.~.

To feel a bounded soul is all Alexander ever wanted. That... and to be King.

His chest shook softly as he contemplated.

The alpha's eyes constantly switched between it's poised void which resembled a seldom load of fear, to a more outraged abundance. He wondered could joy ever be the true villain that would riot; daring to create chaos if he explored it too much, or accepting responsibilities and not being able to live was the simple reprimanded twin.

Few curses and grumbles escaped his tight lip that fought back the beast's fleeting, sharp indentures. It was a constant battle between the two opponents, the right to shed skin. How so desperately Alexander wanted to melt into his fur side but debated against it. For heaven's sake.

Alexander steadily strained, to remain in human form. He had to. For his mate, and for his pack. At a time so vain, the alpha could not lose control, not for a minute, not even for a second.

Then the prince's thoughts returned to his lover. So petite, so fragile and beautiful. Truly, Vera was enchanting to all she graces with her presence. To everyone around, he himself was holy and so righteous. A man should be fluently placed in the eyes of who he rules, so who was he stand in front of those people who believe in him... with a human girl.

And it maddened the prince to no avail, in fact it drove him crazy.

Constantly his beta Hector, who was a man of many liberations, over centralized himself in training and being the spitting image of—followed expectations. His beta who now taunted his ears with fears of protocol and procedures.

According to Hector, Prince Alexander received everything he ever wanted; respectfully. So what was the use of this, woman? What was the necessity of any woman?

Alexander had the answer.

As an eligible elected prince to the throne, he simply could not stake his claim, let alone approach the title without a female counterpart. The king of alphas was a role, Alexander desired to his core. Without a companion, at least a face to represent his courtship to the throne, his pursuit was useless.

A pursuit unmet. A luxury Alexander's father, the current king of alphas, would not allow.

.~.

If only Alexander could memorize the rhythm his heart mimicked, so that it could be televised into a sentence of how he truly felt for the young woman.

He wondered was it natural to want to get rid of someone only to hide them inside of your own crevices of skin, shielding them away from all of existence.

Alexander felt her before she came into vision.

Evident hurt coiled into a synchronized pattern across her face and yet she stood unmoving. How had she done it? Better yet, why did she hide the butterflies that overwhelmed in her belly when they were only a few feet apart? The lycan only could wonder.

If only the right words could come to mind and yet there were none to spew. Entirely nothing he could say. His throat turned into sand paper, his bruised eye aches like hell but his only focus was on her injuries. Vera sported a thick bandage around her knee that hid a bruise, collecting all of the drenching blood that flowed from her damned skin.

"Say something. Say anything to me so that I can grasp what's going on." Vera's voice betrays her emotions unraveling in front of the prince.

Many thoughts fought each other inside of Alexander's mind, but he looks up at the raven haired girl, as if truly seeing her in the flesh for the first time. He wanted to deny her of their arrangement of them being mates, but what he felt truly rocked him to the core.

Despite his course of actions, Alexander was somewhat more than infatuated.

"Vera there are few answers that I can only give to suffice you. I don't want to do that." Alexander reassures, with the same blank expression plastered on his face, which pissed Vera off.

"There's some things I know we have to talk about but I can't bring myself to confess." Vera stares openly at Alexander, listening to the sound of her own heart beat to remind her to calm down.

"Who was that man and why does he want to take me." On the inside Vera feels like she's screaming but on the outside, she does not.

The female walks closer to the prince, sizing him up while he sat. Alexander couldn't help but to assess her for any apparent wounds, which he could not find.

He allows his hands to rest around her waist, after dragging her on the balls of her feet —dangerously closer.

Vera didn't mind the space, but wouldn't admit she adored the little action that made all of her limbs ache with butterflies.

"It Doesn't matter who he is, you know of me and you know I won't let anyone take you away." The prince's response is charming, but the fading black in his irises reveal true anger he hid.

Everything that the Prince feels, is always told through his eyes.

The wine color which he displayed often, meant he was more than angry. The grey which he never really showed at all, was his natural eye color and sometimes they were black.

Alexander's wolf was in full control when his pupils were blackened, like now, and he wanted to feel the closeness of his mate. He wanted to feel something hotter than skin on skin contact but softer than any human's flesh. He craved the mere presence of a soul. A life.

At times, Alexander felt he would tug out her arteries and spit them out—whereas in these soft moments they shared, he wanted to cuddle her into mush while concealing her from all of the universe. He didn't know why he felt this way it just came hand in hand like almonds and pudding.

"I- I..." trailing off, Vera felt the hot tears leap from out of her eyes before they collected on the hook of her shoulder, " I felt something." She admits shutting her eyes.

Vera grew afraid of how the alpha might react, so she takes a step apart from him.

"What do you mean you feel something?" A chuckle is ringing throughout the air as Alexander begins to shake from laughter.

Vera could feel his cold fingers tangle themselves in her lengthy dark brown hair, until they pressed soothingly into her scalp. In this action Alexander pulls her down until her head was pressed into his neck like a mother would do with their child.

"No I felt something." Vera whispers, straddling him. "For Adonis."

Alexander doesn't say anything but Vera could feel his chest stiffen. Softly she feels him pulsate sending shock waves into her animation, he had essence that felt like magnets, connecting their opposite fields, while she was typically cold, he was always hot.

Just as easily as his hand found the nap of her neck, his fingertips had stopped massaging the back of Vera's head becoming stones.

Vera rests her hands into his own palm gently.

"Why would you confess something like that to me? You are lying.."Is all that the Prince says but Vera gets a sense of deja vu?

"Well if I hadn't. I'm telling you now. Don't ever again, lie to me." Alexander states sharply, after wrapping his arm around her neck securely.

How he was so gentle but the tone in his voice said other wise. It leaked with aggravation, conveying the prince was on edge. He defied everything Vera was taught how mates were suppose to act. He was hard, he was rough. He was sensual he was strength. Mates were suppose to be loving and delicate. Pretentiously lustful even.

With pictures of intimacy, Vera visualized mates being compared to ketchup and mustard nearly, they complimented each other.

And while Alexander was fitting to her existence in such a way that deemed it substantial that they live together, to be engulfed with one other all of the time, he was never all of those things. He wasn't compatible with anyone. Especially not with her, he never showed it.

"I feel for that damned man Alexander." Vera in a whisper, admits. "I'm not lying. I could never lie. I wouldn't want to."

Suddenly,Alexander's entire being had went up in flames for him to be drowned in fire, and later he'd be distinguished on a cross that resided in the pits of hell, only to be discarded in the river of red.

All of a sudden Alexander hadn't recognized Vera. His own mate.

Vera is thrown by his sudden action, and lands on the floor but it wasn't her limbs that ached. The pain was coming from within on the inside. It was her heart frolicking around, ready to explode outside of her chest.

"Vera you shouldn't have told me that. That changes everything now."

Vera could see his fingernails lengthening from his fingertips morphing into claws — poking out its fleshy surface.

"How so?" she asks rather quickly. Now he knew she were frightened. She was scared. The girl shook with dear life as the feral hairs began to sprout from her mate's skin.

"Vera I have to do something I'll probably regret. Fuck that, I won't regret it at all but it's necessary." Alexander lurches towards Vera until his hot breath fanned her face.

"Yes it's very much needed." Alexander's bones are crackling, he seethes while his body began to deteriorate into fur.

His gaze weakened her to the knees with her leaning forward, in a dazed state seeming hypnotized by everything he was becoming. Alexander's hands fisted her hair, dragging her across the wooden floor boards.

It was a reminder that as long as she yearned for Alexander's love, easily came pain. Pain she could bare with an aching sensation that burned on the inside like an eternal inferno, but it was still very much antagonizing pain.

It couldn't scorch her skin but it could set a blaze her soul. Despite them sharing the same soul, Alexander seemed unfazed by this... like they didn't share the same emotions, he acted sometimes like she didn't exist like she wasn't what he had hoped for all those years to come.

The alpha's hands grew tighter and tighter with his claws streaming with her blood. How could he do this? How could Alexander truly harm his mate?

Vera was numb anyway. Numb to his cold behavior, Numb to his consistent display of aggression. She couldn't form any words as she gawked at death in the face.

"I apologize for this, which will weaken you like never before to a climax." Alexander searches, looking for any compliance or reaction from this mere child but when he hadn't received one, he quietly began to lean forward.

The fireplace crackling louder as the heat swam around the room between the two broken souls that were neither differentiating or alike.

"Alex- Alexander, wha-t are you planning to do," Vera's own blood was soaking the shirt she wore, as it puddled on top of the floor beneath her.

Before she realized it or could protest, her cries were filling the room as her voice ruptures out into a squeal until it became screams.

Weightless the raven haired girl became.

All of the energy had ran cold from her body as she clung to her mate for dear life. Alexander hadn't spared her the empathy neither did he waste anymore time while his canines began to puncture the space between her jugular veins and neck.

All the while his indentures sunk deeper into fleshy tissue, milking her of essence.

Vera cried louder with her ears ringing, thinking with every breath she took it might've been her last. She could feel once her mate's body collided against hers that he had let his head rest inside her exposed chest for support. He doesn't catch himself, too full from the toxins. He was completely full of the ichor he drunk from her like a faucet.

Suddenly Vera's eyes faded, consumed by utter darkness. She felt her life was tugged from beneath her like a rug, and Alexander was the wakening of something feverish. How could he end her so quickly? Rob her of mobility until she was nothing but a mere consciousness.

A memorable joke, in which he'd taunt in the back of his mind inside the oblivion. He had full control, full accessibility, she would fully yield to his personable as long as he could bide.

She was now his.

•••