PAUSED | The Red King's Wrathful Mate

Chapter 7: Merrida's POV

The war is over. The evil witches are dead. King Killian is gone.

It's been three months since the war ended.

Right when the enemy thought he was about to defeat us, King Killian plucked out the eyes of the large serpent that no one else but the Werewolf King could touch. Together, the two Kings threw that serpent into a pit of fire and then the earth closed as if to accept the serpent as a prisoner.

King Killian helped save the magical world when a devine enemy threatened to wipe us all from existence.

But now he's gone.

"Andrew", a representative from the Nymph kingdom said shyly, "you've practically been ruling this kingdom ever since King Killian's disappearance. If the gryphons crown you as king, you won't be constrained in your decision-making anymore. I came to relay my King's opinion on this matter and he says it is high time that the gryphons crown you as king. If the kingdom has a king again, perhaps the white darkness will start to go away."

I slithered my arm into Andrew's and I immediately felt his irritation melt away.

The gryphons went from being a formidable kingdom that never allowed outsiders to now having a bunch of outsiders giving their opinions on matters of the kingdom. The alliances drawn up after the war meant they couldn't isolate themselves anymore. Moreover, it meant they could no longer keep their problems to themselves; especially if their problems may affect the rest of the magical world.

And the white darkness will most definitely affect us.

Andrew glared at the little nymph representative.

His pitch black curls were a mess because he keeps running his fingers through them and his jawline is now covered in a full beard that he didn't have when we met.

Andrew's brown eyes used to look kinder and softer and his hands weren't as rough when we met. But that was before his king disappeared.

He went from being King Killian's beta to being some sort of substitute king only a few days after the war.

I put a hand on his cheeck when I saw anger brimming in his eyes. No one should be telling this man to be the king of a kingdom that already has a king ... even if that king has been missing for months.

His hand went to touch mine. His lips didn't curl into a smile, but that familiar kindness and softness his eyes had when we met was trying to return.

"You came to relay your King's opinion?" His eyes darkened as he mocked the nymph representative. "A few months ago, a nymph wouldn't even have been allowed to be in this kingdom and yet here you are today... relaying your King's opinion."

I tried to yank my hand out of his. This comment is uncalled for. But he tightened his grip around my wrist.

What the hell is he doing?

"Killian is our king!" He roared at the poor timid nymph that was already trying to scurry away. "Our God, Maru, the God who rules the heavens, crowned Killian as King of the Gryphons. We won't go against Maru just because a bunch of outsiders are trying to impose their ways on us. If ANY of you raise this matter one more time, I will regard it as a declaration of war!"

He's overreacting. We just started recovering from a war. The last thing we need is unnecessary conflict. He's letting his anger and frustrations speak for him.

I tried to push him away, but his hand was squeezing mine so hard that I just knew it would leave a bruise.

"Let. go. of me." I sneered at him. "You're hurting me, Andrew."

The anger, the fury ... it all faded from his eyes and he let go of my hand as if he didn't realise he was still holding me.

"Merrida", he tried to take a step closer to me, but I backed away and he stopped immediately.

"I'm so sorry, Merrida." His soft brown eyes begged me. "I don't know why I did that." He looked at his hands in disbelief. "I love you. I would never - I don't know why-. I'm sorry, Merrida. I'm so sorry."

The entire council room full of representatives from almost every corner of the magical kingdom was looking at us.

I'm a Queen for goodness sakes. These people already struggle to take me seriously because I'm a woman. Now I look like a woman who can't even handle her own mate. If I allow my mate to hurt me, what's to stop me from letting others hurt my kingdom.

Fucking Andrew! f*****g mate bond! f*****g mate who started off as gentle as a flower, but who keeps getting angrier and angrier day by day.

I worked damn hard to be respected and he ruined all that hard work in just a few seconds.

"Perhaps you should take a seat, King Andrew." One of the seers looked up from the table.

It was Alexander, one of the many seers sent to the Gryphon kingdom. The blue-haired boy is tall, lanky and sometimes his glasses are too big for his face, but he has a level of maturity and calmness that people twice his age don't have. He referred to Andrew as King because by being my mate that's what Andrew is ... a King ...

And a king never has to prove his authority, but a Queen does.

"I think we're losing track of why we all gather here every week." The young seer smiled calmly. "We're not here to meddle in the affairs of the Gryphon kingdom. We're not here to give our opinions on whether or not the gryphons need a new king. We're here because King Killian disappeared and since his disappearance a white, dark void has started to spread through the Gryphon kingdom."

I ignored the awkwardness of what just transpired between me and Andrew and went to go take my seat. My hand was sore and just as I thought, it was already starting to bruise.

If inklings could shift, my beast would probably start healing me right about now.

"He's right." I tried to calm down while Andrew went to go take a seat as far away from me as possible. Of course his original seat was next to mine. It was still vacant, but he couldn't even look in my direction after what just happened; let alone sit next to me.

"We should focus on figuring out what the hell the white darkness is." I said stiffly. "We have a few seers who have joined us today who have never been here before and who haven't heard you tell your story yet, Andrew. Perhaps you can tell us again what happened on the day King Killian disappeared so that they can hear it from your own mouth?"

His eyes still looked regretful for what he just did.

He hates telling this story because he blames himself for Killian's disappearance. Each time someone asks him to tell the story, he blows a fuse ... but not today. Today, instead of blowing a fuse, he keeps mindlinking his mate, pleading with me and begging me for my forgiveness for hurting me.

"Of course, Merrida." His eyes pleaded once more. "There's nothing I won't do for you."

I ignored how my muscles were tensing up at seeing tears gather in his eyes and hearing all his apologies swirl through our mindlink. My entire body was aching to run to my mate and tell him all is forgiven; that I understand that he's under a lot of pressure and that I know he didn't hurt me on purpose. He was probably too caught up in his anger.

However, I ignored that ache in my heart that made me want to run to him.

He hurt me.

Instead of focusing on the pull of our bond, I focused on how much my hand was hurting and the blue and purple bruise that was forming around my wrist.

He's a royal gryphon beta and I'm an inkling that comes from a kingdom that abandoned magic as far as a hundred years ago. He's at least ten times stronger than my kingdom's strongest warrior. He should know better than to do such a thing to me.

"The prisoner was roaring and causing a scene again." He sighed and finally stopped trying to reach me through mindlink. "Killian was busy showing me his plans to protect the kingdom. After the war, he wanted to take measures to ensure that his people would never ..."

He didn't finish that thought. He didn't need to. We all knew what he was alluding to and no one here was going to say what we were all thinking out loud.

The gryphons may have helped win the war, but they still have a lot of questions to answer.

"Anyway," he stood up and started walking to a long table at the back that was filled with all kinds of delicious foods and drinks. "It bothered him that we could still hear the prisoner even though he was chained and gagged on the highest and coldest mountain in our kingdom. Mount Moria is our holy mountain. It is sacred and a seer told us Maru himself wanted the prisoner on top of that mountain. It's so cold that some people have died seconds after landing on the mountain. However, the prisoner never stopped roaring even once since we chained him to one of the rocks on that mountain."

We watched him pour one of my favourite drinks into a glass and fill a side plate with treats I know he hates ... but that I love.

"On that day," He started walking back to the table, "Killian and his beast were especially agitated by the ruckus the prisoner was causing. He tried taking me through the entire kingdom to show me the measures he was putting in place for our people's protection. However, we flew near Mount Moria and suddenly Taranis started fighting to take control."

He gave an akward smile and put down the food and drink in front of me.

"I'm so sorry, Merrida." He mindlinked me again. "Let me take a look at your wrist. I'm your mate. By merely touching it, I will be healing you."

"I'm fine, Andrew." I mindlinked back."Please just tell us the story."

He sighed and made his way to his other seat, all the way on the other side of the table.

"I mindlinked him when I noticed that Taranis was trying to take over," He continued, "but something was wrong. They were different."

"Different how?" Someone almost jumped out of their chair to ask him.

"They were both scared." He said while looking at no one else on the table but me. "Killian and I have been best friends since we were two years old. He doesn't know fear. He's never, ever been scared, but he was scared that day and more and more fear rolled off of him as we approached Mount Moria."

"Then what?" I asked him and took a bite out of the food he placed infront of me and he smiled.

He refused to break eye contact with me. However, when a young omega girl knocked at the door and entered the room with a first aid kit, his eyes shifted from my eyes to my wrist.

The girl walked to me without my say so and started looking at my hand.

I wanted the earth to swallow me whole. Andrew no doubt called this girl.

These people had probably forgotten all about my own mate manhandling me, but of course he had to remind them of what he did to me once more.

They tried not to stare while the girl inspected my wrist, put some ointment on it and bandaged it.

I winced a bit when she touched the swollen wrist and Andrew almost ran to me, but a glare from me stopped him right in his tracks.

"Then what, Andrew?" I snapped at him once the omega girl's side show was over.

"Then out of nowhere he pushed an order down our mindlink." His eyes filled with confusion at how I just snapped at him. "He ordered every single gryphon to stay away from Mount Moria. It was a royal order that stopped us from ever approaching our holy mountain ever again. Then he flew right to the mountain after giving that order. Because of the icy mist that surrounds Mount Moria, I couldn't see what was happening. All I know is each time I tried flying there, his order would send jolts of excruciating pain through my body. I couldn't go after him. None of us could."

"Can I talk to you after this meeting?" He mindlinked me again. "Is your wrist any better, Merrida? Let me hold you. It will make you feel better. I'm so sorry, my love."

I blocked his mindlinks.

Perhaps being mated to a gryphon was a mistake from Nayala. The gryphons are what some call natural leaders. Andrew hasn't had to work even half as hard as me to win over my own people. My rightful crown almost went to my younger brother and I had to fight tooth and nail for what's mine, but Andrew ...

... my mate waltzed into my kingdom. I fought against our bond because I feared that my people would want my mate to rule over them instead of me just because he's a man. He claimed me and I claimed him and my people welcomed him with open hands.

He can take my place if he wanted to. He can take my crown.

"The prisoner stopped roaring that day." He shook away a few tears that were gathering in his eyes. "And a day after that, a white smoky fog started forming in one of the cities in the kingdom. We thought nothing of it, but then the white darkness descended and ..."

His eyes pleaded with mine again for forgiveness, but I looked away.

No one is sure what precisely the white darkness is. The seers don't know anything about it and even those who live in it don't understand it. The only thing we have thus far is that people say the white darkness feels alive. They say it feels like a thousand people are walking with them, eating with them, laughing with them and watching them.

It's not scary enough for people to move out of those cities, but it's enough for them to avoid their own homes and places where the white darkness has spread to.

I've gone to one of the cities where the white darkness has spread to.

The darkness is precisely as people have described it. It's white, so white that it blinds you while you're walking through it. You can't see a single thing.

No glass, wall or even magic can keep out the white darkness and nothing can stop it from spreading. No fire, ice or water can destroy it either.

It's kind of unstoppable.

"Right." Alexander broke the eerie silence that was starting to take over the room. "Well, I had a vision last night and I think it will give us some understanding of what we're dealing with."

All eyes fell on the young seer.

He's been in the Gryphon kingdom for two months. He volunteered to come here even though it meant leaving his fated mate behind in the Werewolf kingdom. He insisted that Selene, the werewolves' Moon Godess, wanted him here.

Of course so far, we know almost nothing about the white darkness. We don't know what it is, where it came from, why it's spreading, how to stop it or why it appeared after King Killian's disappearance.

"What did you see?" I asked a dreaded question that no one else seemed to want to ask.

"I saw King Killian." The young seer smiled to himself. "I saw his beast, Taranis, fighting the white darkness and actually ripping through it as if he was ripping through flesh."

Murmurs broke out on the table and they got louder and louder while Alexander stared at us keeping his calm composure.

"King Killian and his beast sensed a danger that none of us could identify yet." He spoke calmly through all the disorientated groans in the room. "He's fighting the white darkness as we speak. That's why he hasn't returned. If it hadn't been for him, I'm certain this kingdom would have met its demise by now."

"Then we need to help him!" Andrew roared from his seat. "We need to gather the kingdom's fiercest warriors and -"

"They'll all die." Alexander continued in his calm voice. "King Killian told you all to stay away because he sensed the white darkness before it was truly awakened. Right now, the white darkness is still in slumber because of your king. If it's awakened, there's no telling what will happen to this kingdom or the rest of the magical world. We need to find a way to help King Killian without disturbing him." He continued. "We need to find a way to create a magical barrier that can contain the white darkness."

A magical barrier that can contain the white darkness.

Magic does nothing to the white darkness. The good witches have tried all they could to contain it, kill it, transport it. Nothing works.

I glanced up at Andrew.

He was thinking the same thing as me. He was thinking about that letter from the Queen of the Eastern Inkling kingdom - Vanessa Lockewood.

"I would rather eat my dress before I ask the East for help." I mindlinked him before he could say a thing. "I already extended an olive branch to those savages, Andrew. They don't want anything to do with us."

He chuckled through our link.

It was soft, and husky and almost melted all my anger away.

"I need to sit next to my mate." He ignored my anger. "Please?"

I sighed and agreed for him to come back and sit next to me.

Everyone in the room was too busy arguing about Alexander's vision to pay any attention to the tall, husky man walking back to his mate.

He sat down in his seat, asked with his eyes to hold my wrist and the second he held it, tingles and electricity surged through my hand. My wrist felt ten times better just because he touched it.

"I'm sorry." He kissed my wrist. "I have no excuse for what I did. I'm sorry, Merrida."

"I'm not asking the East for any help." I tried my best to look away from those chocolate brown eyes that were pleading with me.

The room had erupted into an uncontrollable screaming match. People were screaming all kinds of things over one another. They feared for the day when the white darkness reached their own kingdoms and awakened as Alexander described. It was chaos.

"That's okay." He kissed my wrist again. "We don't have to ask the East for help. We can find another way. I understand."

I sighed and slumped my head against his hard chest and he chuckled again.

Damn this man for being understanding.

The magical barrier the Easterners developed is impenetrable. Where the hell did that thing even come from? It may be our only chance against the white darkness.

"Everyone!" I roared at the table. "I think I have a solution."