** Complete - Unedited**
"Sometimes I can not remember my name. Not until the large man I call King tells me it. Even then, I am not sure if it is my name or someone else's name. In the city, with the crowded streets and houses stacked atop one ano...
My wings felt like they were going to fall off by the time I reached the clearing where Selene stood screaming at three fae males. I had not realized that the Lady would leave the palace so soon. If I had I would have warned her that while she had forgotten everyone, they had not forgotten her, nor did they realize she was not acting of her own free will.
I watched as one of the males touched Selene's forehead and she fell to the ground. The three began to surround her. I was going to be too late.
"Stop!" I screamed as I plowed into one of the males in my sorry excuse to land. It had been nearly seven years since I had flown this much.
All the furry built up inside of me melted when I saw who the fae I had nearly run over was.
"Prince... Prince Azriel!" I gasped. Recognition flooded the Prince, well my King's eyes when he saw me.
"Zirra," he gasped, pulling me into a bone-crushing hug. I never thought I would see the boy, or the male again. I tears flooded my eyes as I hugged him back.
"Oh love," I gasped.
"Zirra?" I looked up to see both Niccie and Celtez watching. Niccie looked as if he was about to cry and Celtez, the old bat, just stared in disbelief.
"Oh my boys," I cried. I had helped raise all of them, except for Celtez. Niccie, Selene, and Azriel were like my own children. Children I thought were dead.
"You can't just go around knocking people out as you see fit," I wagged my finger at Celtez as Azriel reluctantly let me go.
"Why are you here, Zirra?" Celtez asked, seeming to be the only one in the lot who could manage to form a sentence.
"To stop you three from doing whatever it was you were about to do to my girl!" I put my hands on my hips and glared at them all.
"Whatever you think she has done, she is innocent you hear me!" I announced.
"How do you know?" Prince, no King Azriel gave me a skeptical look.
"Because, unlike you three apparently, when I heard the news that one of my children might be alive, I went to see for myself. What I found instead could hardly be considered living," I pinned each of the males with a look that made at least two of them take a step back. I may not be as powerful as they were, but I raised them. I expected better of them.
"I watched her for the last seven years as she obeyed the King's every command. I watched as she sat silently as others mocked and ridiculed her, no one even realizing that she was more than just a human girl, not even she knew! I saw the moment she realized I was a fairy. I saw her cry when she realized she had pointed ears hidden behind a glamour she still can't make go away! I was the one who told her the story of her life and I was there as the memories of that life slowly came back to her!" I looked at Azriel again and flew closer to him so that my face was in his, "I was there the day you must have shut out your matting bond too," My voice was barely over a whisper.
"I always wondered what happened to make her just forget you so suddenly. For the first year, I had to hide the drawings of amber eyes and black wings that she drew over ever surface in her rooms. It got so bad I finally took away all of her pens and ink. Then she started carving your name in her furniture, that was much harder to cover up! She would wake in the middle of the night screaming your name but would have no memory of the dream. Your name was the one thing she could remember when she could not even remember her own!" Tears were rolling down my face as I remembered some of the worst nights. Those were the nights where the memories were nightmares that made the poor child scream for a mate that was not there to hold her.
"Then one day, they all just stopped, and I lost her completely. The memory of you was the one thing holding on to her,"
They all just listened in silent horror as I explained what the King had done. How Selene had been forced to obey him with no choice of her own. "She was a prisoner in her own mind, and to some degree, she still is," I shook my head.
"Then how can we trust her, if she is still not even free of the King?" Niccie choked on the words. I shot him a glare, "Because, she would die before she would ever do anything that would hurt you,"
Azriel knelt on the ground beside Selene and carefully pulled her sleeping body into his arms. There were tears rolling down his face as he cradled her to his chest and kissed the top of her head.
With one powerful flap of his wings, he soared into the night sky, carrying his mate in his arms with him.
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