“That’s yoursister.”
“Mind your own business, Beta,” he snaps.
When he tries to move past me, I step in front of him again. “Stop that. Let her go, you’re scaring her.” He’s scaring me as well.
“I can do whatever I want, especially to a stupid little Omega,” he sneers. “Get out of my way.”
Mirelle is now screaming for Onderz, and her cries of distress are wrenching at my heart. I can’t leave her like this. Though he’s twice my size and a royal prince, I put my hand on the hilt of my sword. “Put her down, now.”
He snickers. “What are you going to do, stick me with that needle of yours? Draw your weapon against me, a prince, and I’ll have you beheaded.”
There’s something wrong with Emmeric. He was always horrible, but now he’s downright evil. I’m so afraid for Mirelle that I don’t think. I draw my sword, and I slam the hilt into Emmeric’s knot. The effect is instantaneous. The prince crumples to the ground with a groan.
Mirelle staggers away from her brother. A moment later, Onderz bursts through an archway and catches his sobbing mate in his arms. He’s shouting, I’m trying to explain what has happened, and Emmeric is snarling in fury and struggling to his feet.
Suddenly, King Aylard strides into the garden. I sheath my sword before he can notice that it’s drawn.
“What is happening here?” the king roars.
Mirelle cries harder. Both Onderz and Emmeric are pointing at each other and shouting.
“Onderz, take her to her nest. I can’t bear all this crying. Emmeric, tell me what happened.”
Emmeric shoots me a look of pure hate, and glances at my sheathed sword. I wonder if I’m about to be dragged away to the dungeons.
“Nothing, Father,” he says through his teeth, surprising me.
“Then get out of my sight.”
Emmeric gives me a warning look and then turns on his heel and stalks away.
I’m alone with King Aylard as he turns to leave. Emmeric’s threat to me was silent but palpable, but I have to tell someone about what I witnessed, for Mirelle’s sake.
I hurry over to the king. “Ma’len, may I speak with you a moment?”
The king pauses and gives me an imperious look. “Speak, girl.”
My fingers are twisting nervously together, and I put them behind my back. “Something is worrying me about the prince and princess. I came upon Prince Emmeric carrying the princess on his shoulder. She was crying and telling him to put her down, but he wouldn’t, and…and his knot was swollen.”
King Aylard’s eyes flash. He backhands me across the face, sending me flying.
The world goes white, and I can neither hear nor see for several seconds. When I come to my senses, I’m lying on the cold stone floor and the king is standing over me.
“…speak such disgusting words. You are lucky I don’t lock you in the dungeons. If you know what is good for you, you will hold your tongue.”
I’ve never been shouted at before, and from an Alpha, it’s terrifying. King Aylard’s fury hits me harder than his fists, and I curl up into a ball and sob. I ache for Stesha, and it’s devastating not knowing where he is or how to reach him.
King Aylard’s footsteps fade as he storms away. It’s several minutes before I can drag myself up to sitting. Tears are streaming down my cheeks, and below my eye feels like it’s on fire.
I limp back home, my head down. Though I know I’m going to find the rooms I share with Stesha empty, I still feel devastated. I crawl into Stesha’s bed and sob on his pillow.
Three days later, Stesha walks tiredly in, rubbing his forehead as if his head is aching. “Morning, Zen.”
Without looking at me too closely, he pats me on my shoulder on the way to his bedroom. He disappears inside like after every rut, and I know he will sleep for many hours.
A moment later, his door flies open, and his expression is bewildered. “Zenevieve, what’s happened?”
I stare at my hands in my lap. “Nothing.”
