When Desire Strikes (18+)

GxB : Werewolf King

Twittering birds, early morning sunrays, hooting owls, streams of moonlight and sometimes the voices of distant carriages act as my wake-up call.

It's because I've been living in an fortress miles outside of my father's empire. It's not by choice. It's something I had to do since I could make sense or reason of why people act how they do.

I was born with the mark of the red moon they say in the year civilization faced the worst of famines. A red crescent atop my heart. I didn't choose this. And my father, the King was reasonable enough to not succumb to his subjects demands to have me sacrificed to appease the angry gods.

But the ones who seek blood don't see reason.

They're waiting for me to turn eighteen because that's the day I'll be offered to the Werewolf King as an offering in an attempt to remove the curse of the red moon from the five kingdoms of our continent.

As an offering to a King sounds a blessed life, but he isn't a King in act or mental state.

They say he's been waiting for his mate since the past seven centuries and has slowly been claimed by the darkness since the past two. His loyal subjects have been running the affairs in his name and in their quest to cure him bringing in girls every year.

No one's seen or heard what happens to those since he is still in his black wolf form beneath his castle awaiting the next offering which is going to be me.

Since my future is certain death, the fortress has been stocked with everything I might need to survive or educate myself so far but no company. No one wishes to risk contracting the effects of my curse including my family.

It's both a blessing and a curse.

I don't know if I've been living my life right thus far. Atleast I've done as the books of the library say for they're my only silent companions. My knowledge from these so far is the only wealth I have that I consider worthy cause I've accumulated it.

The day before my eighteenth birthday I sense shadows in the fortress.

They're here to collect the offering.

I scream in the hallways, "I wish to see Mama, Papa for the last time" but there's no response as I feel a kerchief muffling my nose and rough hands picking me up from the ground and then there's only darkness.

By the time my senses start flooding back, I know am not at the fortress for no corner of that place was as dank and damp as the current one.

Am sure am below the ground for there's water seeped in and trickling the walls, the smell is a mix of rot, wet earth and despair. My left ankle is tied to the wall behind me with a long chain which seems to be rusting since eternity and still not giving up for as silently as possible I tried pulling at it. Maybe it's enchanted.

They removed my hair pins and am dressed in a silver, flowing, translucent dress with no undergarments. They want me to die with no dignity.

The place I am in seems endless for I can make out pillars but no walls except the one am bound to. There were flickering lights far away and high maybe there's a staircase which leads away from this pit of death.

Since I woke up I've controlled my breath so that my heartbeats aren't too loud. I don't wish to rush the outcome.

But I've read wolves have a strong sense of smell so am sure the hound who's my death already knows am here.

One can count their breath to keep a track of time a book said and it was less than sixty breaths before I sensed movement in depths of the void. A faint snarl bellowed as if the King was announcing his presence and claiming attention.