Royal Rebel

P R O L O G U E - Marcel.

Everything was falling apart, by everything I meant everything.

The air was filled with screams, the jolly atmosphere from moments before gone as if it had never been there the first place. People were staring at me as if I had gone insane, one of them understanding why I was going towards the beast in the middle of the dance floor instead of running away from it. I couldn’t blame them, for none of them knew what was going on. None of them knew that the beast that they were running away from was the love of my life, was my mate.

From the crazed look in her eyes, those gold glittering eyes, I could tell that she was just as afraid as those who were running away from her. She had no idea what was going on, no idea what was happening to her. She was scared, and I didn’t blame her, because as brave as I believed myself to be, I knew that if our roles had been reversed, I would have been doing the exact same thing.

But what was making me worry, what was making me panic, was the fact that she wasn’t moving. She was standing there as if she was a deer and she had been caught in the headlights of an approaching vehicle that wasn’t going to stop. And that was bad. Very bad.

Because not only were all of these people running away from her, but I was almost completely sure that the news of her shift would travel, that the news that there was a werewolf here, on the Continent, would be bound to spread like wildfire. And that was something that needed to be avoided. I needed to get her to calm down long enough so that she would be able to turn back into her human form, which means that she would essentially be able to blend in more with those around her.

My eyes somehow managed to find their way to Hades and Karen, doing so just in time to see them scoop up their children, to pick them up and essentially keep them out of harms way, to keep them out of the stampede of people. I could understand why they were being so cautious—even though I wasn’t exactly sure which of the millions of reasons they were using as their motivation.

But I reminded myself that Hades was in a position to protect his family, that Hades was still seen as Hades by everyone around him. He wasn’t supposed to be my worry at the moment, and neither was their supposed Aunt, who I hadn’t seen since all of this had begun to happen. My main worry, was meant to be Hera, and that was simply what I needed to continue reminding myself of.

When she noticed me approaching her, when she noticed me break out of the crowd, she let out a loud whimper, and I could see how repulsed she actually was by her own actions—actions that she had no control over. I could almost imagine everything else going wrong from here on out too, but I already had a plan.

And admittedly, there were many people who would think that it was a futile plan, but I believed that it was the best plan that I could have possibly had, given the circumstances—it was a plan that I wouldn’t have had in the first place, if it hadn’t been for Aurora’s determination to be prepared for anything.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not she had known that this would happen, whether she had known that this would be the bad experience that she had been warning us against, or whether or not it had just been a coincidence that she had decided to send a boat back for us. I prayed that it was the latter of the two, because I doubted that I would have the energy to argue the reasons for it being the first one—it would have been avoidable then, if she had simply warned us in the correct and appropriate manner.

                “Hera? Hera, I need you to breathe.”

Her eyes snapped to mine, and even though I was doing my very best to remain calm, even though I was doing my very best to soothe her in the best manner that I could have, I didn’t think that she was taking kindly to my presence. I didn’t blame her. Like I said, I was able to understand exactly what she was feeling and what she was going through, and I knew that no matter how she reacted to me, it was out of fear.

It was not out of hate, or anger, or revulsion.

It was simply her natural instincts kicking in, just as they had kicked in earlier and put her in this situation.

                “Hera. Please just listen to me. I know that it’s difficult. Trust me, I know. But you need to try and relax. You need to get rid of the anger that you’re feeling because that is what is keeping you this way at the moment. Once you’ve calmed down, you’ll be able to return to normal.”

I didn’t even know if I was making sense, didn’t even know whether or not she could understand what I was saying to her, but I hoped that she could, hoped that all of this wasn’t in vain. Because if it was, then the end result would most likely be an entire Continent full of dead humans, because there was no way that I would allow anyone to do anything to her, even if it ended up costing me my life.

I would be lying if I said that it looked like she understood what I was saying to her, lying if I claimed that she seemed coherent. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because that simply meant that nothing had changed, that I needed to find a way to work around all of this again, as it was failing miserably. Everything that I tried was failing miserably—at least, that was what I thought.

I turned my head just enough so that I would be able to see Hades, and for some reason, I hadn’t been expecting to see him standing there, almost as if he was waiting for us, almost as if he was waiting for Hera to change back, to return to what they classified as normal. But I also noticed that he looked as hopeless and as scared as I did, and I knew right then and there that this situation was indeed much bigger than us.

I turned back to Hera, the distance between the two of us being much smaller now than it had been when I had started to speak to her the first time, but I wasn’t sure whether or not that would be making any difference at all, let alone a little difference. But it was worth a shot—anything was better than nothing in a situation such as this one.

She looked even more frightened than before, and I got the very distinct impression that it was to blame on the decreasing distance between the two of us. No matter how much or how little I told myself that it would be best for me to go closer to her, I stopped walking, stopped moving, going to stand completely still—and the difference in her posture, was instantaneous.

Her fur was no longer standing on edge, but I could see that her hind legs were still shaking, which meant that she was either still unsteady on her feet, or she was still scared—I got the impression that it was a little bit of both, but there was a possibility that I was wrong.

                “Hera. We’re not safe here. We need to go to the docks—we need to leave!”

My head snapped to the side, my eyes easily finding their way to Hades, and I had the very sudden urge to attack him for raising his voice like that, because even though it hadn’t yet happened, I knew that it wouldn’t be having a very welcome affect on Hera. She was already in a terrible state as it was, and now he was making it worse by screaming at her while I was trying to calm her down.

There was no way for me to win, no way for us to get out of this situation without the said situation becoming much worse than it should have been, much worse than it would have been a few moments ago.

And as if to prove a point, Hera took off running, her feet flopping about from side to side, and I could have sworn that she even let out a growl, but I had no way of being completely sure. But one thing that I was sure of, was that I needed to follow her. She couldn’t be roaming the streets without anyone looking out for her, without anyone doing their best to protect her as much as they could, for as long as they could.

And I knew that Hades wouldn’t be that person.

Which meant that I needed to shift, meant that there would no longer be one shifted wolf roaming the streets of the Continent—but there would now be two.

And I knew that Aurora was going to kill me as soon as she found out about all of this.