Soul mates aren't the ones who make you the happiest, no.

They're instead the ones who make you feel the most.

Burning edges and scars and stars.

Old pains and pangs,

Captivation and beauty.

Strain and shadows and yearning.

Sweetness and madness and dreamlike surrender.

They hurl you into the abyss.

They taste like hope.

-Victoria Erickson

It was trickling down now. Most had gone home. The Alphas who had decided to come were all swiftly departing back to their respective Packs.

They each bowed to the King and Queen before setting off into the night.

Some chose to wait until the morning.

The rounding acknowledged fact though was that the Blue Moon Ceremony was over.

The Queen felt a buzzing in her head from a headache she knew was coming. The King looked no better. They stood stiffly side by side as they waited by the door for more guest to depart.

They felt him before they saw him. Dark. Menacing. Faint gasps could be heard from around as he passed by people. He kept his head high and his eyes blank as usual. The only sign that anything was wrong was the power surging from him. A power that felt like it would choke all who dared cross him.

The Prince.

The people still straggling behind quickly stepped aside, looking up in amazement at the 180 he had gone through since last seeing the happy smiling man.

The Queen looked up at the Prince with worry flashing in her eyes before she was able to check her emotions and draw up her own blank face.

The King, however, was not as skilled in the art. Anger showed, hot and red on his features.

"What are you doing?" He hissed at his son, as soon as he stepped up to the Queen and King. "You think it's grand scary those who look at you into submission?" The King looked ready to burst.

The Prince, however, remained collected.

He turned to the Queen and took her elbow. She couldn't help the shudder that spread through her. His touch sent jolts through her as the power left her weak into submission. The Prince quickly dropped his hand from her and took a step back.

"Where's Gavin?" Was all he said. The Queen's eyes widened. For the first time in the Prince's presences, she understood why people shook with fear. She understood why they avoided his gaze and why they fainted at his look, his touch, his voice.

She couldn't speak. Something inside her seemed to shrivel up with fear. Her mind made the Prince seem like he had grown taller, broader and darker.

He was power. Power that left the one caught in the trap weak and void. He sucked them into his darkness. And so like him darkness they became.

The Prince looked at the silent woman with sad eyes. Then looked at the man who stood there in angry silence.

He walked away.

Going up to his room, the Prince shook with some unknown emotion. He quickly turned and ran down the halls.

He didn't need to go to his room.

He needed the training grounds.

He needed to run. To let go of this monster that was crawling away inside of him.

Gavin was there already though. Still in his dark blue suit that almost looked black in the light.

He was waiting. He knew.

One look at the prince and Gavin went forward and swept him into his arms.

The Prince's body was shaking all over.

Gavin and he remained motionless, standing in their embrace while the Prince calmed down.

Finally, he pulled away, and Gavin lead him to a bench beside the training ground.

He looked wordlessly up at the Prince and patted his leg. "You can say it," he whispered.

"I found her," the prince choked.

Gavin closed his eyes and nodded, waiting for the rest.

"And she ran away."

Gavin's heart clenched. It twisted in agony. What would he have done if Crystal ran away from him when they first met? He would have cried if he was being honest. But he wouldn't have let her go.

"You let her go," Gavin whispered, voicing his thoughts.

The Prince was back in control of his emotions. His stare once again blank.

"She would not have wanted me," he whispered.

"August," Gavin hissed but was surprised when the Prince cut him off, standing in front of him. The Prince did not like talking. Did not like expression any emotion to anyone. Gavin knew in the world the Prince lived in, showing your emotions would make you weak. But the Prince spoke voluntarily.

"I keep so much inside me.

I grasp my anger....my loneliness and hold it in my chest. It has changed me into something I never meant to be. It has transformed me into a person I do not recognize Gavin," the prince paused and looked at Gavin with such suffering in his eyes, "But I don't know how to let it go."

Gavin's eyes suddenly opened. With the Prince's words, he saw him in a new light. In the light that the Prince should have been seen in but that no one noticed. A silent suffering man.

"She ran away," The Prince closed his anguished eyes. "Eventually, in the end, they all run away."

*dying* why do I do this to myself?

I hope you liked it (sobs hysterically)