Chapter 181

**CAY POV**

The lake was freezing, like ice splashing against my skin, but it was lovely to be able to wash away the evidence of what had been done to me, even with Mihen sitting so close. He probably thinks I’ll make a run for it, but I have no idea where I am, and I don’t know how to get home, I won’t make it very far. Even if that was the plan.

But I won’t run, not because I don’t want to, but because it would be foolish to even try. I am surrounded by an army of men much faster than me, and much stronger too. I may have been able to take a few down back in the town, but there is no way I can face hundreds. Not on my own.

I lay back in the water, allowing the waves to wash over my face, and coat my hair in ice. Maybe the cold will rid my body of the seed he had planted inside of me. I don’t want to carry this monsters baby.

A long time ago, my mother was raped by my father, and that is how I came into this world. I wasn’t brought by love like my brothers, I was born of sin and hate.

My parents don’t think I know that story, but I do, and I found out in the worst possible way.

I know they both love me, and I love them, but I wish I wasn’t born of hate and pain. Though at least now, I know a little of what my mother went through all those years ago.

She must have felt so alone, just as I do now.

“Hurry up, princess, we don’t have long.” The general commands, standing close to the water, but not touching it.

“I’m coming.” I murmur, pulling myself to my feet.

If only I could stay in the water for the rest of my life, the cold and ice is better than the fear I feel when close to Mihen.

As soon as I touch dry land, Mihen is wrapping me in the fur blanket once more, probably to stop me from catching a cold. Not that I cared, I’d let fever take me if it meant I would be free.

“You’re shaking.” Mihen mutters when he lifts me up into his arms, “was the water that cold?”

“It was like ice.” I say, looking up at the darkening sky. “But I liked it.”

Had another day already passed? How long will I have to suffer?

He looks down at me, excitement sparkling in his eyes, “If the cold doesn’t bother you, does that mean that you are a dragon, like your mother?”

I shake my head, a familiar disappointment rising in my chest, “I am neither a griffin nor a dragon.”

He stops mid-step, “you cannot shift?”

I smile sadly, “I have wings, and I breathe fire, but I am no dragon.”

After several moments he begins to walk again, and he doesn’t speak, it was as though his mind was torn, though between what I did not know.

I would never know.

But I didn’t mind the silence, I liked it, it brought me a kind of peace that life had always taken from me.

My brothers are both Griffin’s, they can shift, and they have powers. I am the one that doesn’t. I am the odd one out.

My father used to say that I would shift when my body was ready, but those words died with the hope I had clung to for so long.

I am not a dragon. I am not a griffin. The only thing I am is a princess, and I don’t even want to be that.

Am I destined to always be the one who fails?

The sooner I accept my fate, the easier death will come to me.

**MIHEN POV**

She can’t shift, but she is a fighter. If I had a daughter I would not send her into battle knowing that she was born without the ability to protect herself. Just how heartless was Dieter?

Did he care for his daughter at all?

Perhaps I have made a mistake, perhaps she isn’t the spoiled princess I thought she was.

But that doesn’t not change my plans, she is still the heir to this kingdom, and that means that she must die. Once I have had my fill of her.

I look down at her cradled in my arms, her head turned to the side as she snores softly, she is a beauty, just as the stories said.

But I never expected her to be as strong as she is, her heart is full of fire, even without the ability to turn into a dragon.

I wonder how much that knowledge pains Dieter and his bitch wife, knowing that even though she was born to great power, she got none of it. She was as weak a child, and as brittle too.

Funny, that should make her easier to destroy, not harder. And yet, the princess still holds onto the fire in her chest, just as she does to hope. Even if she doesn’t realise it.

She is everything I’d want in a partner, strong, intelligent, and fierce. But she is also soft and gentle. I can tell she has a kind heart.

She was willing to fight as many of my men as it took to save that one child, a child she didn’t even know. She would have died if she fought, but she didn’t seem to care.

It was a though she had already accepted her death, and she wasn’t afraid to face it.

Does that make her strong, or stupid?

I haven’t quite decided.

I make it back to the tent just as the men light the torches, the fire guiding my way back.

The princess I no longer shivering, but I place her by the fire just in case, I cannot have her riddled with fever, not when we have to leave in the morning.

I shackle her to the log closest to the fire and leave her there, I will feed her before we leave, but I need her strong for what is to come.

The stronger she is, the longer she will last, and I want to have my fun with her.