Chapter 52

PRESENT TIME

I was in a psychotic frenzy, and all I could think about was my daughter Aurora.

"Petros get away from me now, where is Aurora?"

He smiled at me as Josh held me in his arms, I wonder what Petros had done to leave us in that state we were in?

"You remembered my love, you remembered everything... you..."

Josh said, hugging me tighter

But what happened all this time that I was out of my mind? How did he manage to kidnap me from what I thought was my dead father's castle without me understanding everything that was going on around me?

It all seemed so surreal to me that my throat was locked.

"What have you done? What is the point of this? The war is over!"

I said vehemently, hoping that someone would tell me what was going on.

"If you don't come with me now I'll kill Aurora, I said that I would never let you exchange me for my brother for nothing, I said that I would come back even if I were from the dead to end this life of yours, this one that you rub in the face of everyone and the whole kingdom, this perfect marriage that you flaunt with kisses in the hallways, did you think you were going to destroy me and live happier than ever?"

The way he spoke gave me goose bumps, the way he moved his mouth and his eyes remained glazed without missing a single piece of the puzzle of his fucked up head. The way

how hard he looked at me and the way my body burned and froze at the same time.

My nose bleeding my consciousness being lost and everything around me ready to crumble right before me.

"Take me with you Petros, leave my family alone"

Said Josh still trimming me and drying my blood filled nose, my head was exploding from so much pain and I was being invaded by so many things that I couldn't even open my eyes properly. The dim light in the cabin and everything that happened afterwards had me shot.

"I don't want you Josh, either Olivia comes with me or your daughter dies! I'm not kidding, did you think you were going to poison the dress so she could get her memory back and I was going to do absolutely fucking nothing about it? Who helped you? It was that bitch Amalia I bet, always obsessed with me, no wonder she wants to fuck with my chances of happiness."

At that moment, capturing moments still inside my mind I was able to realize all that was lost. All that was scorched inside me, and realize that nothing can be good if it's not real.

But Petros didn't realize this, he was so wrapped up inside his own shell of evil that he didn't want anyone to tell him he was wrong, he was sure he could do whatever he wanted, the domination of the kingdom there creating a new opposition to a hard won peace.

Who else was involved in this heap of evil? What else was missing in my life and Josh's life for our story to end in a terrible tragedy?

I saw my happy ending pass before my eyes, my marriage and everything that was proposed, I saw all the things coming at me like a ray of sunshine in the darkness.

I felt the pains of my labor and I felt the chill in my stomach that I felt when I told Josh that I was pregnant, and it all replayed in my mind again and again without me getting tired even in the midst of that mess.

"I'M COMING WITH YOU"

I screamed in a burst, Josh held my face and said

"Don't do that...don't go with him, I'll go in your place, we've spent so much time apart"

"What about our daughter, what about everything we've built?"

He whispered in my ear before I was ripped from his arms

"I will get you out of there, I promise you that!"

"ENOUGH JOSH, OR I WILL KILL YOU RIGHT HERE AND NOW, YOU ARE LUCKY TO HAVE MY BLOOD RUNNING THROUGH YOUR DAMN VEINS"

Shouted Petros before dragging me like a doll all over the place as if I was worth nothing but a relief to his psychosis that looked a lot like before, that psychosis I had known.

"Did you think you were going to get away from me that easy Olivia? For seven hells, I did everything I could to make you fall in love with me for good, but unfortunately it will have to be for bad."

"You bewitched me, kidnapped my daughter, and did all of this being good?"

"I can be much worse than that, you are marrying me tomorrow, and I have gathered enough people to endorse our union, Josh has lost allies while I, quiet was

getting stronger and stronger inciting even greater revenge against a Lycan king who married an Aaryn."

"Isn't that the same thing you intend to do you crazy lunatic?"

He slapped me hard across the face, so hard that I felt on the spot my nose bleed a little more, I put my hand over my blood and smiled looking at him.

"I will never love you, not with a thousand spells or things you put in my way, I will always love Josh more than anything in my life, but I will marry you, but you will release my daughter from your domain"

"Is that a promise Olivia Aaryn?"

"It is a promise Petros, but the price is to forever leave the kingdom there and my family alone"

He closed his face, and I felt my world collapse inside, and everything inside me turned to dust!

The dust of the earth that when blown dissolves in the air, the dust of my shoes and my feet that were tired from walking so far in the direction of a horrible destiny.

Arriving at the castle I was turned inside out and taken to the council chamber, when I saw my daughter handcuffed in the great hall my heart leapt out of my chest

"AURORA!"

I screamed and when she looked up at me with her bruised face and tears in her gaze everything inside me sank in, nothing else mattered, the only thing that mattered to me was keeping my little girl safe.

"Mom..."

She said with her mouth full of blood and knowing that there was nothing I could do put me inside my worst nightmare.

"RELEASE HER PETROS, THAT WAS OUR AGREEMENT!"

"Yes, after our marriage and the consummation of our marriage, I will release this Lycan cub and Aaryn bastard into the forest to your beloved Josh and after that you will be mine"

I would never, ever be his, not in a thousand years, but unfortunately I would have to submit to that karma, I would have to submit to that terrible fate just to protect my own, and all I could think of was my husband's attempts to free me from my trance, from the suffering my daughter went through while I was locked inside the drug room.

That justified the paintings, justified the whole fucking thing.

It justified my face on the walls and this obsession that not even after a damn war of ended.

Not even after everything that happened, not even after losing the war.

At that moment all I could think was that I should have made sure that filthy filth had simply died, I should have twisted the sword harder I should have kicked his head to death I should have never ignored the feeling that he was alive and walking around, I should have kept myself alert for all these years knowing that my greatest enemy was walking around as if he had no laws.

I squirmed inside just remembering that I could have ended it all but I didn't, because I didn't have the courage to face death like I faced my father's death.

"So Petros, let's get on with it, I want Aurora's freedom"

"MOM, DON'T DO THIS... DON'T SUBMIT"

She got a slap in the face, harder than the one I took on the way there and my panic reaction was so strong I almost fainted.

"Quiet Aurora, I know what I am doing...I am going to marry Petros, and you are going to go back to our castle and support your father"

"Mom, Dad will never willingly accept that"

She wasn't wrong, Josh would never accept that fate for me, but I couldn't think about that at that moment, I just needed to do what was in my power to get my daughter out of that kingdom as soon as possible.

Even if it meant marrying the cold and cruel Petros.