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Chapter 1

Time was passing, faster and faster and things around me were getting more and more confusing.

That war had started so long ago that I didn't even know what the reasons were anymore, they made sense to me when I was with my father, while I heard the thousands of stories about how the Clan of Lucius ripped my mother's head off as soon as I was born.

This was a wound that could never heal.

Amidst the flashbacks of that night, I could only remember being tied up, I think I was hit so hard on the head that my senses were still shaken when I opened my eyes.

"I can't believe you took his daughter"

Said a loud, guttural voice that seemed to echo throughout that place smelling too weird for my nostrils.

"Petros is completely crazy"

Said the other agreeing with the first of them.

I kept quiet, any mistake would be fatal. I believe they wouldn't think long before taking my life right there. I was scared, my breathing was rapid, and my heart was beating in a frantic rhythm inside my chest.

I had the feeling that I had already seen this in my dreams, the blindfold that was over my eyes didn't prevent me from knowing where I was being taken.

I just didn't know why.

"Can you guys at least tell me what you're going to do to me?"

I didn't want to admit that I was afraid, but I was dying. I bet my skin was white as wax.

"He'll be right with you princess, just hang in there. I guess it doesn't look like that shitty castle you grew up in here, does it?"

It took me a while to stabilize my vision and become aware of my surroundings.

The dark of the night didn't help me, on the contrary, it only hindered me to recognize the places.

I was inside the car on a narrow road full of curves, the road was not strange, and the feeling that my life would end there was not strange either. It was as if I had already felt that sensation.

Would my nightmares become real after all?

One of them looked me straight in the eye, his teeth were sticking out of his mouth in a way I had never seen in my pack, his eyes were shining, and his face looked disfigured, the sight repulsed me enough that I looked away a few times.

The mist outside made my legs tremble, and the mountains in the landscape made me think of how my mother felt when she was taken the same way by those animals. I was trying to control my breathing, to ignore their looks of debauchery, but it was too hard.

Were they all like that? All the ugly ones like the stories my father told me. My heart was pounding in my chest not knowing what those monsters' next move would be. But I was a princess, I had to be strong and behave like one.

I grew up hearing the stories of how my mother behaved bravely when she was taken, how she withstood the attacks with a proud expression on her face.

Finally, I observed the tip of the castle from the surrounding area, even in the mist I could see the stones and all the statues of its warriors, they were so different from the carvings of the castle where I was raised that we didn't even seem to be the same species.

They dragged me under the castle, there was no light, and it was so hot that my whole body was sweating, a mixture of fear, high body temperature for being far from home, the strong smell of mold that was everywhere, and the lack of lighting that caused despair.

Their laughter was audible enough to be engraved in my soul, they were used to the environment, and they didn't miss a single corridor even in the dark.

They finally lit a torch, and all I could see was a disgusting cell in front of me, they were struggling to find the damn key to finally throw me in.

I wonder if that's where my mother died.

I stood there for at least twenty minutes before seeing the prison door open. I could see through the torch hanging outside the door the fingernail marks of those who had been there in agony before me, my heart was about to burst out of my mouth wondering if those marks were caused by the fingernails of the hands that lulled me to sleep at night.

How much did she suffer? How much did it hurt?

The dark of the night had already penetrated my eyes and by the time I realized it a tall male figure appeared in the doorway, just the presence made me shiver whole.

"Who's there?"

I shouted startled, trying to get my eyes to steady on his figure, I wanted to identify who that shadow was.

"Quiet!"

Said the man's voice, eerie guttural, and low! A voice that seemed to enter inside my ears to mess up all my senses, even the deepest senses of my soul.

As he came closer, I could see him more clearly.

THE IMAGE OF HIM MADE ME SHIVER.

I knew him from long ago and even that didn't make me inert to his presence, again my breathing quickened I didn't want to show my fear, I didn't want to show how much he scared me or how much he made me leave my own body in despair.

He was tall and strong, his brown hair matched perfectly with his large, light brown eyes. He hadn't changed a bit in all those years, maybe taller, but no less arrogant. With his posture erect he looked me straight in the eye.

His close-cropped, well-groomed beard protruded from his face, just as his animalistic attitude also stood out to my gaze. The darkness of the dungeon seemed to make his figure even brighter in comparison to those stones and gates.

I cringed in the corner when he told me to be quiet, he had that Alpha posture that I had spent my whole life avoiding because I socialized too much, the arrogant posture that put me in a passive position.

Normally I didn't have this posture, but his fear wouldn't let me reveal my strength, the fear made me completely paralyzed, and he made me completely paralyzed.

He calmly stood watching me, as if I were the easiest prey in the world, with his arms crossed he kept looking at me. He licked his lips and gave me an evil smile, I wanted to know what he was thinking as he devoured me like that.

I finally plucked up the courage to say something.

"I know why you kidnapped me, you can kill me right now and send my head to my father.

I was trying to advance the suffering, I didn't want to have the marks of my fingernails eternalized in that filthy dungeon, I didn't want to have pieces of my soul haunting that place forever.

But he made no point of stopping smiling, even amid my suffering.

"I told you to be quiet!"

He said again finally taking two steps forward, leaving the darkness a little more to come a little closer to me.

"Who are you?"

I dared to ask something I already knew, by the expression that formed on his face he was annoyed by my question.

The impression I got was that he felt diminished and that I couldn't remember who he was, even though his name resonated in my head a million times.

"I am Petros, but you already knew that"

He was angry, I noticed this when he clenched his fist and finally wiped the smile off his face, I was standing before the son of my father's greatest enemy, and consequently my greatest enemy. I saw a movie playing before my eyes.

The last time we saw each other we were carefree children learning how to deal with our people. Learning how to deal with the damned politics that choked us with so many clan responsibilities. And while we were making castles out of clay, everything collapsed, we didn't understand at the time why, but in less than three minutes the children who once played carefree were forced to hate each other forever.

There was no real explanation, only resentment.

And with my mother's death, everything got worse.

He was responsible, if not his damned father.

I could see his resentment in his brown eyes, and I could see his hatred pulsing through his veins as he stared at me with his cold, icy stance as he walked back into the cell, he didn't realize it, but his own body was repelling me, like a deadly virus to him.

"I didn't remember you like this"

I said still in awe, the feeling was bubbling up inside me and it wasn't what I wanted to feel, I just wanted to be indifferent. For my own sake, it was best that I let it simmer down a bit.

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