“Hello? King?” I call. If I keep talking, I won’t have time to dwell on my fear. “Hey, King, your people need you.” I move past the statue, towards the stairs. Was that just a movement in the shadows on the second floor?
I clench the fist not holding the knife. If there’s someone here, they are damn well going to listen to me. “I don't mean to intrude… Actually, no… I do mean to intrude. If you're the king, you should do something. Your people are dying. They’re saying the curse has returned. The Red Death. It’s time to wake up and help them.” My voice echoes off the walls. Help them help them help them.
I’m gripping my knife so tightly, I can’t feel my fingers. Did it just get colder?
Another statue is lying at the foot of the staircase. This one is even bigger than the first—or it would be if it was upright. Someone must have tipped it over. It’s broken into several pieces, and chunks seem to be missing. Scratches score the sides like a giant beast ripped at the stone with titanium claws.
Well, fuck. I skirt the statue and chew my lip. Should I explore the second floor?
I take the first step, and a growl reverberates down the stairs. The sound should unhinge my spine, but instead, it releases a burst of heat through my body. My tummy flutters and I gasp, swaying. The cedar scent is so potent now, I can taste it. I can’t shake my sense of déjà-vu.
I clock another statue at the top of the stairs. But… it wasn’t there before.
I’m panting like I’ve run a marathon. But not in fear. A rush of liquid heat throbs through my core and my clit gives a languid thump.
What is happening to me?
The statue moves. The figure’s wearing a voluminous cloak and hood and looks humanoid but it’s huge, too big to be a regular person. If this is an Ulfarri Alpha, he’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen.
And, judging by the growl, he’s pissed. But instead of shrinking back, I take another step towards him. Something about his scent is drawing me in.
The heat emanating from my core spreads up my chest. I lick my lips, swaying up another step. The giant at the top is still. Since he’s wearing a cloak like mine, his hooded features are swallowed by shadow. I want to see him. I need to see him. My fingers flex, aching to touch…
I take a deep breath. “Are you the king?”
The figure draws back and lets forth a roar so loud, it brings tears to my eyes. The blood-curdling sound punches through the hypnotic spell of his scent like a bucket of icy water being dumped over my head. A sick, primal terror races down my spine and into my legs.
Without a second’s hesitation, I whirl around, and race back the way I came.
FOUR
Bestian
Someone was here. Someone managed to cross my impermeable barriers. And not just any someone…
A female.
I’ve been pacing my chamber ever since, the light from the moons casting a lilac glow over the flagstones. The distant roar of the waves crashing against the cliffs mocks me like an echo of my own shock at the slender stranger appearing in my ballroom like an apparition.
Who was she?
For a decade, nobody has entered my castle. I’ve spent countless sun cycles in a deep slumber, safe in my fortress. This place is my retreat from the world. From my people. My kingdom. At times, I wake to correspond with the advisors who represent me in Medea City, but most of the time, I am in a self-induced coma.
My castle and grounds are impenetrable—my magic ensures that. I use a spell of my own making to keep the world out, keep myself in.
How did she get in?
My thoughts are a jumble as I down cup after cup of blix. The strong liquor barely takes the edge off but it’s better than nothing.
The Red Death, she’d said, in her strange-sounding accent. Could it be true? After all these years, could that Ulf-forsaken curse have returned? The mere mention of it is enough to turn the blood in my veins to ice.
She saw the ballroom, and the statues I destroyed in a rage. The smaller with the three figures—my father, mother, and myself as a child—still stands, albeit beheaded. The largest—my likeness as a grown prince—lies in pieces.
Time heals all wounds. That had been my great hope. Alas, it turned out to be yet another falsehood.
I summon the whisps to remove the statue’s remains. During my deep sleep, my servants were dormant. Now, for some reason, they are infused with new energy. They cleaned up the rest of the palace, they might as well get rid of the stone debris. I have other reminders of my family.
I prowl to the gallery where my parents’ portrait hangs. If the intruder had ventured further in, she would have seen it. Painted by one of the greatest artists on Ulfaria, my parents seem alive once more, their hair lifted gently by an invisible breeze, their eyes gleaming with kindness and wisdom.
It’s a knife to the heart.
My mother was a typical Omega—kind, sweet, nurturing. She doted on me, and often expressed her sadness that I was an only child. My father was huge and gruff and stern, and as a youth, I was terrified of him. Now, I see so much of him in myself.
I could have saved them, but I failed.
I was a fool.
With a groan, I stumble back to my bedchamber, refilling my empty cup for the umpteenth time, wishing I had the power to dull my grief.
It’s been many moons since the Red Death came to Medela. A mysterious and terrible curse swept across the kingdom, leaving loss and destruction in its wake. Few were spared.
I searched for a cure, and my efforts nearly destroyed me.
But my parents paid the ultimate price. It is my fault they died.
I sink down onto my bed, burying my face in my hands. The grief is as raw as the first day. I yearn to go back to sleep, to lose myself in the peaceful slumber of oblivion.
Instead, I take a deep breath and exhale slowly, my mind churning.
Could it really be true? Has the curse returned? Is history about to repeat itself?
What reason would that girl have to lie? I hear that last thought in my mother’s voice, and she has a point.
Why else would the stranger break into the castle unless she was desperate?
Closing my eyes, I replay the interaction over and over again in my head.
She smelled so sweet, like moonflowers and honey, with an underlying hint of something else I couldn’t place.
I couldn’t see much of her face, huddled as she was in that huge cloak. She was short, though, even for a Beta. Her accent was strange, almost as if her mouth was unused to forming words, but her voice was clear and sweet despite the desperate urgency in her tone.
She was asking for help, and I…
I roared at her, like the monster I am. She displayed no fear, nothing but curiosity, until that moment. I could smell it: her sweet, moonflower scent turned sour with panic, and—
The thought hits me like a thunderclap and I shoot to my feet, my heart suddenly racing in my chest even as the rational part of my mind is arguing that it can’t possibly be.
Her scent was intoxicating. And only one kind of female smells like that to an Alpha.
An Omega.
But there are no Omegas left in Medela.
Can you be sure of that? Again, I hear the question in my mother’s voice.
The answer is no. While Omegas are rare, they are not entirely extinct. There could have been one born to a Beta couple—just because I’ve never seen that in my lifetime, doesn’t mean it’s not a possibility. There could also be some older ones in hiding, no longer hunted now that they’re beyond their fertile years.