Chapter Thirty-Eight

Celina

“Put me down,” I yell to Exzecial while he makes his way through the hall. The alarm is so loud that my ears are ringing.

“He’ll be fine,” Exzecial tells me for the hundredth time. “We need to get you to safety.”

“What’s going on?” Mia demands, following behind Exzecial to keep an eye on me.

“A revolt,” he nearly growls. “It seems like the arrival of our dear princess triggered some sort of plan." That would explain why they were so eager to get me here in the first place.

“Pick up the pace,” Exzecial yells back to Mia as he starts running faster. “I can hear the Council Members starting to attack the guards.”

“Where are we going?” Mia demands; easily keeping up with him.

“The shelter,” he tells her while I try not to smack my head on his backside.

“At least put me down,” I tell him while I put my hands on his back in an attempt to steady myself.

“You’re too slow at the moment,” he states and starts trotting down the stairs.

“This isn’t exactly an appropriate way to treat a princess,” I tell him while I try to push out of his hold.

“Would you rather get bit,” he snaps as he sprints through the entryway to the palace foyer. Well, this is one way to get a tour.

I let out a frustrated growl. It’s more from Mara than from me. Neither of us thought about this happening. I want to rip something’s throat out. Even before my first shift, I was never this helpless.

“Exzecial!” A harsh raspy voice yells. “Where are you running off to?” He barks out a chuckle as Exzecial turns to face him. “Too afraid to stand and fight for your falling kingdom?”

I put my hands on Exzecial’s back to give me enough leverage to look at the pudgy man. “Oh shut up Larry.”

He blinks before a malicious grin spreads on his face. “So you’re the reason we can’t find the bitch.”

I bark a laugh while Exzecial puts me on the ground. “It’s about time you found your voice, Lars,” I tell him while Exzecial puts an arm out in front of me. “It’s an honor to hear your thoughts before I rip your tongue out.”

He smirks, “What are you going to do Princess? It’s not like you can shift right now. I’ll put your mouth to good use before I permanently break it.”

“Just you try it,” I snarl, stepping toward him.

“Don’t you dare,” Exzecial growls, stepping toward him. “This mutt is mine. I’ve been waiting a long time to destroy this man.”

Larry scoffs while Mia pulls me backward. “Oh I’m the mutt?” He smirks. “I’m not the one giving the crown to the wrong son.”

“Don’t breathe another slanderous word,” Exzecial growls while I try to understand what he even means by that. Ruben? The throne is given based on strength and birth. Danny’s dead, so Chris is left to solely inherit it.

Larry hisses, “Slanderous? Even little Emilia knows the truth. The whole council does. The only ones that don’t know are your children and anyone raised outside these palace walls. That certainly explains the look on our dear Celina’s face.”

I’m rooted in place, trying to understand where he’s going with this. Is he stalling? Mia starts trying to pull me back. “Celina, please, we need to go.”

Larry smirks, “I’m betting you didn’t know the King of the Beasts was such a man whore in his day?”

“I’ll kill you,” Exzecial yells, shifting to a golden and white lycan. I feel as if I can hear an audible click as Mia pulls me away from the fight.

“Is he saying what I think he’s saying,” I demand from her, pulling against her when we round the corner.

Mia huffs in frustration but continues to pull me away from the fight. “Yes. We all know Exzecial found his mate and fell in love with her. What you don’t know is how he found her. Now if you keep up, I’ll tell you. If you fight me, I’m cutting off the story.

“Exzecial had started to rebel against his father when it came time for him to inherit the throne. Exzecial had not found his mate, and he was to have an arranged marriage. To destroy any chance of his old-fashioned father accepting a permanent mate for him, Exzecial would sleep with every single prospect, when he wasn’t allowed to even speak with them, by pretending the be the son of a Councilman. It worked. Once he was found in bed with every girl, his father would immediately move on to the next prospect because the girl couldn’t keep their legs closed. I’m not saying it’s right, but that was the mindset centuries ago.

“It was working perfectly until he got one of them pregnant. Back then it was a great embarrassment to have a bastard child. To protect Exzecial, the decision was made to remove the girl from her high-ranked title, and was sent to live with an isolated pack after dozens of non-disclosure contracts were signed; one of which was that she would never tell the baby who the father of her child was; in exchange, she and her family would be well taken care of. To make sure that everything went perfectly, Exzecial escorted her to her new home. One of the lower-ranked lycans who were hired to serve her turned out to be Exzecial’s mate.”

I stop in my tracks after hearing this but she yanks me along. “Keep up Celina. That woman was Randaul’s sister, and her name is now Nicole Ironblood. She’s married and happily living with her mate.

“Now I know you want to know how I know this. Obviously, I was not in the right mind when Chris and I broke up. I traveled a lot and had a lot of one-night stands. I had found out Chris had found his true mate, and it was none other than the freaking Alpha Princess. I spiraled after that and started binge drinking. I know it’s a total cliché but that was fifty years of my life that had just gone up in smoke, so give me some leeway here.

“One night, when I was in Vegas-it’s always Vegas-I was at a club with some of my friends. There was this man that kept hitting on me. I even tried to escape him by running into the bathroom. He followed me in.

“Having enough of it, I grabbed him by his balls and told him if he didn’t want them ripped off, he needed to leave me the fuck alone. He slapped me and hit me with aura power. It was so strong I couldn’t even breathe, and it felt like he was squeezing me by my stomach trying to drag me to the ground.”

She pulls me into a small dark room and silently shuts and locks the door. She holds onto the door knob while she continues her story. “In that split moment, Lindly was fighting his beast mentally while I was fighting his aura; both of us refusing to submit to him. When I looked up to see who the hell this was, I was met with a man with this…disgusted look on his face, and I have never felt so small before.

“He spat at my feet and told me I was a pathetic excuse for a lycan, and demanded that I submit to him as my king. My very drunken response to that was to vomit all over him and his shoes. He got angry at me and started beating me up, telling me over and over again how useless I was. He kept telling me to submit to him and accept him as the true Lycan King. Truthfully, the man should have waited until I was sober because I think the only reason I didn’t submit to him was because I was so intoxicated. He kept beating me over and over again until I eventually passed out.

“When I came to, I was in a pack hospital with my face bloodied and disfigured. I was hooked up to so many machines, and my jaw was wired shut. That’s when Lindly told me that the beast’s name was Sephtis, and he kept promising her death if I would not help him claim the Alpha Princess. She had called for help from one of my friend’s beasts, and that was the only thing that saved us. By the time she arrived, my assailant was gone.

“A few days later, my jaw had healed and I immediately called my parents. They told Exzecial of what happened, and he threw himself harder into your coronation and gave my parents strict orders to keep their mouths shut about what happened. My parents flew me home immediately, for my protection, and the day I arrived is when Exzecial told my family and me the truth. When news that you were here spread, they demanded that I help keep you safe, in case he decided to go after Christopher’s new mate.”

I close my eyes as I try to process that; pinching my nose in the process. “Okay, I don’t have time to even contemplate how far-fetched that is.”

When I open them, I let my eyes adjust to the darkness; easily picking up on her with my wolf vision. I’m about to further my comment when something hard slams into the door, making both Mia and myself yelp in this tense air.

“I’m not lying,” she growls in frustration, and I see her eyes flashing gold. She leans into the door while someone keeps trying to pound on the door. “I’ll explain more later, but I swear to the Moon Goddess here and now, that I am loyal to you Celina, and will gladly serve in your court.”

“Open up you little slut,” the voice growls as the door begins to splinter, making me nearly growl in frustration. “I know you’re hiding that royal pain in my ass there.”

“Oh go to hell Garry,” Mia yells while I growl. “We broke up, get over it.”

“After I rip your head off,” He snarls; starting to break the door away from its hinges.

“Get out of here,” Mia yells as she starts to shift, revealing a sandy red lycan as she busts through the nearly shattered door; tackling a grey lycan to the ground.

I take a step back, hitting the back wall. There is nothing of help right now. There are just portraits and a few mirrors. Goddess, how do humans even defend themselves? I can handle hand-to-hand combat, but human against beast? Get over it Celina, this is something you can handle; I remind myself as I hear Mia yelp in pain.

“Right,” I mutter under my breath as I look around. Finding my weapon, I rip at my shirt as I take down my hair. I wrap my ripped piece of cloth around my fist and punch at a glass mirror. After finding a shard that’s good enough, I wrap the thicker end with the torn cloth, then secure it with the hair tie so the cloth is less likely to slip and cut my hand.

It’s not long before I hear Mia yelping and hear a dark chuckle. When I look at the door a maroon lycan is approaching me. He looks like he’s dying to sink his teeth into my heart. He chuckles darkly as he approaches me. “Remember me, Princess?”