I grip my shaking hands as I stand in front of the table waiting for Demonia to walk into the room, in the room stands both my children with both of their mates, we are all having dinner together and must wait for the King to come before we sit.

We have been standing for five minutes now and we are all on edge and trying to keep it together so we can leave after dinner and make our way out of The Vale, to a place Locus, my son had found.

All of our belongings, of what we can carry, have been packed and stored and hidden deep in the woods, halfway to the portal.

I'm scared.

I will take the vial to break the bond between us once we reach our luggage, it should be far enough for Demonia to not track me down, my children have already placed my scent throughout the forest with clothes that have my scent on them.

It will be fine, it has to be, the confident eyes of my children make me so proud, they are already so big and bright, they are more than what I could ask for, I'm so thankful for them for being here with me, to care about me but most of all, to give me the strength to leave.

The double doors to the dining hall open and I smell Demonia walking into the room.

'Act normal, we leave as soon as it's over.' Locus says through mindlink and I silently pray everything goes well.

Demonia comes into view as he eyes the spread on the table, he has yet to look at any of us as he sits down and snaps his hands. We all sit down and a servant comes towards Demonia to pour him a glass of red wine.

Once Demonia is served food, we start to add small bits of food to our plate once he starts eating, it's quiet and no one is making any sound, nothing is out of the ordinary, this is normal, everything is normal as we keep our heads down and eat our food.

Demonia sniffs the air and we all freeze as we eat, his eyes zero in on me and there's a scowl on his face. I straighten my back smile lovingly at my husband then focus back on my food as if nothing is going on, everything is normal, steady heartbeats and normal eating pace, everything is normal.

The dinner goes by as it normally would, deafening silence, a single sound could upset the King and her mate, nobody had wanted that, not tonight, not when we are so close to escaping this hell, as Demonia stands to leave he stops in his step and I feel his steps getting closer to me.

"You smell different." Demonia's dark low voice rumbles and I feel the sweat move on my forehead.

I clear my throat once. "Rosewater." I smile up at him and he scowls.

The room tenses and the only sound in the hall is Axel, as he puts his knife and forks down, Demonia has leaned down towards me until his nose is in my hair and inhaling my scent, not lovingly but with suspicion, like a bloodhound.

He moves my long hair out of the way of my ear then leans in to whisper. "My room, now." He says before biting down on my earlobe roughly in front of everyone as they keep their heads down.

I swallow hard and nod my head. "Y-Yes my love." I say sweetly.

Demonia pulls my chair back and grabs my arm and pulls me away from the table, my sons look at me, ready to fight and I shake my head, I see both of them frown as I am being pulled out of the room by Demonia.

"Your smell makes me sick." He says lowly. "Mate." He spits, dragging me up the stairs in the direction of the master suite.

My skin crawls and my wolf whimpers back at his tone, my wolf had been so against leaving Demonia until he started to hurt me, it was unforgivable to hurt your mate, to do so meant they no longer felt the bond, meaning it broke, Demonia no longer saw me as his soulmate and had stopped caring.

I follow him into his bedroom willingly with my head held high as he shuts the door loudly behind me, making me flinch slightly, the glint in Demonia's eyes shows slight amusement seeing me stand tall.

It's getting dark and we must be leaving soon, we had agreed to meet outside the back entrance of the kitchen to make a run for it, I still have the vial on me and I'm terrified just encase something happens, what if he finds it?

What will he do if he finds it? I fear nothing good may come.

Demonia has stripped naked and begins to lay on his master bed, the door opens and whoever enters next did not knock, a young servant girl dressed in rags enters the room and avoids my eye contact as I watch her step inside.

Demonia says pleased, making my chest clench at how my heart is breaking.

Demonia commands and the girl does so without a second to spare.

I turn my gaze from the girl and focus on the view outside of the window, the forest, I must get out of here and leave this... this beast of a man, I have to get out of here to keep my sanity.

Demonia begins to touch himself as he watches me with a look in his eye, the young servant girl slowly walks towards the bed and stands at the end, next to where Demonia lays touching himself as he looks at me.

He pulls the girl on top of him and takes her mouth in his as his eyes focus solely on me with amusement, as his mouth is on hers, he moves the young servant girl's hand towards his crotch area to stroke him as he forced the young girl to pleasure him.

I feel sick.

Why would he do this to me? To this young girl? To betray our bond in front of me... what did I do to deserve this? He keeps his gaze on me as he growls into the girl's mouth, his large length standing tall with the young girl's small hand wrapped around his length.

I tear my eyes away from him again as I go to turn towards the door, almost instantly without hearing a single sound, Demonia is grabbing onto me with such force as he stops me from moving any further.

He leans in sniffing me. He threatens and I swallow hard.

"No."

The words come out my mouth before I could think and I pale.

He laughs, gripping me harder to the point I smell blood.

Demonia slaps me hard across the face, I felt my jaw crack with how hard he hit me. He booms out, making me shake.

He says lowly to the servant girl as she quickly scurries to pick up her robe and rush towards the door.

Once the girl is gone, Demonia is pulling me towards the bed and throws me on roughly with one hand. He is still hard and naked as he eyes me hungrily, crawling on top of me as I stare in horror at the man I had once loved and admired.

He traps my arms above my head. He hums lowly as I struggle against his hold.

I laugh coldly as my body shakes in fear. "D-Do your worst, all words and no action." I tauntingly say, smirking up at him the best I could with my throbbing jaw.

He looks taken back but smiles down at me. "We shall see, won't we? I like it when they scream." He huskily moans back.

"You are a sad excuse for a man." I chuckle, glaring at him. "You hurt women because you're pathetic, I know dogs that have more honor than you." I spit in his face and his face is stoic, cold, and changing.

He wipes his face in one slow motion as he grabs one of my hands, he brings it forward, and then I see him smile wickedly at me before I feel him move.

He breaks my hand in one swift motion and I'm screaming out at the pain, he keeps hold of my hand as I try and get away from him, I kick and try to push him away from me with everything I have but he barely moves an inch as he looks down uninterested at me.

He says quietly, his tone makes my stomach twist in pain.

He gets off of me and walks towards the wall with the red curtain covering something, I watch as he pulls the curtain apart and what I see makes my stomach drop.

Torture devices, more than the eye can see, a large wall full of devices of all kinda, sexual and torture devices that had made my skin crawl.

I quickly move to the bedside table and grab the knife that I know he keeps there to open letters and hold onto it, he sees me move and grab the knife as I move off the bed and hold the knife protectively in front of me with my nonbroken hand.

Demonia leaves the wall of terrors and takes small steps towards me, he is visibly angry, angrier than I have ever seen him before.

"Do not come c-closer Demonia, I will use t-this!" I yell out at him.

Demonia stops and smirks down at me, ten feet away from me, he begins to shift slightly, large claws are now visible and free on both of his hands as he starts to walk towards me, slowly, in threateningly painfully slow steps.

Is... is he laughing at me?

'Mother? Where are you, we are all waiting for you.' Locus's mindlinks me and I swallow hard.

My tears begin to fall down my eyes as I stare at Demonia coming closer to me, eyes red and deadly, claws out and heading my way.

'Please go on without me, I'm so sorry, please live happily my sons, I love you both very much.' I mindlink them both then cut the link.

Demonia stands in front of me and shoves my arm away as he grips hard onto my neck and raises me above the ground with his hand wrapped tightly around my neck, I stab him in the back of his neck and he grunts out and drops me on the floor as he gets the knife from the back of his neck and throws the small knife across the room.

Demonia snarls out, getting on top of me and puts both of his hands around my neck, and squeezes tightly.

I can't breathe.

No no no, no, I can't die like this, please, have mercy! I try to speak but I choke on my own saliva, or blood, I can no longer see as I try to claw at Demonia to get him off of me.

I'm growing weak as I can't raise my arms and can no longer fight Demonia to push him off me, he's too strong.

I'm dying... my mate is killing me... Demonia is really killing me.. I'm going to die.

The last bit of strength I have left, I use it to mindlink Demonia. 'I-I don't want to die, I don't want to die! I want to live, p-please, D-Demonia.'

When he doesn't stop but his hold becomes tighter I say one last prayer for my children to the moon goddess, to watch over my children, to guide them in life to make the right choices, to be better than their father, to be kind, thoughtful, to never raise a hand to their mates, to love them until the end.

Darkness surrounds me and give up and let it swallow me whole.

I blink my eyes repeatably as I try to gain my sight back, there's a stench in the room that smells like blood and I begin to panic as I smell Lilian near me, but I can't see her, it's definitely my mate, I wouldn't forget her scent in a million lifetimes, but what worries me is the blood, it is coming from the direction of my mate.

Before I could go and search for her, I hear the doors bust and then gasps at the people from the door.

"Y-You fucking monster." My son Axel says quietly, and the sound makes my heartbreak.

"W-What?" I pause and swallow hard. "I-I can't see.. where's my mate? W-Where's Lilian!?" I call out panicky as I try and make my eyes work again but the smell in the air makes me want to vomit and cry.

I'm so confused as to what is happening, I feel my body breaking, something is wrong but I do not know what, something inside of me is gone and I can't feel anything, I'm dying inside and I can do nothing about it.

After blinking multiple times I see my son kneeling in blood in front of my body, I can see long beautiful dark brown hair I would recognize anywhere and my heart clenches when I see who it is.

"No."

I crawl towards my mate lifeless on the floor, with large hand marks around her neck, her eyes are open, and stared up in horror, there are claw marks on the floor beside her from her own fingernails.

What the fuck has happened? This is not happening, I refuse to believe it.

"I-I'm still dreaming." I chuckle out, trying to stand up, gripping onto the edge of the bedpost as I try and stand.

My son Axel growls loudly. "ARREST HIM, HE'S MURDERED THE QUEEN!" He commands the guards who stare in horror at my mate on the floor and then at me with hate in their eyes.

"N-No, s-she alive, t-this is a dream, I'm still d-dreaming." I protest as the two guards lift me up and begin to put silver shackles around my hands and legs.

I must be still dreaming, this is not possible, I would never harm my mate, this is all Selene and her pulling a sick joke on me, there's no way I would hurt Lilian, she's the love of my life, I would sooner hurt myself then lay a hand on her.

Axel turns and glares at me as he holds my mate in his arms. "You have lost your mind and finally killed her, you will suffer before you die, mark my words! You will feel the pain we have felt over the years!" He snarls out, tears escaping from his eyes as he holds onto my mate gently.

My heart breaks at his words.

This isn't real, it just isn't, this is not happening.

"Take him away!" Axel commands, turning his eyes away from me and upon Lilian, lifeless on the floor.

Impossible, I was in my study, I was.. I was trying to get rid of this curse, I.. I don't understand what is happening, I have not killed my mate, I would never touch her, she's everything to me.

"I-I WOULD NEVER HARM HER, Y-YOU MUST BELIEVE ME! " I cry to my son as the guards escort me past my lifeless mate. "I-I, AXEL BELIEVE ME!" I beg, but he doesn't look at me.

"GET OFF ME!" I snarl to the guards and thrash in their hold as my eyes focus on my mate.

The sight of her makes my blood run cold and my stomach churns and twists at how I could do such a thing to her, I don't remember anything since that night... I went to bed..

My arms and legs burn from the silver as I break at the vision of my mate laying in my son's arms, as beautiful as the day I had first met her, but there's no color in her cheeks, not a single blush on her cold pale cheeks, how I had wished at this moment that this was all a sick mind game and a single blush would appear, I prayed for it.

What is going on.... "Lilian.." I sob out, as I'm dragged away by six guards who refuse to look at me or listen to my pleas.

I killed my mate.

What have I done?