I rushed to his side and fell to my knees, laying my hands on his leg wound. The sword had cut deep, strips of fur completely gone where the skin beneath lay sliced open. He winced beneath my touch, but let me apply pressure to try and slow the bleeding.
“I need guards,” I yelled to anyone who dared to move. My voice cracked. “We need to bring the king back to the castle.”
He rolled away from me and sat up, pulling his legs into his chest.
“You need to stop moving. Lay still until we can get you stitched up.”
He shook his head and started to rock back and forth on his toes. Tears poured from my eyes. The broken beast before me splintering my heart into pieces with his mammoth paws.
“Please, Dad. I can’t lose you. I need you.”
I put my hand on his shoulder, but he jerked away, his stiff fur passing through my fingers.
“Please.”
He grabbed the white knight from beside him and smashed it into the ground, shards spraying out in all directions. He grabbed the black queen and pulled it into his lap.
“Enough, Ezra,” a voice called.
He stared past me and I glanced over my shoulder. Mom appeared in the square, with a squadron of guards following close behind. She clamped her hand over her mouth as she inspected the aftermath of the chaos my father had caused. She closed her eyes and clenched fists at her sides.
“It’s time to go home,” she continued, but the fear in her voice shadowed the command.
My father’s body slumped, his massive frame compacting as small as he could make himself, a glaze of shame washing over his face.
I held my hand out to him again. “Let’s go.”
His face hardened, the last whisper of his humanity draining from his expression and replaced with a stare of cold granite. He ripped the queen from his lap and ground it into the chessboard, it’s pieces mixing with the destroyed knight. He rolled his head back, mouth wide open in a growl as his pointed teeth glistened in the sun. I retracted my hand and he pushed me onto my back, pinning me beneath him. My heart pounded as I searched for any part of him I could hang on to and pull him back, but there was nothing left. He roared again. I covered my face with my arms and waited for the pain the sink in, hoping he’d make death come quick and not make me suffer.
His burning breath brushed across my skin, and I screamed, my vocal cords shredding as the sound ripped up my throat. But the shadow of him faded, as he pushed up on his hind legs. I glanced through my fingers as he gnashed his teeth and stared down at me. I pushed myself up on my arms, but they trembled and I fell back down to the stone.
“Dad,” I whispered.
He roared. My hair blew back from his breath. But then he turned away from me and ran toward the street and up the hill.
Guards tried to block his path but he whipped them out of the way. More casualties. More bodies cast aside. He bounded faster, falling to all fours and picking up speed until no human would be able to catch him.
Mom rushed to my side and helped me up. Her glassy eyes wept, as she shivered and wrapped her arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Fallon. You know it wasn’t him. Don’t you?”
I pulled her closer, the familiar scent of home rolling from her hair, but not giving me the serenity it usually did.
“We’ve lost him, Your Majesty.” The decorated guard who’d greeted me with Alizeh marched up beside us, his jaw tighter and more dire than he’d been in the hopeful glow of morning. “He disappeared into the forest and headed up towards the mountains. I’ve sent men in after him, but it will be difficult to find him in that terrain.”
Mom’s body collapsed in my arms. “Keep looking. Don’t stop until you find him.”
I rubbed my knuckles along her spine as her tears bled through my shirt, soaking my skin. “They’ll find him.”
“Maybe.” She looked up at me, completely shattered, her heart broken. “But what will happen if they do?”
She wiped her hands over her face and pulled away from me, then slipped off to address the remaining guards. Always the strong one.
I gazed out over the mess in the square. The broken market stalls. Banners tattered, benches splintered, and the mass of injured bodies barely moving on the ground. The chessboard splashed with my father’s blood already drying and seeping into the concrete. Every emotion hit me at once. Rage. Despair. Hopelessness. Until they burned so hot in my veins I boiled over into numbness. I kicked the black king still standing on its stained square. A jolt of pain shot up my leg as it tumbled over and lay among the other casualties.
Behind me someone clapped, slow and mocking. I whirled around, Harding and Kalmin stood with Dormand and the others from Takka’s, their faces haunted and stark.
Dormand stopped clapping and stepped out from the rest of the group.
“Are you going to try and tell us there’s no beast now, prince?”
Continue the adventure in Heir of Beauty
After the Happily Ever After…
There is more to these stories. You want to know what happens next right? Fast forward eighteen years…
Pick up book one now
PREQUEL
SLEEPING BEAUTY
1. Queen of Dragons
2. Heiress of Embers
3. Throne of Fury
4. Goddess of Flames
LITTLE MERMAID
5. Queen of Mermaids
6. Heiress of the Sea
7. Throne of Change
8. Goddess of Water
RED RIDING HOOD
9. King of Wolves
10. Heir of the Curse
11. Throne of Night
12. God of Shifters
RAPUNZEL
13. King of Devotion
14. Heir of Thorns
15. Throne of Enchantment
16. God of Loyalty
RUMPELSTILTSKIN
17. Queen of Unicorns
18. Heiress of Gold
19. Throne of Sacrifice
20. Goddess of Loss
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
21. King of Beasts
22. Heir of Beauty
23. Throne of Betrayal
24. God of Illusion
ALADDIN
25. Queen of the Sun
26. Heiress of Shadows
27. Throne of the Phoenix
28. Goddess
