THE KING'S SLAVE BRIDE

PROLOGUE: LYCANS

*NA'IMAH*

This was never supposed to happen. We’ve been more than careful over the last decade that this should never have happened. I was gone for ten minutes, ten flipping minutes, and everything as I knew it had gone to hell.

Anguished cries of pain followed me as I maneuvered my way through the trees. I wasn’t new to this forest. This was my home and has been my home for a while now, but I doubt it’ll last another day. Blood-curdling screams came from every angle and with every path I turned, there was one or more Lycans fighting one of the hybrids in my clan. I caught sight of three Lycans bearing down on a hybrid youngling, who obviously couldn’t defend himself against those animals.

Without a second thought, I changed course and sprinted in their direction. I needed to find my parents, but there was no way I was leaving the young hybrid at the mercy of those Lycans. I freed my mind of any thought that could constitute a blockade as I let my hybrids push forward without shifting. I felt their spirits merge, and it opened my core. My bare feet on the ground kept me connected to the earth, and my mind filled with soft, soothing whispers of life as nature's own essence flowed through me.

Stretching out my hand as I got closer to the trio, I touched the nearest tree to me, speaking the whispers of my heart to her. She listened and whispered a calm hum to my ears as vines grew out of her roots, traveling along the ground in the direction of the Lycans.

“Hands off the boy!” I snarled as I stopped behind them, unfazed as the bigger of the trio turned to me with a snarl.

“What will you…” He doesn’t get to finish his sentence as root vines wrapped around his legs, dragging and smacking him to the ground. A loud, pained growl tore out of him as the vines moved with a speed that mirrored my vengeance, breaching every possible opening in his body. It was only a matter of seconds before they broke through his skin and tore him apart, limb by limb.

When the other two Lycans saw what became of their friend, they lunged at me with the veracity of a wounded animal, but they barely made it halfway through the air before the forest took them down, wrangling them to death.

I grabbed the helpless hybrid boy and dashed towards the thickest part of the forest. “Please, keep him safe,” I whispered to the forest as I pushed him into the lower shrubs. The trees heeded my request, and new shrubs grew out of the ground all around the boy as the trees made a vine of protection around him.

“Fight for my people.” I sent another whisper to the forest and a plea to the earth with each step I took to keep the people I was leaving behind safe while I searched for my parents.

Mama has been sick for the past months, and I know Baba will be focused on protecting her. That means leaving himself open for any attack.

It was only a matter of time before the Lycans took out every guard stationed outside our hut. Our clan were never ones that focused on battle training. We knew how to fight, but it was more about survival and not to kill. We were a clan of nomad hybrids. That means we were never in a location for too long, and were always moving. That has saved us the risk of getting captured by the ruthless Lycan kings, who for centuries have hunted down hybrids and forced them into sl*very.

We’ve been careful and kept to different parts of the forest for centuries, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around how the Lycans had found us.

I felt a shiver run down my spine as I approached our hut and saw no guard in sight. Of course, that didn’t bode well, and I wasted no time as I raced inside the hut.

“Ma, Baba?” I called out in a panicked voice, my heart thrumming loudly, expecting the worst.

"Imah?" I turned sharply down the narrow corridor at the sound of a familiar voice.

“Eseh, is that you?” I called, threading carefully as I walked towards my parents' room.

A part of me wanted to trust that the voice I just heard was Eseh’s voice, but that would make no sense, right? But I let out a sigh of relief when I walked into my parents' room to find them seated on their bamboo bed with Eseh standing in the corner.

“Oh, thank Aethyra, you're safe.” I rushed forward, checking over them for any sign that they had been attacked. Ma could barely sit up on her own, safe for Baba, who supported her weight with his body.

“We need to leave,” I rushed out. "Lycans are everywhere. I can find a cave for you and Ma to hide and wait out the attack, but I have to come back for the rest of the clan as soon as I get you to safety." I urged them to stand up, but Baba had a look on his face that had me pausing.

“Baba, we have to go. "I need to get you and Ma out of here.” He looked past me, and I followed his gaze to find him looking at Eseh in the corner. I had totally forgotten about the lone wolf the minute my eyes landed on my parents.

I turned back to Baba, “Eseh will come with us; he knows some part of the forest. He is my friend; he’s saf…” The rest of the sentence died in my throat as I snapped back to face Eseh, who stood calm in the corner.

“Wait, how did you get here? I went out to look for you. You disappeared for the past few days and I thought something bad had happened to you. How did you get here? How did you find your way into the clan?”

Alarm bells went off in my head as I glanced around the room frantically for any signs of Lycan. He can’t be….

That’s…. There’s no way he’s a Lycan. I’ve seen him shift. He is a wolf. I know that because I nursed him back to health when he was wounded in his wolf form.

“You told me,” Eseh mumbled, stepping out of the corner, and his eyes... were void of any emotion.

Taking a protective stance in front of my parents, I faced him with a hard stare. “I never told you how to find my clan, Eseh. You asked and I said no. So how did you find your way here and to my parents, for that matter?”

He shrugged. “You weren’t all that smart, Imah. I mean, you let your guard down pretty fast after one kiss, and you never noticed how many times I followed you.”

“You followed me. Why the hell would you do that? I trusted you. I thought you were my friend.” I tried not to let the rise of anger coursing through my veins distract me from what was important. I wanted nothing more than to lunge for the bastard's throat, but protecting my parents was a priority.

"It’s not my fault you were careless, Imah. You should be thanking me for not killing them before you got here. I was getting really tired of waiting, and bored."

A growl rumbled out of me as I let my hybrids take control. “My face will be the last thing you see before I tear you apart,” I snarled, planting my leg firmly on the ground to feel the earth’s essence beneath my feet as I channeled. The forest was on my side tonight, and he picked the wrong night to mess with me.

“I think it’s going to be the other way round, hybrid princess," he mocked. "My face will be the last thing you see before your world goes dark.” He said with a hint of boredom and overconfidence in his tone.

A wicked grin spread across my face as vines crept through the window of the hut. If he thinks he’s going to walk out of here unscathed… A hint of heat trickled down my neck out of nowhere, slowly spreading down my back. I bit back a groan, legs wobbling when the heat suddenly tripled. The vines that had crept through the window withered in unison. My eyes widened as a blazing heat burned through my spine, causing me to cry out in pain.

“Ah, I see it’s starting.” Eseh muttered, smacking his teeth.

“What…” I barely had a word out before falling face flat onto the ground. Sweat oozed out of my body as searing heat spread through every living nerve in my body. I could barely hold back my scream as it felt like I was being burned from within, and I could feel the fire under my skin. “What did you do…” I cried as heat tremors wracked through my entire being and I felt my connection to the earth slowly closing.

“Nothing really bizarre; I might’ve instructed my men to set fire to the forest. I figured, since you can control the trees—don't know how you do that, don’t care— no one should have such power. Anyway, I figured, if you have no forest to control, then you have no way to fight back.”

“Why would you… Argghh,” I let out another high-pitched cry, unable to bear the flame burning through my core as I curled into a foetal position.

Eseh crouched down before me, grabbing my jaw, he raised my head. “Told you it would be the other way round,” he said with the same soft smile I had grown accustomed to in the past few months. The only difference this time was the lack of emotion in his eyes.

“I… I’ll kill you, Eseh… I’ll…”

He scoffed. “If you want to threaten me, you might want to use my name for added effect. My name…”

I couldn’t make out what he said as his voice faded out and my vision grew dark. For the first time in my life, my head felt empty, my heart skidded to a halt, and silence bereaved my soul. The whispers from the earth, the wind, the trees, from nature that had been my companion all my life, were now replaced with an eerie sound of agony that dragged me into an abyss of darkness as my eyes snapped shut.