The Knight Prince

Chapter 1

    Having watched the guy ahead of him pitch upward and sail through the air, Adrian prepped himself to follow. Within milliseconds, his keen perception relayed of how fast, how high, how long he needed to run and jump in order to clear the space between one rooftop edge to the other.  Any miscalculations would suck ass big time, sending him plummeting thousands of feet onto the New York City streets below, and he couldn’t afford the detour.  Not with the asshole already maintaining a fifteen-yard lead.

    f*****g up now wasn’t in the game plan. 

    This chase had already gone on longer than he had anticipated. But then again, each hunt was never the same, and nor was the assignment. This did keep his job interesting, and it is why his clients paid him the big bucks.

    The second his feet touched down, Adrian continued pursuit in a heated run. Just as he contemplated hurdling over the guy to cut him off, the chase pattern suddenly changed.  Instead of running the expanse of the roof again and making another game of hopscotch over to the next building, the perp made a hard left, busting through the building’s access door with a brutal boot-kick. By the time Adrian entered, the guy already fled down a few levels in the spiraling stairwell.

    Both of them made quick work of descending, most of the time not even using the steps themselves as they hopped the railings, and slid down the aluminum bars and center poles. Though by the time they had reached ground-level, Adrian had made up quite a bit of space between them, now nearly within arm’s reach of his mark.

    Running for the exit, the man didn’t bother using his foot to clear the door this time, rather he lifted his hand out in front of him when he was within a few feet, emitting a ghostly bluish green light out of his palm. The energy jarred the door, throwing it wide open. His perp had made it a few steps out into the alleyway and nearly made a break for it. Yet, by the time Adrian crossed the threshold hot of his heels, his fingers gripped the guy’s shoulders, ripping him to a stuttering halt.

    Adrian’s superhuman strength heightened as he restrained the guy; his Lycan teeth and claws extended, his eyes already blaring silver as he forced his prisoner to his knees with an unforgiving shove, hitting the ground hard. The adrenalin was far from running thin, pumping his heart with a lusty rage, urging him to rip this man apart, though years of training kept him from feeding those cravings. Even so, as his chest heaved, as his mouth huffed to regulate his breath, Adrian dug his sharp fingernails into the man’s shoulders, just enough to draw blood, just enough to make him scream, just enough to remind this guy not to f*****g run away from him ever again.

    Just enough that he remembered who was about to send him to hell.

    Quickly, he unzipped a pocket on his coat, removing a thin, flexible metal band that he snaked around the man’s neck. As soon as he touched the two ends of the band together, it radiated a singular pulse of yellow light, then fused into a seamless choker-like necktie. Now the fucker was leashed! Meaning, he couldn’t cast any magic because the metal band that bound him was warded iron, locking down his powers.  Aside from the wards, iron always did a nasty number on witches.

    His prisoner gasped as the collar settled around his neck. After failing to successfully swallow, he coddled his chest, which Adrian regarded as an odd gesture, and looked over his shoulder. “Please!” he begged. “Please, don’t do this. We haven’t done anything wrong!”

    Adrian did not address the man’s protest, instead went busy with the work. It wasn’t his job to play judge or jury for anyone he caught. He simply was the executioner at this point, the bounty hunter sent out to get the job done. It's what the Knights of Sabaton were hired for. To siphon out all the hiding bastards and abstract them from society. Besides, most of these shitheads he caught would say anything to get out of being imprisoned, and most of what they said was bullshit anyway. That was another hard lesson he had learned over the twelve years in this line of work.  

    “Give me your hands!” Adrian’s deep voice graveled. He looked down the dark alleyway that they now occupied, spying for any witnessing onlookers.  At this point, they sat far at the back of the lane insomuch that no one from the street had caught on to them. But just to make sure it stayed that way, Adrian pulled a knife from his sheath at his hip and threw it at the lone lamp fastened to the brick building midway down the long alley, busting it out. Now, they were in near-darkness, which didn’t deter him at all. Within the scope of his many supernatural abilities, he could see well in the dark; he preferred the dark anyway.

    The guy obliged, lifting his hands up over his head. But he was going about it way too slow for Adrian’s liking. When they raised to a certain point, his impatience spurred as he yanked the guys hands up higher before cuffing them with the same sort of binding he had used for his neck.

    “Please!” the man choked, “Just tell me what I’ve done wrong so I can understand why you’re doing this!” There was an ache in his voice. And Adrian knew that if he were a better man, that perhaps he would have a sort of empathy, that he would feel remorse and maybe even try and commiserate at some level. He knew he should, yet, he couldn’t reconcile it enough in his mind, so his hardened heart buoyed no pity.

    “You yourself haven’t done anything wrong,” Adrian answered him, going against his better judgement.  Maybe he did have a little bit of his heart left because he was actually talking to this guy. Usually, he didn’t feel he owed these guys anything. Fishing inside another zipper while he spoke, “But one of your parents, or grandparents for that matter, f****d a Damned One, which in turn f****d you over.”

    “What?” he looked truly confused. Did this poor, unlucky asshole have no clue?

    “Your blood,” Adrian found what he was looking for, pulling out a silver, triangular amulet crested with a blue kyanite stone. “You’re a Tainted One. Which means, you aren’t allowed to live here in the Earth realm.” 

    “But that’s not my fault!” He pleaded. “Why are you punishing me for something I had nothing to do with?”

    “I don’t make the rules. I just enforce them,” Adrian said coolly as he pressed the talisman to the man’s head and began chanting in old Lycan. The amulet started to hum with a radiant yellow-white. When completed, the ritual would send his captive into the prison realm. Into Hell. And hell was where people such as this guy belonged because no matter who he thought he was here on the Earth realm, his blood would change him into the monster he was bound to become. 

    A shuffle of racing feet behind him stirred Adrian’s attention back down the alley.  Stopping the chant, he spun around, his silver eyes picking out the charging bodies without any issue. Three personages were coming at him fast; their intentions evident within their snarling faces.

    A wicked smile spread across Adrian’s face as the rage he had kept tethered deep inside suddenly exploded to life.  Did these things not know who he was? Not that he would introduce himself and scare them away. They were a perfect release valve for the fury that he needed sated, for the maelstrom he needed to quell.  

    Leaving his prisoner behind, Adrian bull-rushed at these uninvited guests. Two males and a female, the trio looking every bit human, by their clothes he would infer that one worked in an office building, one could be from a construction yard, and one looked like a man who mowed the lawn every Saturday and bored his kids with a batch of bad dad jokes. Yet, their yellow-red eyes said differently. Their smells said differently. And if they were coming in here to f**k with him, their actions said differently.

    As soon as Adrian stormed them, the demons’ hands buzzed to life with red energy, and they began to throw it at him in striking bursts. But he evaded their magic attacks, eluding the flaming orbs with ease as he moved lithely around them. And he could have killed them then as he rushed about them, he could have blurred into their personal space and ripped them to shreds, but he was a wolf-beast after all. A beast that enjoyed the game, the chase, the adrenaline rush of stalking his prey.

    And he wanted to feed that beast first.

    Using the walls and other items in the alleyway to parkour, he vaulted around them, chuckling at their hapless attempts to pin him down with their power assaults. Yet, he couldn’t resist the need to get his claws wet. 

    Adrenalin had already laced his blood from his earlier chase, so it didn’t take much to stir him up now. Thus, when his rage hit full tilt, and the lust for blood became insatiable, Adrian’s claws went to work, slashing through any vital areas of the demons’ bodies, digging into deep to ensure pain, to ensure death.

    When the last body hit the ground, he stood amongst them, looking down at the macabre gore at his feet.  His chest heaved as his eyes roved, nearly begging the corpses to move so that he could strike it down again. But everything remained still.  

    Everything.

    Adrian’s eyes shot back to his prisoner behind him and noticed he was laying on the asphalt, motionless, facing away from him. Shaking the blood from his hands, he stalked back toward the guy, watching him carefully, but nothing changed.

    Rounding, he moved to the front of his prisoner. The guy’s eyes were closed, and as Adrian squatted down to investigate, he noticed a scorching mark. A white singed mark as if he had come in contact with something hot and burnt his forehead. The mark that magic energy leaves behind on one’s flesh.

    One of the demon’s blasts had hit his prisoner and killed him.

    f**k.

    Well, not that it mattered much. The guy was on his way out, one way or another.

    Adrian shrugged as he retrieved the triangular amulet again, pressing it to the guy’s head. His contract was clear that this Tainted One was to be sent to the prison realm, but it didn’t specify dead or alive.

    Dead it was!

    Just as he began to chant again, just as it started to glow, something else interrupted the ritual once more. Adrian’s focus slid from the amulet to the man’s chest as it began to move. For a second, he just watched as the front of his coat writhed before he realized something was inside of it.

    Adrian unzipped the coat slowly, sniffing the air, trying to filter through the smell of blood behind him and the musky smell of the man in front of him to try and decipher what this man had been harboring under his jacket. But nothing was registering, so when the small, chubby face of a baby suddenly appeared, he blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing this right.

    What the f**k. 

    Later that night when he arrived at headquarters, which was housed underground his company's building, holding the infant within his arms, a lot of heads turned his way. But he ignored his colleagues, keeping his eyes facing forward as he strode down the hallways toward the infirmary. He knew what he was doing looked odd, looked out of place. And he didn't really understand what he was doing either. This didn't make sense to him, yet here he was doing it!

    By the time he had reached the emergency medical wing, laying the baby on a gurney, his boss pushed through the double doors. He hadn't called his boss to meet him, but Adrian knew someone did because there was no reason for him to be there. 

    "Cian, what the hell are you doing?" Âlde Tire asked, his hand fanning over the child whose face had bunched up, lip trembling, as he prepped to cry. He looked at his boss, staring into his steely grey eyes, noting the perturbed raise of his ebony brow.

    "I told you not to call me that," Adrian growled, glaring at him, even as his hand reached out and stroked the baby's belly, hoping to soothe him. Looking at the child, he said, "I just sent his father to Hell, basically in a body bag, and I wasn't sure if the baby held the Blood markers, too?"

    "It's a good bet the baby does,"  Âlde Tire said patiently. "You should have just done the kid a favor and sent him, too."

    "We can at least check?" Adrian said. "I mean, sometimes it skips generations? And sometimes, like my Aunt Jaelyn, the Blood can be altered."

     Âlde Tire sighed. "If you want, we can check. But this might not end up how you want it to, Ci--... Adrian." He observed Adrian's hand as it continued to massage along the child's belly. "So, don't get too attached."

    He sneered, pulling back his hand. "I'm not getting attached." How could he even insinuate that! Getting attached to a Tainted's child? That's bullshit! "The kid  just wasn't part of the hit, is all. I didn't need to deport him, too."

     Âlde Tire's brow rose, "Well, we might need to still deport him? Depending on what the tests say." He paused, watching Adrian closely. Too closely for his liking.  Âlde Tire like him, a Lycan, though different. His beast was ancient, and was said to be the very first Lycan ever created by their deity, the Moon Goddess. So, he had many gifts, gifts that he was trying to use now to sift into Adrian's mind and figure out his intentions. The truth was, Adrian didn't know what the f**k he was doing. Even he didn't know his intentions.  Âlde Tire was right. He should have just saved everyone the headache and deported the kid. Finally, his boss said, "I'll let you know when I get the results."

    "I don't-- need to know." Adrian made a face. Why did Âlde Tire think he cared? f**k that bullshit. He didn't care if this kid lived or died! Stepping back from the gurney and turning away. As he retreated, he raised his hand up, waving goodbye, "Thanks, Uncle."