PRINCEPS
Our talons gouged into the stone. Light flashed and cracked outside laying our shadow on the wall.
The human jerked in our head, he was surprised to see our full form. We'd never shown him all of us before.
Our maw opened in the humans show of happiness, in our show of threat.
He was thrashing, he didn't like us being in control. But he didn't hear what we did. That scream, it called to him and he couldn't hear it. He tried to wrestle control from us, it felt like a rock to our skull.
We growled in warning, the hair on our shoulders standing upright. We could make him forget, knock him out of conciseness if he didn't stop.
He silenced himself.
These halls constrained us. Our back rubbed along the ceiling even while walking with the help of our arms like some ape.
We could hear heart beats behind every door, hear breathing, smell infants, smell sex, smell sleep.
We could smell the crier too, smell tears he'd already shed, already dry on the stone floors. They were old, maybe a half of an hour had passed but we still smelled him.
We let our claws sink deep into the walls, marking our territory, letting our pack know we were upset. We were Alpha and one of the pack was hurt.
We heard the hearts before we saw the pack, two of them rounded the corner.
"Palace guard" the human told us
We huffed in their direction, they moved out of our way, their fear stinking up the hall as we passed.
"Call for the king, I'll follow." One of the guard said.
"What is it?" The other asked.
We growled deep in our chest, baring our canines to him. We are your Alpha, pup.
"It's Caspian."
The human fought again in our head, he did not understand. We pushed him back back back into our head where he wouldn't be able to see until we were done.
Light flashed again and smells of rain clogged our nose. One of the human windows was open letting the smell of wet cover the trail.
We howled deep in anger. We called out to the pack, to the member who was hurt. Our Mate.
We had to find him. We charged through the halls growling and baring our teeth to pack members who wandered into our way. They were puny beneath us. They needed our protection. The size of our paw, they were ours to keep safe.
There were smells everywhere, some pack and some not. We smelled orc, pixie, fae, wicken, vampire, dryad and wizard. They all filled our nose. We couldn't find his sent.
We found a room with taller ceilings, we could stand upright now. There were more of those windows and two big doors.
Pack warriors were protecting the doors, they were good. They needed to move.
We bared our teeth to them. Move.
They looked to each other. We smelled their hesitation and confusion.
We heard more standing behind us, they had not raised weapons yet. We howled low, it was our command, their bodies would listen.
They stepped back. We turned to the doors and placed our paws on them. Our claws dug easily into the wood.
"Princeps." Our head turned to the one who had called our name.
Yes, we are Princeps.
He was Princeps sire. The one who called our name. He was Alphas sire.
"Can I speak with Caspian, Princeps?" Sire asked.
We were here, we were Alpha. He should talk to Alpha.
Our tongue was not built for human words, and our teeth got in the way of our lips but we could form some words. And we knew what we wanted to say.
"No" we growled.
We scented the shock on them all. We turned back to the door but scented our mate.
We followed it. It was faint but at the other end of our mouth dripping with saliva was Beta.
"Smell" we growled, trying to get him to understand.
But there was a stronger scent of our mate coming from a pack warrior. We bared our teeth at him, our tongue lashing out to lick our snout.
"Smell" we growled again.
"Princeps, please let us speak to—" we did not let sire finish.
Our howl shook the windows. We were on the hunt. We would find our mate.
With our weight we pushed the doors down. The rain poured through the opening. Already pooling at our feet.
"Don't attack. Let him leave. We can't do anything, something has triggered his second form to take full control. Go tell everyone to stay in their rooms, and find shelter for all foreigners, he may not recognize them and we don't want him starting a war by killing one. I want twenty men protecting them at all times. Let him roam outside as he wishes but if he returns inside I want men watching him, but do not engage. Do you understand?"
We heard the pack agree, calling sire "your majesty" . Sire understood, his beast was like us, his beast knew.
We howled again.
The rain beat down on us, we had to walk on four feet to keep upright. Rivers had appeared and all the fields had flooded, the water covering our feet.
We clawed through the mud. We caught his scent in a long building near the horse barn. But growled when it was stale.
The sky flashed again, the water mirroring the sky, lighting up like it was on fire. It showed us everything for a second before it was night again.
We saw something in that flash. It was brighter than the water when the sky cracked. It looked like a star.
We howled but heard no reply. We didn't hear our mates scream.
We moved towards where we saw him. We moved slow incase he was moved in the rain, we didn't want to crush him.
The sky cracked again. We felt our second heart beat faster. Our mate hung over a log.
We stuck our snout into his wet hair. We smelled mostly rain but through it we smelled him.
We howled as loud as we could. Tipping our head up to the goddess. The sky cracked again and we howled in response.
We retracted our claws as best we could. Holding our mate in our paw, against our chest and above our second heart. We growled, holding him to the vibrations, showing him we were here.
We moved back to the castle and to the humans cave. He was still in the back of our mind. Asleep.
There were many pack warriors waiting when we reached the doors we knocked down. They stood back but followed as we walked to our cave.
We kept rumbling our chest, showing our mate we were here. We were going to keep him safe.
Sire was waiting at our cave. Watching us, he caught sight of our mate in our arms.
"Who is that Princeps?"
We growled at him and moved into our cave. We placed our mate on the floor near the fire. He needed to be warm. He was cold, he was not good. We whimpered as we looked at him and dug our nose into his side. We needed to keep him warm.
We shook our body and our coat. We had to get dry so we could keep him warm.
We felt something sharp in our hind leg. We growled and turned around, someone was attacking. We would protect our mate.
We saw sire and Beta, and the woman who stood next to them smelled like magic.
Our hind leg collapsed under us. We growled as our other limbs followed.
Sire walked close and put his paw on our snout. Our jaw had gone weak too and we couldn't bare our teeth in warning. But we let our anger be known through the deepest growl we had ever made.
"I'm sorry Princeps. We're doing this for Caspian. He's not your mate. He has no mate. We are saving you and Caspian." Sire said.
We growled again.
No mate?
Wrong.
We were mate.
Alpha and Star, mate.
We
We
Mate
We would protect—
Mate.
We couldn't keep our eyes open.
A|N: so that's came out of absolutely nowhere. Love it though Princeps is def now my favorite. Also I want to explain all my thinking behind everything but can't because
a) I'm sure you don't care and would rather just read and
b) because that would spoil things.
Also I used "we" because it didn't feel right to have a more animalistic voice be in first person. And I like using other pronouns it's super fun.
Also the name Princeps is just the Latin word for leader so now you can see how hard i try at naming characters (not very hard)
Anyway in the spirit of community and shitty situations let's tell jokes in the comments because why not, we need the encouragement. So I'll go first.
Why does Norway put barcodes on the sides of their ships?
Answer will come next chapter, we've only got a few left!!! Feel free to guess the answer in the comments and again share your favorite jokes with me! Doesn't matter how vulgar or how stupid I love them all.
Anyway stay safe 💗 be kind to yourself and others (or don't of they're being an asshole)
Crucible