiting for him there were piano lessons and his tutor.

His other brothers were all at boarding schools outside of the country and his parents were always away on business trips, so the only home he ever knew as a child was an empty house

and Vincent.

He was closer to Vincent than his own brothers, maybe that was why he was always distant with them, because he didn't feel like they were truly siblings. They didn't grow up together, but every holiday, they spoiled Damsel with huge amounts of presents and unconditional love,

Damsel felt like it was their guilty conscience trying to make up for the lost time they couldn't be there for him; the love they gave him was bitter, he couldn't find himself believing it,

he knew if that he did believe in it and got lost in that familial bliss, he would be more disappointed when they packed their bags and left the next week.

What was the point in getting attached knowing that they would leave again anyway.

They say over-attention brings as much developmental harm as neglect, for the brain cannot form healthy patterns and bonding, yet one cannot help feel that emotional and physical neglect are worse.

But to Damsel, he was both neglected and over-fawned upon. He spent 11 months of the year alone, with nobody around and accompanied by the household's workers. That 1 month of the year, he felt suffocated, suffocated with people in the room that acted like he was the only reason they were living.

It was like going the whole year eating dirt, and one day, you're faced with a buffet and eat everything placed in front of you. There were so many stages of pain,

the pain of the neglect he had faced with nobody around him to praise his achievements, to ask him about his day, the maternal concern of his mother, or the look of pride on his father's face. He had little to no communication with his family, sometimes 4-minute phone calls a month was all the time he got to connect with them. He was so bitterly alone.

Then, that huge buffet was placed in front of him like all his prayers were heard and people finally faced him, saw him, and loved him. That euphoric feeling that itched in every cell of his, the warmth from his dear ones that he so desperately wished for.

And finally, the stage when he wakes up to be met with an empty house again, devoid of all the happiness he had just received.

With one step forward, he was forced to take 3 steps back.

Like he was given a cookie to eat, and he barely managed to take one bite before it was pulled out of his hands.

Those 3 stages do so much to a young, growing boy.

When Damsel was still that young boy that was hiding out on the streets, running away every day so his parents would come home and give him some sort of attention, there was a day he sat waiting for people to find him; he had gotten lost.

It was only the alleys and trash cans that he knew, the only decorations were the nail marks scratched across the walls, they were the proof that he was still trying to climb, climb up over that wall and land outside the pit. Despite the fact there was a sky and sun at the top, it felt like a million miles away

It seemed like hours and nobody had found him,

if it weren't for Vincent being down there with him, Damsel wouldn't have even tried continuing to live. Every time he reached out with expectations of someone pulling him up there, someone he hoped could throw a rope, the floor sunk a little lower, but Vincent lifted him back up, used his own body, used his own back for Damsel to stand on just so he could peek over the top of that wall. With Vincent, he could see more than outside the walls he was trapped in, with Vincent, he was complete.

Vincent was a boy he had met in the alleys, he seemed to be going through much more than him, he had a beaten face every day, and his body was always purple and blue, but whenever he saw Damsel at their meeting spot behind the lamp post next to the grocery store, his face would still light up like he was the happiest person in the world.

Hopscotch, with stolen chalk and the heat blazing down, was how the two spent the waning days of each Indian summer. Without computers or television, they drew and numbered the squares on the decaying roadway. Stones were plentiful, and coupled with the mud and sticks, these were pretty much all the two boys had to entertain themselves, but with every passing day, they felt as though the hours of the day were not long enough, wanting to be beside each other through night and day. They learnt to be more creative with their rhymes, and to be honest, they became more rebellious with each passing year.

Their bodies developed, their thoughts grew, the roadway deteriorated even more, yet the chalk was always taken and the stones were free.

The two became part of the foundations of one another's homes, for they supported each other from soul to eyes of mirth. They were, and continue to be, friends who belong together in this life and in the next.

But perhaps now is the time to realize it wasn't Damsel, he wasn't supposed to get out of that pit, it was him, it was Vincent. Vincent needed so desperately to climb out of the pit they were in, he wanted to see over the wall too, to escape the hell that he was living in, and someday, Damsel would let him climb higher than anyone else, to repay the times he stood on his back to see over the wall; he promised Vincent, that they would climb up together.

At first, he thought Vincent was just another human, but it wasn't until Vincent's real parents had come to find him that Damsel realized he was a werewolf, he had gotten kidnapped when he was younger, and he was trafficked to the US, if it weren't for the fact that he had tried extremely hard to escape, he would've been sold off somewhere. Turns out his parents were big figures in a pack from England, and that was the day Vincent realized that he wasn't an orphan, he had a family to go back to.

Damsel and Vincent were each other's only family, they were the only family that they had ever recognized.

The 14-year-old Damsel felt like he was losing his whole world when he was hugging Vincent as a goodbye, but Vincent promised him that he would come back, come back for him.

Come back for his first family.

That day, Damsel found out that he and Vincent were more connected than he had thought, their parents and ancestors were involved with each other, Vincent's mother was originally from the Prince pack, and married out to the Selvent pack in England, Vincent's parents knew Damsel's.

And it was because of Vincent's parents, that Damsel uncovered a huge family secret.

The truth behind his father's affairs from years ago.

Mates take a long time to find one another, and that was the case with Nick. When he turned 18, there were no signs of his mate, he travelled the whole world to find them, but there was no use, it was like they didn't exist. years passed, and unlike most, Nick had actually decided to give up. He was 24 at the time, 6 years without a sign of his mate left Nick on thin ice, and for all the wrong reasons.

6 years without a mate is a werewolf's nightmare, it drives you insane, hungry for a simple sight of them, your mind doesn't circuit correctly, and you turn irritable, aggressive, and angry. Those with high IQs turn completely useless without their mate, their mental state is always in turmoil, searching for something that isn't there.

And Nick's greed for the pack was greater than the love of his mate.

To Nick, his mate was simply a ticket to sit on that throne.

he was about to take up the Alpha's seat yet he still didn't have a Luna; which was required to qualify as an heir.

When the heir reaches the age of 18, they can only inherit if they find their luna; this was a system that was essential for every pack in the world, because an alpha without his mate was the same as a derailed rogue, with no one to steady him, support him, or share duties with him. A luna's role was far more significant; they were the pack's backbone, responsible for keeping their Alpha in check; whatever the Alpha wanted to do had to be approved by their Luna first. Not only that, but an alpha who does not have a mate will never be in the correct mental condition to lead a pack.

A Luna represents intelligence, wisdom, and strength.

A pack with a naive Luna was a pack that could never soar.

At the age of 18, he was more thrilled to become the next Alpha than to find the love of his life.

He did not want his mate, but wanted his very own Luna.

There is a clear distinction between the two.

Any intelligent omega could become an alpha's luna,

but a mate?

A mate is a defender, a ride-or-die bond that is with you forever and in all ways. the bond is raw, and if necessary, it will roar for you. It will remain with you in silence and provide you with comfort. A mate will rejoice with you and lift you up. A mate will accept your misery and kiss the wounds you keep hidden from others. A mate is the greatest blessing that heaven can provide.

And Nick took the easy route out, he found an intelligent omega and resumed his life, there were no signs of his mate even existing so Nick never found himself in any trouble; it continued like that when he had several kids, all healthy boys.

At the age of 40, He was travelling abroad, he was in England for his wife's little brother's birthday when he felt that bond with his mate.

Nick had spent the last 22 years of his life without ever experiencing passion, longing, or love for his spouse. Feeling even a sliver of his mate's presence was enough to drive him insane.

His mate was a boy that had just turned 18, it was his birthday party.

In the venue, he could barely keep himself in check, it was the boy he had met on several occasions when he was visiting his wife's family,

Selvent pack, the alpha was Vincent's father, and they were close with Samantha, Nick's wife's family, so they happened to be at the birthday party that day.

From beginning to end, and even now, Samantha did not know anything.

Nick had slept with that boy that day.

His mate became pregnant with Damsel.

Nick didn't even remember that day, his memory was blocked because it was his wolf in control, but what he knew was that he met his mate. It was when his wife was birthing a 5th child that Nick got a call from Vincent's father, saying his mate had a baby in his hands and was outside the hospital.

Samantha's 5th child was very unhealthy, and he died not long after coming out of the womb, but that day in the hospital, Nick had switched Samantha's child with Damsel.

And fully rejected his mate.

Mateless wolves killed themselves after 2 years or 3, but Damsel's dad had gone through the birth procedure and lived his days longing for the mate he had slept with, so to be rejected after travelling to meet him, that did a number on him, and he simply stepped in front of a highway and died.

That day was the day Damsel was born, and the day his birth dad had died.

Every birthday since the age of 14 felt suffocating, this was why Damsel never celebrated since that day.

Samantha who had given birth to yet another alpha boy was disappointed, but his eyes, his hair, and everything was identical to hers.

Nick was an unempathetic man, at the end of the day, all that mattered was him, himself, and his pack. His life was too stable to care about his mate, so when he did die, it did not affect Nick.

That only lasted for around 7 years, now that Damsel remembered it, it was around that time that his father seemed to have changed in every degree, it was during that time that he turned hostile and neglectant towards everything Damsel did.

When he saw a picture of his birth giver, what shocked him the most was that his face was almost identical to his own. People had always said Damsel was the male version of his mother, but he never understood them; that day when he saw that man, he knew what it meant to be the spitting image of someone, he looked like an older version of Damsel.

Damsel was the spitting image of his mate, his eyes, his nose, to the way he walked and talked, everything was a copy and paste of the mate that stepped on the road to die right infront of his eyes.

Hatred masquerades as an ointment to hurt when in truth it is no more than gasoline for the flames.

His hatred told him that his mate's child should be destroyed, while it soon told him that the child is the only memory he had left of his innocent mate. He could not choose between hate or love. Hatred seeps through our skin and sends terror through our veins, shutting off any portion of our thoughts that would object. Hatred convinced him that others will come to find out the truth and hurt those he loved, and the only way out is to put out a distance, when he grew fond of Damsel's loving eyes, he became scared of the truth revealing itself, and that child would no longer look at him the same way. Hatred is too weak to inflict harm without the misuse of loving impulses. If anything were to ever reveal itself, then at the end of the day, there would at least be no attachments.

Nick changed,

and for the worst.

Now, he was telling Damsel to do the same thing he did to his mate, kill her, drive her insane, and share a life with someone else while having his suicidal mate pushed to the back of his mind.

Maybe deep down, Nick came to regret the death of his mate, maybe that was why he drew a wedge between himself and Damsel, but he was still a selfish man; if he had a choice to return to the age of 24, to choose between his inheritance or his mate, he would still choose his inheritance.

Nick could feel guilty, but even now, that guilt he felt only brought pain to his mate's child.

Damsel would never forgive him, not for ruining his dad's life, but for ruining his own life as well.

He could've grown up in a loving household, loving his father, maybe when he did find out the truth, his love for his father would be stronger than what had happened in the past. But now, the past was haunting Damsel's life, his dad killed himself because of Nick, and damsel almost followed in his footsteps.

A mateless wolf's life was a life that Damsel had already witnessed in the shadows of his father's past relationship. He did not want to be someone like his father. He has no bond with his birth giver, but he knew that he was the example of what a mateless wolf's ending was.

If he were to ever meet his mate, their existence would already be enough to make him forget everything else in his life. Right now, after losing everything, his mate seems like his only escape.

He could only silently thank his goddess that mates existed, because now he understood what the bond really meant, even if everything else in the world was chaos, having the warmth of their hand in yours would wash away any pain.

Damsel longed for his mate.

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[A/N: finishing off the backstories so i cant start writing out the romance LMFAO.]