The King's Claim

t h r e e - a strange encounter✔️

Ever since I was young, I longed for a mate. Someone I could hold and cherish who, in return, would love me wholly and unconditionally.

I longed for the love my parents had. They completed each other so perfectly, my dad, The Alpha and my mother, a pack warrior. It was the three of us for the longest time, until my parents had my sister. Our little Mabel.

She was premature, "weak and fragile," my mum said, before she let me finally hold her. I got to name her, I named her after my favourite book character, not that I ever told my parents that. But there she was, my Mabel. I promised to everything I held dear that I'd never let anything hurt her, the moment I saw her little face poke out from under the blankets, our family felt complete.

It was a happy home, we belonged to the Piety Pack, known for our peaceful nature and acceptance of rouges. Other packs thought us naive and asking for an invasion. But my Dad instilled in every one of us the importance of empathy. We knew invasions were a risk of our open hospitality to the rouges but it was a risk we were willing to take.

Let's just say when our pack finally was invaded, it wasn't by the dirty rouges everyone was hoping for. Our pack was attacked by creatures of a different realm, Lycans, it wouldn't have even mattered if we were out numbered. One Lycan would have been enough to wreck havoc on our pack, let alone the hundreds they sent in. My people were slaughtered, my classmates, friends and family. Everyone I knew and cared for dead in an instant.

I remember fragments of the day. The desperate cries of my mother as she shoved Mabel into my hands, still barely a few weeks old. I remember how she wrapped us up in a thick foul smelling blanket, completely concealing Mabel and unknown to me, concealing my scent. I recall my 5 year old brain trying desperately to stay strong while watching my mother cry as she frantically put me in a hatch that I didn't even know existed. Right underneath the kitchen floor, completely concealed from the naked eye.

"Belle, listen to me, I need you to protect yourself and Mabel at any cost. Don't you dare open this hatch and under no circumstances do you leave. No matter what you hear, do you understand me?" I shake my little head eagerly, not wanting to let my mum down, wanting to prove I'm a big girl that can do as she's told. My mother's eyes begin to soften.

"If I don't come back baby, I need you to look out for Mabel, okay? Can you do that for me Belle? Can you look after Mabel for me?" I begin to cry, something about the finality of the conversation clicked in my five year old head.

"Mum? Are you and dad going?" I hiccup between my words.

"Yes baby, but just know mum and dad love you so much. You are so loved my sweet Bel-" The front door slams open and the hatch is immediately shut.

I vividly remember the hours I then spent in that hatch. I remember the moment I heard a thud to the ground and the sound of my mother crying out in pain, the snapping of her bones.

How it startled Mabel, who began wailing for her mum. I cried with her silently as I muffled her screams with the blanket.

"Please stop crying Mabel, please, please stop crying." I begged, tears falling down my face. My hiccuping only getting worse.

We stayed for what felt like centuries. Me, trying to muffle my cries into the blanket and Mabel, fast asleep, after her fits of hysteria. I couldn't risk my cries waking her up, so I resolved to thinking about my art project that was due in tomorrow. How excited I was to present it to Mr. Fitz and the class, how I stayed up for the last two nights working on the title alone, all the crafting supplies I made my dad go out and buy because I needed mine to be the best in the class. I guess I didn't have to worry about that anymore.

Above me, I could hear heavy footsteps, distant cries and deep gruff voices talking to one another in a language I couldn't understand. They sounded impatient, making loud noises, I flinched as I heard a loud crash sounding from the kitchen, it sounded like they were tearing our house apart. I levelled my breathing as much as I could, they would never think to look here, I reasoned to myself. We are safe here.

I felt the wood above me creak under the immense weight put on it, one of the Lycans was above us, with just a thin blanket covering the hatch that concealed our spot. If he put any more force on the ground, the thick oak wood would have given way, revealing us.

Thinking back to it, I should have seen it coming. The accumulation of dust, the weak immune system of an infant. I should have been more careful. But I wasn't.

And that's when Mabel sneezed.

I look up from my desk, I was done with my last patient and I'd finally get to stop working myself to the bone. Dr. Andrews was coming back from his months long expedition tomorrow and that meant I could finally return to the laboratory.

I collect my things, not feeling tired enough to head back to my chamber. I decide to visit the gardens, wanting to be away from the constant buzz of the pack for a while.

The gardens were one of my favourite parts of living in the kingdom, they expanded for miles yet every inch of them was perfectly maintained. We have travelling faeries visiting the gardens all throughout the year, gracing them with life - even through the harshest of winters.

I walk a couple miles out, enough to be completely surrounded by shrub land. I find a bench next to the rocky path that I followed and decide to sit down and simply enjoy the scenery. Wanting an escape from reality.

I shouldn't be so ungrateful, despite everything that's happened to me, I'm here now, a chemist for the royal kingdom. Many dream for the chance to even glance upon this kingdom, to soak in its beauty. And here I am, an orphaned girl who studied so hard for this opportunity. The years I spent cooped up in that closet like room, reading and learning. Wanting so desperately to be where I am now, naively believing that the title of Head Chemist would finally make me feel complete and happy.

I counted my blessings everyday but the hole left by my parents death, the hurt I caused my loved ones and my inability to save them kept me in a constant state of restlessness. Ugh, I'm not gonna sit here pitying myself, people have it worse than me. I have a roof over my head and food on my plate, I don't need family or a mate or even my sanity.

I have the necessities. I don't need any more.

I hum out the tune of a song, tapping along on my knee. Allowing myself to close my eyes.

I don't remember how long I stayed like that but as the temperature dropped, I began to feel a set of eyes on me. Watching me carefully.

My morbid curiosity was urging at me to find out what it was but my rationality commanded me to get back to the castle. I was never one to listen to rationale though. I couldn't be in that much danger anyway as I was still on pack ground - I seek out whatever it was and plan to confront them but as I walked further into the garden edge I no longer feel the pair of eyes on me and in fact, couldn't sense any movement for miles.

Well, that was strange.