Scarlett
My eyes opened slowly and I took in my surroundings gradually. The dark room where no trace of the light reached and as I moved my hands to get up from the floor, my skin burned and a loud painful scream left my mouth.
Silver.
My hands were tied with the silver chains and as I wriggled my wrists to get out of that fucking silver chains, it burned my flesh and caused me excruciating pain. My legs were also tied with the silver ropes and I couldn’t move even slightly from the position I was laying on the floor.
The room was completely dark, there was no object or a person my eyes could find.
I didn’t want to give up like a weakling, I wanted to fight and rise from the ground to find an escape from here but the silver ropes were making it fatiguing for me.
“The bitch,” I cursed Amber beneath my fast-paced breath. I shouldn’t have trusted her.
She had abducted me and as far as I could remember, she had gotten help from a strange man who wanted me alive for some ulterior motive.
Nonetheless, I kept trying relentlessly to get my wrists and legs free but every time I tasted the harrowing pain. My skin smoldered and my lips twitched to let out howling squeals.
I sighed helplessly and gathered all my strength and courage to try harder one last time.
“It’ll only hurt you,” a strangely somewhat familiar voice reverberated in the room and I tilted my head to look in the direction where the voice came from but all that lay before me was a vast expanse of darkness.
“Come forward, you fucking coward,” I spat furiously at him.
“As the Lycan Princess commands,” he appeared in front of me. A satisfied smirk plastered on his lips. So it was Alex Forbes, the next Alpha King in line and brother of Amber, using cheap tricks.
“Lycan Princess?” I murmured, questioning myself.
“You didn’t know who you were, did you?” He quirked his one brow playfully before letting out a vicious chuckle.
‘What is he blabbering?’ I tried to reach out to the voice in my head but all I received was silence and desolation. I was feeling so secluded and abandoned by both- my mate and wolf.
I had accepted that I was a wolfless werewolf but as someone tried to help me, guide me, and support me through the voice in my head as a wolf does, I had anticipated that it was my wolf and I was a lantern, late bloomer. I had the hope that my wolf would come out someday and I’ll also be able to shift into my wolf like the other werewolves.
Nonetheless, at this moment, I could feel all of my hope crushing and myself in a pitfall again.
“Don’t stress yourself, princess. The Lycan King will be soon here to take you,” said he, flashing the light of the candle that he was holding in front of my face.
“I’m a werewolf,” I provoked him.
“You think so?” He made a puppy face. “Do you think that a daughter of a Gamma can have the powers to fight off an Alpha even when she hasn’t shifted yet?”
“I have a wolf,” I retorted back with hatred in my voice though his question had made me doubt myself, I wouldn’t let him know my secret to using it against me.
His words had stirred something in me, the feeling of uncertainty and doubts engulfed me and I found myself contemplating if what he said was true. Layla had said that since I was a lantern, the Goddess had blessed me with some strength and powers to make it up to me.
But if I was a Lycan, why hadn’t I shifted into my animal yet?
And how come to my animal counterpart could talk to me in my mind like a wolf?
Lycans shift into their animal part, they don’t have a wolf in their head to whom they can listen or talk.
As far as I knew, I didn’t fit into any category of a Lycan. Alex was just lying to distract me from my purpose. To get out of there.
“Why can’t I smell her, then?” Alex menacingly uttered, bringing his face closer to me. “You shouldn’t have come to the Black Moonstone pack, Scarlett Lockwood. Unfortunately, Amber isn’t the only one hiding her identity.”
Scarlett Lockwood.
The name sounded so familiar and I could feel myself belonging to it somehow. His words had to have the slightest bit of truth in them to convince my heart.
“Why does the Lycan King want me?” I asked, my mouth going dry as I spoke. My body seemed so weak from hunger and thirst. I didn’t know for how long I had passed out but it seemed more like a day since I ate.
Alex rambled away and came back with a glass of water. My eyes shimmered with the hope of getting the chance to escape finally but it vanished as soon as I found him smirking at me. “Open your mouth, girl. I’m not stupid to untie your arms.”
My instincts told me not to trust him. I could survive without water for a bit longer but I didn’t trust him to give me plain water.
When I didn’t open my mouth, he shrugged and gulped the water past his throat. “The Lycan King wants you because you’re the threat to his claim to the throne. You’re the daughter of the late Lycan King, Nathaniel Lockwood.”
Everything started making sense. Alex wasn’t bluffing after all. The current Lycan King was my uncle who had killed my parents to become the Lycan King and wanted to kill me because as long as I was alive, I was the rightful heir to the throne.
I had heard the stories about the royal Lycan King’s family and how he had killed his own blood for power. My heart sank in, realizing how my real parents were murdered and I, somehow, survived.
The pain coursed through my chest, imagining the agony they suffered and on the contrary, I lived my whole life in a fake scenario. Even though I hadn’t lived a single day with my real parents, it ached my heart so much that I couldn’t breathe after knowing they were murdered.
The tears stung my cheeks and I regretted it immediately realizing that I was showing the sign of weakness in front of my enemy.
“The tears won’t make it easy for you. Perhaps you were born as a threat to the other people’s claim so you have to die,” Alex muttered in a cold voice.
His words brought me out of my reverie and I threw a disdainful glance at him, taking an oath to avenge my parents’ death and make every single one of them suffer who caused my loved ones harm and pain.
“As long as you’re alive, Klaus won’t accept Amber and my dear sister is the threat to my claim to the Alpha King’s throne since she’s the Alpha bloodline in her veins so to keep her away from my claim, I found the midway,” he explained his plan in a dangerously low tone.
“To kill me?” I evoked him, letting a low chuckle out of my dry mouth. “Klaus and I are fated mates. Our souls are bound to each other and he loves me. Only me. Amber will never be happy with him, he’ll never accept her.”
“I couldn’t care less about him,” Alex barked at me.
“Mark my words, Alex Forbes. I’ll survive again and avenge my parents' death and make everyone pay whoever hurt my loved ones,” I promised him.
Before he could say, his phone rang and he scurried away without throwing a last glance at me.
As soon as he left, a deep mournful howl rumbled through my chest. The sound echoed back into the room which made me realize that the room was probably empty.
My heart was burning with sorrow and vengeance, I hated how my life turned out but I had no choice rather than accepting it.
I kept howling and crying until I passed out again due to the excruciating pain in my wrists and legs as I struggled to get rid of the silver ropes but each time, I failed and tasted more pain than before.
* * *
“Letty, Letty, honey,” Layla’s voice brought me back to life and I opened my eyes to find Jenna and all the pack members sitting in the warehouse. The windows were open so the sunlight pierced through them, making its way to my face.
“Thank Goddess. We finally found you,” Jenna said, pulling me in a warm hug.
“What are they doing here?” I insinuated toward the pack members.
“The Alpha King has called war upon us,” Evelyn answered, gazing at me with guilty eyes.
“Let me treat your blisters,” Layla muttered, pulling my hands in hers before carrying me toward an empty bed and walking toward the table, and opening the lid of a box. I noticed her each move whilst Jenna updated me on the war.
Fortunately, my father had called my mom back due to some unknown reasons, otherwise, she would have been in danger, too. Though they weren’t my real parents, they had raised me like their own and loved me despite my odds. I loved them, too.
I still wasn’t sure if I should tell them that I was a Lycan, the princess whom the Lycan King was looking for like a predator.
“How did you know that the medicines and herbs will be in that box?” Jenna’s eyes narrowed at Layla and I saw her swallowing a lump in her throat.
“The werewolves’ instincts, you know,” Layla replied shortly before putting the layer of herbs on my blisters and I hissed in pain.
“Catherine Lockwood,” an animalistic voice growled and the floor of the warehouse shook from the sound of it.
Layla’s eyes widened in shock, the horror evident in her eyes. “Run, Scarlett. Run, as far as you can. Run for your life, my daughter.” She pecked my forehead with a quick kiss before shifting into her Lycan form and the warehouse filled with gasps.
“Mom?” I whispered and watched her galloping away from us.