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MALEKH LUCIANO

Age: 25

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I came to with a splitting headache. I groaned, clutching my head with my hands. My eyelids were like sandpaper against my pupils and opened slowly. It felt like I was stuck in a distended dream. No, an illusion seemed a better description.

Time seemed to ebb slowly as my mind tried to coordinate my movements. I blinked in the endless darkness that inundated the room and tried to shake off the grogginess that engulfed me.

I sat up with another groan and dark spots crowded my vision as I tried to control the dizziness. I finally managed to get my vision under control and peered around the pitch black room. My throat burned with a slight chemical taste. The events of the night came flooding back to me. I had been knocked out after agreeing to go with those men. Where was I?

Suddenly, there was a click and a lamp on the other side of the room came on. Beside it was a shadowy figure sitting in an armchair. I winced at the sudden brightness.

It was a man with black hair. He closed the book he was reading and looked up at me. Reading in the pitch dark. He probably wasn’t human. It somehow reminded me of a dream I'd had before...

“You’re awake.”

His voice was honeyed, perfectly modulated as if not to startle me. Was he the one who wanted to see me? My brows kitted together as he calmly observed me.

“Who are you?” I demanded, pushing myself to my feet.

Ouch! I probably shouldn't move yet. A myriad of colors and shapes spotted my vision and I had to steady myself while blinking them away. Whatever they had used to knock me out was some ridiculously strong stuff. My senses were disoriented and my head was throbbing.

He placed the book on the lamp stand and offered me a small smile.

“Malekh.”

“Malekh?” I muttered. I didn’t know him. I’d never heard of or seen this man before in my life.

“More formally, Malekh Luciano. Alpha and new ruler of the Spade Kingdom.”

I tensed as his smooth voice reached me. Alpha? That confirmed my suspicions. He was an Origen too, then. In that case, I should be careful if I was going to get out of wherever this place was.

“What do you want with me?” I frowned. “You went out of your way to bring me here. I'm not a fan of unplanned vacations.”

“Personally, I have nothing against you,” he said, getting up and coming towards me. I took a step back. I was getting a dangerous vibe from him even though he hadn’t done anything yet.

“I don’t really have anything against Ashton either.”

“You- You know Ashton?”

“He’s a childhood friend.” He smiled. Now that he was closer to me I could see his eyes. They were pitch black, expressing nothing but soulless intensity. There seemed to be no end to the depthless darkness in them. It sent a shiver down my spine, but I would not allow my fear to show around him.

“You say that Ashton’s your friend, but I was practically kidnapped to be here. You still haven’t given me a reason.”

He sighed and circled around me. “The kingdom of Crysauralia is very great. Naturally, it has made a few enemies. There are those who have a few bones to pick with the current monarch.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“Well, I feel obligated to help those who come to me for help. Besides, I am also one of those people.”

I flinched as he ran a few strands of my hair between his fingers.

“It’s interesting that Ashton’s soulmate turned out to be a human,” he murmured.

He let my hair fall with a smile.

“If you have a problem with the king then you should go talk to him yourself. Aren’t you a king yourself? I don’t see what benefit you’ll gain by bringing me here.”

“There’s someone who wishes to settle a score with Ashton, and unfortunately, you’re involved. Thank you for your participation.”

“I’m not doing any of this willingly,” I hissed. “I’m not participating in your little revenge plan. I have better things to do with my time than stay here with people like you who are too scared to approach others themselves. Just who the hell do you think you are to-”

A low growl interrupted my rant and I turned towards the direction of it. The door was open now, and I could see faint light in the hallway. A shadow leaned in the doorway with folded arms.

“I love it when you’re feisty.”

I glanced back at Malekh who wore a small smile. This voice… It sounded familiar. I squinted at the figure in the doorway. The figure moved closer to us until his face became illuminated by the light.

A gasp escaped my lips as my mind swirled with a million thoughts. I stared at him. This can’t be real, I thought as I took step back. Why was he here?

“Demetri, you’re back,” Malekh said coolly.

“W-Why are you here?” I whispered in disbelief.

“Oh yeah. I did wipe your memory,” he chuckled. “Let’s get you caught up, I’m an Origen, a Beta.”

My heart plummeted down to the ground. There was no way! My breath was shaky as I struggled to come to terms with this weird reality. Demetri was an Origen?

“And I did lie that time. I can restore memories too." In an instant he was in front of me and before I could react, he placed his fingers on the sides of my head.

The memories of that day when I'd went to the school flashed through my mind like a movie. It felt so surreal, but there was no doubt about it. It was true, I remembered now!

I glanced uneasily between both of them. What was their relationship? Demetri showing up now just made things a million times harder. I was hoping to slip away from Malekh, but I wouldn’t have much of a chance against both of them.

“You’ve met Demetri before,” Malekh said, motioning to him. “He’s done a good job of keeping an eye on you and Ashton.”

“So you’re working together?” I gasped. I turned to Demetri and my anger rose. “Why are you involved with someone like him? He’s just using you get revenge.”

Demetri ran a hand through his hair and his dark gaze settled on me. When they were standing side by side, I could see the similarities between them. They both had jet black hair and obsidian eyes.

“I also want revenge,” he seethed, balling his palms into fists.

“He is my half-brother,” Malekh mentioned casually.

I stared at them in shock. “Why are you doing this? If it’s revenge you want…”

“You see, someone wants to get even with Ashton and we want to get even with his kingdom. What’s the easiest way to break down the kingdom? By breaking the next ruler. That’s where you come in.”

I glanced at Demetri, and the animalistic look in his eyes made my spirit sink.

“Who’s the person who wants to hurt Ashton?” I asked angrily. There had to be some way to stop whatever they were planning.

“You have time to be worrying about someone else when you could be in danger yourself?” Malekh mused. “I can’t answer that question right now… but it is someone you know.”

I racked my mind trying to figure out who would ally themselves with people like them. It had to be someone who knew what Ashton was. Malekh quickly moved behind me and led me over to a sofa. He sank me down onto it and sat beside me. I scooted away from him, but was blocked by Demetri.

I sighed and decided to just be patient and wait until the right time when I could leave. When they were distracted, I'd find some way to get out of here. In the meantime, this information could be useful. I wished I could talk to Ashton telepathically, but he didn’t get a chance to mark me.

“Let me start with your beloved soulmate,” Malekh suggested.

I narrowed my eyes at him, but didn’t say anything.

“You see, by right you belong to me.”

What the hell? What did he mean by that? I shot him a look of both confusion and anger. “I’m my own person. I don’t belong to anyone.”

He shrugged. “Ashton said I could have you. Let’s start from the top shall we?” He smiled.

I stared into his empty eyes. What was this about?

“As you might have realized, Ashton did not want a soulmate. He was furious when he found out that he was mated to you.”

I frowned and he gave me an apologetic smile. “We royals take deals very seriously. He made a deal with me, which he lost. He said I was free to take you as compensation. He just wanted you out of his life. I was to make you disappear as his soulmate. But eventually he didn’t uphold his end of the deal. I was quite fine with that. What would I do with a human anyways? But that person you know was there when he made the deal. Their soulmate had died because of the system of Crysauralia and they thought it was only fair that Ashton give up his soulmate as he had promised.”

I listened to him with an expression that couldn’t mask how hurt I felt at that. I knew that Ashton didn’t want me as his soulmate at first, but he could have just rejected me. Why would he go as far as to make some empty promise with me as the cornerstone? Was he really heartless enough to offer me up to some other guy like a present?

“Don’t take it personally. Ashton is the one at fault here,” Malekh smiled. “Now let me tell you a rather interesting story. A little history.”

He glanced at Demetri. “My brother here is Ashton’s cousin.”

I whirled around to face Demetri who was sitting motionless beside me, as still as a statue. His demeanor was calm, but his eyes danced with anger. It was frightening. I quickly smoothed out my expression. I would not allow them to see how scared I was.

“Try to keep up with our twisted family history, if you can.”

I listened in shock, horror and disbelief as he recounted everything that happened, starting from Ashton’s grandfather. It was a twisted story filled with murder and affairs. I never knew that Ashton’s family had such a dark past. I doubt he knew about all of that… but then again, there were some things that even I still didn’t know about Ashton.

A summary of the story was that Ashton’s grandmother was a Beta who was mated to a Delta. She had a forced arranged marriage with Ashton’s grandfather, and they produced Ashton’s father, the current king.

The grandmother had an affair with her soulmate and Ashton’s uncle was born as a Beta. He was the king’s half-brother.

Ashton’s father’s soulmate was a low ranking noble, so he arranged for his half-brother to be killed so that he could have his soulmate instead who was an Alpha. She was Ashton’s mom.

But before he was killed, the king's half-brother secretly had a son, Demetri, through an affair with Malekh’s mother who was a Beta mated to the king of the Spade Kingdom. That made Demetri a Beta while Malekh was an Alpha.

Demetri and Malekh were half-brothers while Demetri and Ashton were cousins.

Malekh knew all of this because his mother had told him before she committed suicide because of her unhappy, abusive marriage and because the man she had wanted to run away with was killed. Demetri wanted revenge for the unfair death of his father. Malekh wanted to avenge his mother’s death.

Demetri had been severely mistreated and abused by Malekh’s father and he had spent the majority of his life wasting away in a dark underground dungeon. That was where he stayed until Malekh’s father died and Malekh became the new king. Malekh had always resented his father for his violence towards his mother, especially after it drove her to kill herself.

With Demetri, he planned to execute a plan of revenge against the Kingdom of Crysauralia. I still didn’t know their full plan, but I realized that step one started with me.

“And there you have it,” Malekh breathed, wrapping up his exposition. “Your little kingdom isn’t as innocent as it seems. There’s always something more under the surface of everything.”

I frowned at my lap as I thought about everything I had just heard. It was reasonable that they were angry. They both lost parents because of the king’s greed. I had been furious after I found out about what happened to my mother. But Ashton and his mom didn’t have anything to do with it.

“In Crysauralia, there is corruption and discrimination. They hide behind their names and titles,” Malekh growled. “We’ll bring them to their knees and seize the country.”

“You’re just going to make everyone else suffer too,” I protested. “Not everyone there is bad. There are some really good people there too.”

“The good will suffer for the bad while the bad atone for their sins,” he stated.

“Only a spineless coward would hurt innocent people,” I retorted angrily.

“You don’t think we’ve been hurt?” Malekh sneered.

“And you hated it didn’t you?” I pointed out. “Don’t do it to others if you don’t like it done to yourself!”

He scoffed. “How self righteous. Are you trying to preach to me, human?”

“I’m just telling you what’s right!” I yelled.

“We’ll decide that for ourselves,” Demetri growled. “They will never see justice unless they can look at it from our perspective.”

“Your plan is twisted,” I informed them. You have to stop.”

Malekh chuckled a bit too diabolically. “We’re twisted. Everything is messed up.” His dark gaze landed on me calculatingly. It pinned me in place. “I don’t have to hurt you,” he said. “If you do exactly as I say.”

I glared at him as he leaned closer to me. “Ashton doesn’t love you.”

I stared back at him defiantly, but he was unfazed.

“He’s just using you to become the next king.”

“That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it? He said he would reject you, but his father has him wrapped up in his mind games,” he said, twirling his index finger.

“He doesn’t have to listen to what the king says. He has a mind to think for himself.”

“And with that mind, he asked me to get rid of you.”

I refused to believe it, but it still hurt. His words pierced my heart like a double-edged sword. He stared at me with a cool, sympathetic gaze. “The only thing they think about is themselves… Even my dear friend Ashton is like that. That’s why when your friend came to me, requesting that I make sure Ashton kept his promise, I couldn’t refuse. I’ll save you from him.”

“I don’t need your help. I don’t need to be saved from Ashton,” I scoffed and got up.

The door was a few feet away, but Demetri’s eyes were glued to me like a hawk. There was no way I could outrun them. I couldn’t even outrun humans. And even if I did run, where would I go? Where was I even? Most likely I was in the Spade Kingdom, but which part of it?

“Where am I?” I asked angrily.

“The Spade Kingdom.”

“Oh, really? I never would have guessed,” I seethed.

Malekh smiled coldly at my sarcasm. “I’ll let you think about it today,” he said as he got up to leave. “I look forward to your answer tonight.”

“My answer won’t change,” I answered stiffly.

“We’ll see.”

He strode out of the room with a level of grace that didn't quite match his swiftness. His footsteps seemed to be almost inaudible whispers against the floor. I directed my scowl at Demetri who was still staring at me.

“Aren’t you leaving too?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“Think about this carefully,” he warned me. “I do want to hurt you, but if you make the right choice, I won’t. Why should you die along with a man who despises you?”

“You wouldn’t kill Ashton,” I said, startled. My heartbeat intensified. They couldn’t! I wouldn’t allow them to.

Demetri grinned and I caught sight of his sharp canines. “Oh, I would. An eye for an eye.”

He turned and left the room as I stood there, petrified in horror.

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