Chapter 78

Xander

The palace looks so much smaller now. I can’t help but cock my head at the sight of this place, a place I was born and grew up in every day of my meaningless childhood. I once feared this place, my half-brother, but seeing him care more about his mate than the attack on the royals made me sure that what he claimed was true.

My brother is not a royal.

He can meander off into the commoner world, I have no use for him anymore. I needed him out of my way and now that I am successful in that, I don’t care to pursue him or his misery any further. He was a baren on resources to track down and kill and although his little mutt mate was fun to toil with, I have bigger plans in mind that don’t include having her around to distract me.

My warriors ready themselves, shifted and prepared to pounce. They fear nothing in this war. They know the palace, the ones who come from these very halls, and the rouges I subdued into my pack, they want vengeance against authority like my father. I will grant them the satisfaction of ending this war and brining success onto Apogee. I just want to be the one who strikes.

I look to my pack, kneeling on the hillsides around the palace and the village before it. It’s early morning still, and it’s too much of ambush to show my pride. We have to strike first, then I can revel in my glory afterwards. I raise my hand at the ready, feeling the world stall at my command. I was made to be this leader, I was made to attack, and I shall.

Throwing my fist forward, the warriors flood the valley and the kingdom at once. The moon is at it’s thinnest phase tonight, like a shred of paper in the windy night sky, and it offers no one an advantage in strength. I have that in my army, in my pack, and it has to be enough to outnumber the sheer size of the royal pack.

I have them spare my mother, if it is possible, but not to go out of their way to do so. She will try to protect her husband, the lousy king, and an Alpha and Luna are nothing without there significant other. It will bring her pain, but if her fate meets the king’s, then it will bring them together after this life ends. It’s harsh, of course, but I don’t let it distract me. Nothing can do so.

I shift behind the last line of warriors, seeing the front edge of my army finally reach the village, leaping over rooftops and curving around the bends, finally barging through the iron gates like a strong-arm wall of destruction. They tear the path open for us, for my warriors, and we find our way through the palace doors.

The ruckus has alerted the Royal pack by now, and the warriors of my father’s fight our entrance. I manage my way past them all, a chaotic scene of screams, bites, and blood filling this once sleepy palace. I make my way to a service corridor, stepping over commoner maids who bow and kneel in fear. I will handle that filth later.

For now I make my secret entrance up the tower, toward my father’s chambers, and picture him tired and surprise at my coming into his home and disturbing the place. He won’t know what hit him or his warriors but that is the edge I need to win. He has strength in numbers but by the reports through our pack link now, the numbers of dead royals in the foyer and in the training halls, I don’t see him winning this battle off of his armies size anymore.

I make my way into the hallway, the stench of my father and mother so damned close now, it’s pungent and angry. My paws lightly click against the marble floors and I recall my childhood here. I shifted first outside these palace walls, and I grew my strength in the rooms where royal warriors train. I was a royal until now, and I may still have the blood of an aristocrat, but I have the determination of a dictator.

I will win this fight, no matter the casualties that involve the victory.

My father bursts into the hallway, a large, dark wolf with beading eyes and snarling, blade-sharp teeth. He growls at me before pausing, eyes wide at the familiarity of my coat, of my scent. I find a pang of joy in my chest at the sight of him so perplexed, so furious, that it makes me want to draw this moment out forever. I need to feel his ferocity. I need to see his weakness.

He lowers his head and bares his teeth; a warning to surrender.

I do the same back and reciprocate my father, unaccepting his offer.

We bolt forward at once, like a single mind, and our bodies collide in the hallway. I dare to snap at his shoulder, at his neck, but his weight pins me too far from being able to reach. I need to bite him, to at least hear him whimper out in ache, but he doesn’t back down. He presses his paws into my throat, into my cheek, and I scream out a howl to alert my warriors.

He jumps off of me when I swipe a hit toward him, dragging a nail or two down his long shoulder blade. I can’t stand the thought of letting him go unscathed, so at least I have this mark to press me further into my determination to over power this king. He will fall with his kingdom.

He snarls a look in my direction, giving off this strangled noise of disapproval I’ve known too well. I heard it all my life, always so unsatisfied with me and my actions, only when being compared to my half-brother. He didn’t want me, he didn’t want Vivian, he wanted Lily and Jaxson. I will not let my mother be the vain of his mate, his unwanted lover, and allow me to be the only product of such a relationship.

I am more than the second-wives son. I will be the next Alpha of the Royal pack.

My father roars when I refuse to settle in surrender. I don’t mind the noise of his disproval. It only brings back memories of my childhood. I instead roar back, matching his tone, his heated angst, and we are two lions in a single den, fighting to be the sole king.

He pounces forward again, this time knocked off guard when I step aside and catch his front paw in my threshold, my teeth baring deep wounds into his leg before he stammers his balance back together and returns a bite into my shoulder. I release his arm at once, but he doesn’t release his teeth from my skin.

My balance turns poor and I collapse, the blood pooling on the slippery floor beneath me. he releases, calming down another vicious bite into the same spot, tearing the holes wider than before. I can’t help but try to pull the focus of my warriors to get up here, to link my army to back me up, but they are preoccupied by the king’s numbers. I will have to settle my way out of this battle.

When he retracts his muzzle a second time, I dare to trick my father, and shift back to my frail form so he can take it as a sign to do the same. My blood covers my body, mixed with a small fragment of the king’s blood as well, and we stare at each other across the hallway for a long moment, his wolf untrusting of me, as he should be.

When he does shift, I feel a weight lift off my chest. This interaction could give me time to heal and if I do so rapidly enough, I will be successful in the remainder of this battle. I just have to soften the king and see if he has ever really cared for his second son enough to hear him out; even in a ruse to distract him.

“Fa—Father,” I pant, my breath stuttering between clumps of blood that catch in my throat.

“Xander,” he says, standing over me in disappointment and in utter hate. “What have you become, son? Why have you erected a war in my kingdom?”

I steady my breath, the calmness of the tower serene compared to the fighting and howling noises of defeat downstairs. “I have come for vengeance,” I growl, feeling my body rattle with adrenaline. My wolf wants to kill, wants to be successful, but I bleed far too much for that right now. “I have come to take what I deserve, father.”

“You deserve nothing,” he growls, not skipping a beat in time to reply.

“That is what you always made me believe,” I hum. “It isn’t the truth. I deserve victory, I derive the be the king Alpha. You deserve to die for ever convincing me otherwise, over the adoration of my mutt brother.”

“I never adorned him more, Xander,” my father gasps, his stance like that of a fighting pose, ready to shift and strike. “You were too damn jealous of him to see that you had greatness coming for you too, Xander. But not anymore. Wherever Jaxson is, I hope he is proud. I hope he has found his peace. You will find yours too, son, but it will be nothing like your brothers’.”

He shifts suddenly, before I have time to execute my plan, and his teeth find my throat at once. I don’t feel the pain, just the dampness of my blood as it slowly drains from this new wound, creating an escape hole for my life to wither out of my body. My father paces back a step, then two, before I watch him bow his head and retreat to the lower level of the kingdom.

I wait to heal, to see my mother come to my aid, or my father to return and console my efforts here today. Nothing but darkness greets me. Nothing but shame fills me now.