My mate’s roar fills my head as I struggle in the beasts suffocating hold.
Suddenly, as if struck by a sword, the beast wrenches back, dropping me as if I’m on fire. The fall jars my bones. Falling to his knees, the king screams in agony. His hunters step forward in confusion, their hands on their swords ready to fight.
Jerking his crimson-colored eyes to mine, hatred, and disgust reflects from their depths as my blood runs down his chin. “You!” he hollers, shaking the foundation of the castle. “He mated you didn’t he, you fucking whore.” Still fighting the affliction my blood has caused him, he lashes out, snatching me by my throat. Even on his knees, my feet barely touch the ground as he squeezes the air from my lungs.
“You lifted his curse, didn’t you?” He snarls, but I barely hear him as darkness begins to swallow me.
“Your majesty?” one of the hunters’ interrupts, the fear in his voice drawing his king’s attention. His grip loosening enough that I can gasp for air. “What does this mean?”
Shaking off his loss of control, the king stands, dropping me at his feet again.
Facing his hunters, he says with a voice low and serious, “It means what I said, the chosen one and the prince have already united. His curse is broken.”
“Does this mean you are no longer king?”
“What of our animals?”
“What of the sun?”
Anger and betrayal lace the hunters’ questions, but they don’t cause the king to falter. Instead, he grows impossibly larger. “I am your king!” he shouts, causing them to take a step back “You forget all that I’ve done for you! I have broken the Gods curse, and I will dismantle their prophecy. With or without the chosen one, I am your rightful king!”
“You are nothing,” I cough, pushing myself onto my knees, rubbing my wrists that have come unbound through all my struggling. All eyes slam into me, and I feel their hesitancy and curiosity. Through the pain, I lift my head and meet the glare of the man who caused so much death, so much destruction. “No true king would subject his people to centuries of war because of a species that differs from his own! No true king would stand back, hiding away in his castle as his people suffer and die! Look around you, blanketed in darkness, cursed and caged, fighting extinction…You. Are. Nothing.”
Watching him lose control to his beast, I feel through the bond what I’ve been waiting for. Meeting the eyes of his animals as he hunches over mid change, I give him my final words. “And in the end...you will lose.”
The door bursts open as more hunters poor in. “Your majesty! The castle has been breached!”
Baring his teeth, the falling king growls, looking only to me, “I may lose. But so will he.”
Before I can even suck in a breath, the beast fully transforms. His animal - a tiger as large as my wolf – lunges, his teeth bared ready to kill. But before he reaches me, Kala, the brave a beautiful queen, jumps in front of him, sacrificing herself…for me.
Screaming at the top of my lungs, I watch in horror as the animal sinks its teeth into her flesh.
Pounding him with all my might, I get the beast to release the queen, blood seeping from the open wound. Ignoring the tiger, who now has his sights back on me, I wrap the queen in my arms and cry.
A call; a yell echoes throughout the castle. His cry of agony and revenge, gaining the attention of everyone in the room including the beast.
Karzan...
With the distraction of my mate, I drag the queen away from the battle. Trying to see through my tears, I cover the wound on her chest with my hands trying to stop the blood, but it’s no use. “I’m sorry,” I cry. “I’m so sorry.”
With hazy eyes, she lifts her hand and places it over my heart. Opening her mouth, blood coats her tongue as she relays the one sentence I have been told my whole life.
“Always...trust your heart…my queen.”
Swords clash and blood spills. All around me, for the first time since the war began, humans and beasts fight for each other, with each other.
Tonight, is the end to the darkness.
Tonight, is the end to the suffering.
Tonight, is the end to the prophecy.
Following my mates’ bond, I push through the battle. The gods unable to stop their tears, cause rain to pour and lightning to strike.
“They are in the castle, your majesty!” A beast who had been waiting for us inside the kingdom calls. His sword, catching that of a hunter’s before he spins away, sliding his weapon through the heart of the enemy. “Be careful, my lord, he has broken the curse.”
Clenching my teeth, I nod at the beast as he continues to fight.
As I walk through the path of the kingdom, everything moves around me in a blur, as if I’m not even there.
“Your fight is not here, our king,” the god’s whisper, as I continue through the destruction untouched.
Glancing to my left, I watch as a soft glow begins to form around a beast and a human who stand back to back. Their fear for one another instead of one another sends that glow shooting into the sky, disappearing into the darkness. Turning to my left, I see the same thing happening to another, and another until rays of light spot the entire sky.
“This is the peace you bring, Karzan. Unity, reason, hope, and love. It’s fighting for something because it will shine the world in light, not shadow it in darkness.”
“Can they see what they are doing?” I ask, feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin as it fills me with power.
“Not yet. The light will be revealed to them when the last of the darkness falls to the light. Then and only then will the curse be lifted. Go, our son, your final battle awaits you.”
Crossing the barrier of the castle, an overwhelming sense of sadness slams into me, causing me to stumble.
No.
Stopping dead in the center of the entryway, as the war continues on around me, I close my eyes and search through my bond.
Janey…I think as hard as possible, needing to know where she is, needing to know she’s ok. But as I touch the cord that connects us, it vibrates with grief so overwhelming, it causes tears to prick my eyes.
No. My mother…
Power surges from my body, sending a wave of sorrow throughout the room, laying everyone out in its path.
Throwing my head back in pain, I let out a yell. For my mother, for my father, my mate and my people. I yell for every single one of us.
Enough is enough.
Storming up the stairs, I follow the path my mate leads me on, coming into the great throne room.
“Kircheck!” I rage, spotting him pacing as a tiger in front of the throne. “Come out, you fucking coward! Come and face me!”
The men around us cease their fight as we watch the king shift back into a man.
“You lose, Kircheck. Through centuries of terror and darkness, your reign as king is over! Bow down before me and surrender to your true king.”
Still pacing, the beast shows his desperation like a cornered cat. He laughs, the sound forced but menacing. “My time as king may be up, young prince. But I assure you… yours is too.”
Seeing his move before he makes it, I shift into my wolf just as he shifts back into his tiger. Meeting in the center of the room, we fight.
Those around us cry and scream as one blow after another is forced upon the other until suddenly, I am caught off guard by the sight of my mate. Using it to his advantage, Kircheck pins me down with his paws, his sharp and deadly claws breaking through my skin, crushing my bones.