| CHAPTER 25 : COLD-HEARTED KILLER |

Down in the throne room, where the ceiling hung high with bright lights, King Alpha sat on his throne. Again lost in his thoughts, absentmindedly playing with the cigarette in his hands, taking occasional drags out of it.

He shifted his head from one hand to another resting on the armrest of the throne.

Why the fuck am I still keeping that bitch alive? He thought. Fuck her and her big blue eyes. Her tongue runs for miles-especially that sass. He rolled his eyes. She's a living target for every supernatural creature and she doesn't even realize the danger she's in. Stupid bitch refused my offer of starting over and instead chose my dumbass sister.

Ezlynn is your redemption. He scoffed. I don't need redemption. I'm King Alpha for fuck's sake. I've met Lucifer in person and even he likes me. I mean, of course, he would...until I fucked every one of his personal assistants every time I went to meet him.

Right...

Oops.

To be quite honest, his assistants didn't mine. Even the married ones. I just gave them what they wanted.

"Doing a lot of thinking, mon ami?" 

He huffed, blowing air from his mouth, "You didn't leave yet, Drew?"

He appeared from the shadows where he had been secretly watching King Alpha for the past thirty minutes and grinned holding up a drink, "You want to push me out of my own home?"

King Alpha gave a bored look, "I'm in no mood to talk to you. Scratch that, I'm never in the mood to talk to you."

"But you still do." Drew mused sipping his drink.

"Right," King Alpha said, "you're the only one with open ears for me." he frowned at the thoughts roaming in his mind.

"What's on your mind, ami?"

King Alpha took a drag from his cigarette, "What the hell is Ezlynn, Drew? She has magic and she's out of control with it. It's like her magic comes out like a volcano when her emotions are too high. It drains her and she doesn't even know it."

Drew was silent for a while, his mouth on his glass before licking his lips, "You're worried she's gonna destroy herself?"

"She's mated to me. She's already destroyed."

"Why do you always think like that?"

"There's no other way to think it. Besides, she knows it too. She already looks at me like I'm a sort of psychotic murderer killing people for fun."

"Aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

"Then?" he raised an eyebrow.

King Alpha frowned rubbing the spot between his eyebrows, "I don't know, Drew. Is it weird that it bothers me that she thinks that?" 

"Ah," Drew smiled, "your bond is acting up," he said, "it's normal to feel like this, ami. You're mated to her. You know what that means?"

"You feel as if you've stolen that dimwit Cupid's dang arrow and struck yourself with it. Where you can only see the colours pink and red and suddenly your favourite bird is a dove."

"Eh, something like that."

"But I'm able to block that, Drew. I'm King Alpha. I don't fall under these things. I've been blocking my bond with Ezlynn ever since she was in my room since the first day. That's why I'm able to keep us both sane."

"Then maybe you're feeling something else instead apart from your bond. The bond makes you feel love without any actual emotion, ami. The thing you're feeling right now is genuine."

"Should I see a doctor then?"

"How about your chérie itself?"  

King Alpha gave a small scowl, "I don't want to see her."

"Why not?"

"She's playing with my mind."

"I don't follow," Drew responded, peering at him with patient eyes.

King Alpha exhaled deeply, leaning forward on his throne, "One moment I want to kill Ezlynn so badly. Like you know? I want to grab her tiny neck in my hands and just...squeeze them hard," King Alpha gritted his teeth, his hands turned into fists in the air imagining Ezlynn's crushed neck, "and then there are these other moments when I want to..." He sucked in a deep breath, hesitating his words, "protect her."

He slumped back into his throne, taking a small drag out of his cigarette.

Drew took a sip from his glass, hiding the smile forming on his lips, "Perhaps try thinking deeper about which feeling is much stronger. Although keep in mind King," Drew spoke, "she's highly innocent."

King Alpha scoffed, laughing in disbelief, "Ezlynn? Innocent? Which Ezlynn are we talking about again?"  

"You're so mean." Drew chuckled, shaking his head at him.

King Alpha rolled his eyes, "She's not innocent, Drew. She's stupid and dumb. She fucking poisoned me."

Drew paused for a second, smirking within himself before taking another sip from his drink, "Yeah."

"And she took Levi's help," King Alpha scoffed, "my most loyal wolf. The Royal Beta. He was ready to help her escape and he even did so. She must have promised him something. Now tell me, is she innocent?"

"She was desperate. You've made it difficult for her to even breathe. She wanted all the help she could get."

King Alpha's nose flared, "I offered her a clean slate too, Drew. She refused."

"Why wouldn't she the bloody hell not?" Drew widened his eyes in short temper, "I know I would refuse too."

"You're not helping right now."

"All I'm saying is to understand where she comes from and try to ease both; her life and your eternal suffering." 

King Alpha sucked in a deep breath, glaring and scowling but stayed silent like a stubborn child.

"But she also annoys me a lot!" King Alpha complained after a while.

"Don't you annoy every living creature too? For God's sake, you don't even leave the ducks of the pond alone!"

"They're quaking's make me want to strangle them." King Alpha reasoned.

"You were ten miles away from the pond."

"My hearing goes beyond that." King Alpha flashed a smile.

Drew shook his head, knowing there was no point in trying to reason with him.

"Anyway, what are you going to do now?" he asked.

"Ezlynn is still roaming around with that Mary Sue bimbo trying to do God knows what. Katia thinks she believes she knows what she's doing. But all that she's doing is wasting Ezlynn's time when I can clearly help her much better."

"Then why don't you offer her your help?"

"I did! I started by offering her a clean slate."

"Can we put the clean slate aside?" 

"No, the clean slate was important. It was me half apologizing to her and you know how I feel about apologies."

"That you'd rather drink a litre of pee every single day instead of saying the word 'sorry'?" Drew asked in a flat voice.

"Exactly," King Alpha responded and then gritted his teeth when the image of Ezlynn came to his mind. That little... "-ugh Drew! Help me! Hit my head until I forget her. Or rather hit me with a truck ten thousand times."

"You're overreacting. She's just a girl."

"No one's just a girl, Drew. You never say that about girls. Not ever. I've learned that from past experience. This one innocent girl at the beach I tried seducing turned out to be a fucking siren and drowned my ass down with her," King Alpha took a drag out of his cigarette, "had to rip her arms out to free myself."

"Ezlynn's not a siren."

"She isn't just a girl too," he responded then snapped, "are you going to help me with this? If not then why are you even here?"

"Of course, I'm here to help. I'm here to help you by knocking some sense into you. Ezlynn is an innocent girl, she knows nothing about her family, she's lost and is taking stupid decisions."

"I love that you said 'stupid'."

Drew gazed at him for a while, taking a long slow sip from his drink.

"Remember when you told me you wanted a whole bloodline after you?" Drew spoke, "that you wanted your own descendants, your own kind, your own...family?"

"I was drunk."

"You're having a chance at that right now, King," Drew continued, "You get to redo. You're going to throw your chance at having an actual life."

King Alpha's expression turned dark without even meaning to. His lips pulled back into a snarl, "You think I'm suddenly gonna change just because of some felony?" his voice got low and dangerous, "Okay, she is innocent. What about me? What about everything I've done in the past? What about all those bad choices I've made? What about all those who've I killed?" he demanded, "you couldn't look me in the eye, Drew. You didn't come when the war between the witches happened. You think I don't know, but I do. You didn't come because you didn't want to look at me and think that your descendant is a cold-hearted killer. You didn't want to see me rip out lives so cruelly."

Drew opened his mouth but then closed it, sliding his gaze down to the ground.

King Alpha sat silently, slowly twirling the cigarette in his hands, the silence heavier than anything. He felt the darkness like it was a part of him. He could feel it controlling his mind, his soul. And he wondered how could someone even think of being with him without fearing to drown in his endless void.

"I'm not someone to be paired up with, Drew. Almost everyone looks at me like I'm a monster. And they're right. I am. I've killed so many, done so many sinful things. There's no redemption for me. I can't make up for all that I've done. I'm only left with this-with this feeling of...emptiness."

Drew remained silent, looking at his last descendant in pity. He no longer felt thirsty and discreetly put his glass down.

There was no making up King Alpha's mind. He thought. He's drowned way too deep and refuses to save himself. He's promised himself every day of suffering, pain and loneliness pushing away every chance at happiness.

He wasn't a monster, Drew remembered, he was made one. Forced into killing, forced to shed blood, forced to rip out lives. And now he has to live with that, carrying that burden everywhere, continuing to be cruel, because if not, then his past and pain would fall on him like an avalanche and crush him.

Just when the silence was about to continue for long, the basement doors burst open, grabbing King Alpha's and Drew's attention.

A smirk pulled on King Alpha's lips, "Hey, Kattie."

Katia stumbled in, not looking too graceful with her expressions frantic, she breathed hard as if she ran all the way here, "Demons...took Ezlynn."

And that was enough to set King Alpha bolting through the doors.

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Date: 28 July 2021

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