April's POV
A buzzing sound that kept irritating my ears made me groan and try to open my unnaturally heavy eyelids.
I expected to be hit my bright light of some sort but was instead met with darkness. It was as if I never even opened my eyes.
As I started regaining my senses back, my eyes travelled around inspecting my surrounding.
I tried moving but was restrained in my place with my hands and legs tied to the chair I was on.
I started tugging at the ropes harder, but the burning feeling made it harder every time. They must've dipped the ropes in silver for them to burn like that.
I tried calling for Rose, but she wouldn't answer. Our link was cut, and nothing was reaching her from me or vice versa.
I remained calm for a couple of seconds trying to regain all my strength and breath, hoping that I collect enough energy to break the ropes. I had no other choice but to have high hopes.
I growled loudly when I couldn't succeed but didn't let that stop me as I continued tugging and moving the chair in an attempt to be let go.
"Stop! April Stop it, you'll hurt yourself!" An unfamiliar male voice pleaded in the darkness.
I stopped my actions and looked up in confusion. I thought I was alone.
"Who are you?" I asked breathless.
The man sighed. "I never wished to meet you like that." He said in a regretful voice, mostly to himself.
"Who are you?" I repeated.
"You know me as beta Doyle."
Once his answered reached my ears I let out a loud growl that even I didn't know I had enough potential to make and started tugging at my strains harder wanting to get to him now more than escaping.
"Calm down April please. You'll just hurt yourself more." He pleaded but I didn't listen.
"Shut up!" I growled at him as I pulled harder, hurting my hands and legs more. Eventually, I started feeling a warm liquid trailing down along both my feet and hand. The smell of blood made it known what that liquid was.
Doyle growled. "You're bleeding!" He scolded. "I told you to stop."
"It's none of your business!" I snapped. "I hate you!"
Doyle sighed again. "I know, and you have every right to be."
"Good that you know. This way you won't question it when I kill you." I snarled at him.
Doyle sighed again. "Can't you listen to me at least?" He pleaded.
"The only thing I'll be listening to will be the answers you'll be giving to my questions and your screams of agony when I get my hands on you." I retorted angrily.
"Fair enough."
"Who's my mother?" I asked.
"Why do you ask, it's Teresa Fields of course." He answered.
"My biological mother." I growled at him.
He remained silent for a while and I thought that he wouldn't speak.
"You found out." He stated more than asked in a whisper.
"Surprise." I sang in a sarcastic way before regaining my angry self. "Who was she?" I asked again.
"Her name was Maria. I met her at a hotel casino. Damn, she was one poker whale." He let out a light chuckle at the end as he remembered which made me growl at him again.
"Were you cheating on Janeen with her?" I asked.
"You met Janeen? How is she?" He asked, his voice laced with genuine worry.
"Answer me." I snarled at him instead.
"No. I never cheated on Janeen willingly. With Maria, it was a one-night stand, and we were drunk. I didn't even remember her name until she came to me and told me that she was pregnant with you." He answered, every word making me angrier than the one before.
I was nothing but a one-night stand's mistake, where both parties were drunk. Beautiful.
"I told Janeen right away. I didn't want to keep the truth from her, and she had every right to know." He continued.
"Oh yeah? And how well did your affair set in with her?" I snapped.
"It wasn't an affair April." Doyle sighed. "Janeen hated me for it." He answered my question.
"And, of course, hated Maria and me more." I stated, this time in a lower and pained voice.
I didn't like the idea of Janeen hating me and the feeling of guilt that I felt towards her was unbearable. I don't know how I'm going to face her again if I survived this.
"Hated Maria yes, but you? Oh no, she never hated you and wanted you as her own." I was taken aback by what Doyle said and scrunched up my face in confusion.
"She did?" I asked in a whisper, afraid that what I heard was wrong.
"Yeah. She wanted you even before she got the chance to see you."
I felt the smile making its way to my lips before a grin settled down.
"Then what happened?" I asked almost too excitedly.
"Maria disappeared." Doyle replied with a sorrowful sigh making my grin drop.
"I wasn't able to find her for six months, even after her due date had passed. Two weeks after her due date, Teresa and her husband came to visit us with a child in their arms that wasn't theirs. Turns out that Janeen had found Maria, waited until she gave birth then took you and gave you to her sister to keep." I continued listening to him intently without uttering a single word.
I guess it started making sense now but there was still one question that had my head spinning.
"Then why did you kill them?" I asked.
"Kill who?" Doyle asked, confusion lacing his voice.
"Don't play dumb. Why did you kill my parents?"
"What? I never did." He answered, more like lied.
I growled at him, showing him that I wasn't satisfied by what he said.
"I promise you April, I never did." He pleaded.
"Yeah, but you sent others to do it." I snapped at him.
"What? No!" He defended. "Who told you that?"
"Doyle." I warned with a growl.
"April, I swear I—" He started again but was cut off by the sound of a metal door creaking open and footsteps making their way towards us.
We both remained quite as a dim light like that coming from a torch approached along with the footsteps causing shadows to start appearing on the walls and for us to be able to see our surroundings better.
I noticed that I was tied inside what appeared to be a cell with metal bars and instead of Doyle being with me, he was in the opposite cell, tied down the same way I was.
Now being able to see his face slightly, I noticed how bruised and bloody it was.
The person whose footsteps belonged to finally made an appearance making both Doyle and I growl at the same time.
A loud chuckle echoed around us. "Wow, you two really are related." Kristoff said as he held his stomach.
"Let us go." I snarled at him, knowing that my words were pretty much useless.
"And why would I do that? You didn't listen to me when I warned you to back down, and being the bitch you are, you didn't even die in the attack like I wanted. You ruined everything for me." Kristoff shrugged. Looks like he already got in terms with his failure.
"Don't worry, you'll get over it eventually." I replied with a fake smile.
"I see you're still as sarcastic and annoying as ever." Kristoff smirked.
"Only for you." I smirked back. "So, what, are you going to kill me now?" I asked.
"Oh no." Kristoff scoffed. "I've thought about it and turns out that killing you is just too easy." He replied.
His words made me worry about what he had in mind, but I kept a stoic face on.
Our heads snapped to Doyle's direction when an angry growl escaped his throat.
"Do you see that April? Daddy is worried about you." Kristoff cooed. "Too bad he won't be there to witness what I'll do to you."
I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion when Kristoff held up what looked like a controller of some sort. And that's when I noticed what Doyle had around him.
It looked like an explosive belt but instead of a ticking bomb there were several bottles of a clear liquid.
"Ah, right, I still have to explain." Kristoff said, snapping my gaze towards him.
"Those bottles are filled with wolfsbane which are directly connected to Doyle's body with needles. One small click on that button and the machine injects it all in one go. Of course his body won't be able to take it, and that's when—" He stopped mid-sentence and directed his eyes from Doyle to me.
"How about we keep it a surprise." He smirked and winked at me before pressing the button and leaving.
I watched as Doyle's face turned purple and pain was very evident on it, even though he tried his best to hide it.
"No!" I screamed as I tried breaking the ropes around my limps once again.
Doyle's body stared growing in size as if he was being pumped with air like a balloon. The increasing pressure in his body made his eyes bleed and so were his ears, nose and lips.
I kept on screaming as I tugged at the ropes harder.
My screams were suddenly cut short when the sound of something popping hit my ears and I was being drenched in a very cold liquid and being hit by a couple of hard objects.
I kept my eyes wide as I stared down at the ground.
The strong smell of blood hit my nose and that's when I slightly awoke from my shock but what I received wasn't good.
Doyle exploded. His body just exploded into a million pieces.
Next thing I know, I was letting out a loud, screeching scream that had me deafening my own ears.
----
Lucian I finished explaining my plan to the serpents that I had with me, and now we only had to wait until the twenty-four hours were up.
It won't be much though since only ten minutes were left.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" A woman's voice asked.
"I can't be very sure, but we have to try everything that we can." I replied. I didn't want to give them very high hopes and at the same time I didn't want to give up.
"Are you all ready?" I asked once I saw that we only had about two minutes left.
A series of 'yes' sounded all around.
Right as we expected, two guards entered with syringes of the liquid in their hands.
Now was my time to play.
"Hey!" I called making them both look at me and as soon as their eyes made contact with mine, they hurried towards me cell.
"Your highness, what are you doing here?" One of the guards asked.
"That idiot Ryan was playing a prank on me and locked me down here." I lied.
The guards wasted no time in opening the cell door and letting me out.
Good thing my father didn't tell them about him locking me up here.
"Wait, what are you doing?" I asked when I saw them turning to one of the cells.
They looked at each other and hesitated about what to tell me.
I crossed my arms across my chest and raised an eyebrow. "Well?"
"Er...we're just...uhmm..." one of them stuttered, for which I was grateful. I was trying to buy the serpents time and those guards were helping us unknowingly.
"We were ordered to keep those rogues from shifting." The other lied with a sigh.
Rogues. Yeah right.
"Rogues huh?" I questioned with a raised eyebrow.
Both guards gave me warning looks which surprised me.
"You ask too many questions your highness, and that's not a good thing." The guard that stuttered before said with a menacing smirk.
I narrowed my eyes at them. "And you've got some guts for a guard such as yourself to talk to me like that."
"Clear orders. Get rid of any interruptions. It seems like we'll have no other choice but to take action soon." The other guard replied as they both stood facing me fully.
"Sure you do." I answered with one side smile and a shrug. "But right now, you need to watch your backs."
And right on que, the fire alarm rang throughout the whole castle from the smoke the serpents started with rocks and the doors to the cells were opened one after the other with massive snakes rattling out through them.
One of the serpents held both guards with his tail and threw them across an opposite wall, knocking them unconscious.
He then turned to me and lowered his head in both gratitude and respect.
I bowed my head curtly in return before hurrying out of the cells after them.
War has started.