Sloan
As expected, my father tensed up as soon as I stepped into the throne room. He was previously speaking to two members from his royal court but instantly trailed off, while his court members instantly stiffened and looked everywhere but at me. I recognized them having seen a lot of them, and because I had a very sharp memory and almost never forget a face.
Jared and Nikolai. They're half enwulf, but are as horrible as every other enwulves in the royal court. Like every other person, they are weary of me, and they stiffly bowed to me in greeting.
"Good day, Your highness."
I rolled my eyes, remaining silent as I sauntered into the room, my hands deep in my pockets and the hood of my hoodie hiding half of my face. As I walked past them, I noticed how they tried and failed to put on a confident front, then they were stuttering an excuse to my father and fleeing in the next moment.
My father let out a long, disappointed sigh once the doors closed after them, then he leveled me with a scowl.
"Stop doing that. How many times have I asked you to stop scaring people this way?" He growled but I remained silent as I stood a few feet away from him, already feeling a headache start to form in my head.
"I didn't do anything." I pointed out evenly but he gave me a scalding look that would undoubtedly make lesser people crumble to the ground. But I wasn't a lesser person, and I wasn't scared of my father, and he's aware of that, which was why he hated me even more— because he couldn't control me like he'd have liked.
"That's the thing! You need to respond when being greeted, and you need to try smiling for once. It would make you appear less like a freak for once." He snapped as he massaged his forehead but I scoffed in response, already done with this conversation.
"Is that why you sent for me? If that's the answer, then I'd be leaving right now." I drawled and he leveled me with another glare, a vein in his forehead throbbing from his anger. He walked up to the table at the far end of the throne room and returned with a file which he flipped open before turning it around so the content of the page faced me.
A picture of a girl was on the page, and underneath it read—- Princess Ana.
A sneer was already curling across my lips before he spoke.
"You have to get married to this princess, for the sake of our kingdom. She's from a prestigious kingdom and the union would—"
"I won't be doing such a thing." I responded calmly, even though the beast within me was anything but calm right now. It was enraged at the thought of taking this random girl as our mate, not when someone else was already on our radar.
That someone being lilac.
As his face resurfaced in my mind, I felt the beast within me slowly lose some of its rage.
To say my father was furious by my response would be an understatement. His nose flared and his grip around the file tightened and shook as he grated the next words out.
"How dare you refuse an order of mine?" His eyes were glowing a little, a sign of his enwulf coming to the surface a little.
"Because I can." I responded without missing a beat.
He shook with anger as he took a step forward, then clearly had a rethink because he took a step back almost immediately then he let his eyes fall close before he exhaled slowly.
"This is for your own good, Sloan. I'm doing this for you as a father. Remember the prophecy? You'd need to get mated, because that's the only thing that can help reign in your beast before it fully gets out of hand!" His lips curled with disgust at the end of his sentence and I snorted.
He could have tried harder if he wanted me to believe him at least.
"Can you not do this, father? Lying doesn't fit you. You don't care about me, you never did, so cut this shit."
His nose flared with anger this time as he growled. "Of course I don't care about you! You're a beast, a freak, an abomination. What sane person would care about a creature like you?" He shot me and I let the words easily bounce off me. I was already immune to it after hearing it since I was a baby.
"I don't have time to waste on exchanging words with you, father. I won't be getting mated to whoever that princess is."
"The prophecy…"
"The prophecy said I needed to find my real mate. My fated mate. Not for me to take a random girl and mate with her." I pointed out but he waved me off.
"There's no time to wait around for a damn fated mate. I'm certain whoever the poor person is, is gonna instantly reject you on discovering they're destined to be mated to you. No one would willingly want to be bonded to a freak, never forget that. Which is why you should take this opportunity I'm offering you, you ungrateful child! You'll never get this opportunity again." He was breathing hard after speaking.
"So basically this princess is being forced to do this?"
He rolled his eyes and scoffed. "She doesn't need to be. She knows her duty as a princess. She owes that duty to her kingdom and she does whatever her father asks, unlike you, who never listens to his own father."
"Maybe if that father was more like a father to his son, his son might start listening to him." My grandfather, the grand king, drawled from the doorway, just as he leisurely towards my father and I.
My father scowled at his father, the grand king. They don't usually get along, and it only worsened after I was born. My father apparently wanted to drown me the day I was born after seeing the freak and abnormality that I was. He and my mother tried together, but my grandfather saved me— and my father still hasn't forgiven him till date.
My grandfather was the only person who cared about me in my entire life.
"Stay out of this, father!" My father growled sharply but my grandfather only laughed as he came to stop between us, then he clapped me on the back. I subtly stepped away because I really hated being touched, especially at my back— but I've never been able to bring myself to tell my grandfather that, since he was the only person willing to touch me.
"Stop pressuring the kid, you know he doesn't even like girls." My grandfather continued.
My grandfather sometimes sends boys to me, for me to have fun with. But I end up sending them away most of the time, but he doesn't know that.
My father scowled at his father
"And that's his business. He can still mess around with boys if he wants, but he needs to take princess Ann as his mate,"
I let out a long breath and interrupted my grandfather before he could respond.
"That won't be necessary, grandfather."
Then I focused on my father again.
"I won't be doing that, father. And I think we're done with this conversation." After that, I turned around, hands still in my pockets.
I paused for a moment, contemplating asking either of them who was the one that threw a long haired, battered boy into my confinement four days ago, but I ended up deciding against it, because I didn't want either of them to know that the boy was still alive, since it was clear whoever it was between them that ordered the boy to be thrown in there with me, wanted the boy dead.
As I made my way out of the throne room, I ignored the way my father kept screaming at me to not dare walk out on him.