.

Something shared between mortal and the greatest of monstrosities, love is conventional. Exceptional. it is what ties heaven and hell, sinners and saints.

Without it,

All is left is labor and the plagued souls damned to absent minds and vacant spaces for hearts.

The loud tapping of the older male's foot is what kept Alexander awake at night and viable.

Forcing his measly legs forward, the young prince calculated every lasting blow he received to the shoulder, soon came a jab directly on the bridge of his spine and another to the back of his head.

Before he could plant a solidified stance into sapless soil planes, for someone so withstanding and feeble, he slips landing face plowed into muddy debris and squelched clay. He caves in a bruised chest for leveling only to be buried further by his brother's knee. The squeak that escapes his throat is all that is heard not by him but by his assaulter's hollowed-out ears that were soundless from prayers. The taste for blood resided on the tip of his tongue as did the tearing of flesh embedded into his talons.

It was the unruliest of days beseeched inside the tears of burly muscles, and his own ichor that sketched leaves and pasture.

Though he wouldn't croak until the eclipse turned feral, he wouldn't defer now til the sublunary had his cries memorized.

Hearing his aggressor's rugged voice counting down from five is what gave him enough dazed time to regain composure that grew even more delegated as his feet stomped into the dirt, tarnishing his toes and decolorizing the calloused.

Adonis, glorious even with battered knuckles, spits the number, "Five." delivering yet again another damaging infliction to the mundane Alexander's jaw, snapping his head sideward to an awkward angle.

He was losing sensibility, along with identity. For he was a Lycanthrope. He could scream, flinch even under agonizing torment but a born Lycan he was and the Lycan he would eternally remain. A predominance to lead and seize control had been beckoned forward, he came to the conclusion he could do it. Considerably it could be easy to convert time, to rewind his own pride.

The brutality within smiles, grinning ear to ear upon hearing the crackling of the little boy's neck but he grew more furious when the refusal was potent upon realization the child didn't cry aloud like the monster inside had grown to love.

In illusion to frustration, Alexander had known plenty of heinous villains and he wasn't accustomed to love. He'd known pain, tampered with treason and vile conviction. It became insufferable. No matter how much he tried to defeat his responsible demons, he figured it was better if he didn't try. Not even a little, not even at all.

The young and brave had learned neither to whimper despite every bone in his body desiring to yield for there's nothing in this world that pleased him more than to wane his ability. Lasting now was the contemplation; was losing his strength better than sanctioning it?

A single tear stood anointed between the barriers of his eyelid and eyelashes, but grey irises had tucked them backward behind a void. He was stricken once again but his focus was obscured alongside a mind elsewhere. An attempt to deflect, to divert the track of time.

From the earliest ages of tyranny did the bronze hairs begin to grey on top of a King's head, whose heart was swelling to the brick with impatience, all he had known was a convenience to an assembly. More than smug, slippery lips tug into a frown before panning into a thin straightened line. His hands entrapped across his chest as his gaze burned with fury.  As easily as he'd stood to his feet did he become engulfed without concern at the show his sons were forecasting.

The heart within his chest tumbled for all of the wrong reasons while he gazed on standby. There was an imbalance, a mad shift prominent in the air and it wasn't Alexander Bane.

A juvenile he could only mentor with indifference. An ill boy that was also incredible not to fight back despite every bone in his body biting at the confinements he kept them in. Foolishly ill to condemn the naturality of instinctual ruling in the beast they'd been dreading to dominate. The alpha beneath heated yet eager skin, almost demands it.

Almost.

But like always the young Alexander buried it deep beneath his back like a shield. accepting every hit he awaited from his brothers, and truly the sight sickened Augustus to his stomach.

All the blood and gore flying out of his open wounds wouldn't heal on their own unless he turned.

"He's not gonna let us stop until you shift Bane," Adonis dissented a statement while towering over Alexander, who rolled over on his back anticipating another punch.

"So just do it. Shift." Adonis is the one to deliver the punch square on the young alpha's chest stealing him from breathing, he began to pick him up by the shoulders, tossing him over his own.

"Yeah so just do it."

His other brother approaches from behind kicking him back down onto his knees, his chest flutters with butterflies as he pushes back the puke and vomit.

"Shift bastard." Adonis spat bile this time.

Alexander finds it best not to say anything, but this time he closes his eyes as his brother fisted his inky jet hair— dragging him further into the forest.

Finally, the commander of this all, the source of everlasting sorrow, smirks wildly with full teeth on display.

"Where do you think you're going, Adonis. I said never to leave out of my sight. Not until the kid shifts." Augustus rises to his feet squinting in the direction where his sons were still visible.

Another step and they would disappear within the tree lines entirely.

The sun was swallowed by clouds as a thunderous boom could be heard from just above them, the heavens were prone to rain and weeping chaos. A drizzle hadn't dared to cascade, but that didn't keep the lightning strikes away.  Trees were dancing in fret warning the young men as leaves swarmed them but the animals perched not only behind wood but flesh; carelessly. They didn't mind it.

In the pits of his stomach did something begin to riot whether it was pure salvation or acid,  young Alexander hated storms let alone rain.

Downpour tended to give him taunting memories of his mother who stained his mind. How he loathed his mother for leaving him at the likes of his father. Threw death to part.

Being truly alone, he was in this world of madness and monarchy, making him without purpose or strength. He was thought to be, nothing.

"I've had enough of this father," Adonis was young but his voice still rung heavy with power and determination.

"I got a better idea. I know what will make the boy shift." While tossing Alexander to other broadening arms, the one Bane hated the most, it was Lionel who caught him without effort.

Lionel was the devil reincarnated.. he just had Adonis's face.

Equally as terrifying as they both were delinquent twins who shared the same hatred for their youngest brother, Bane, who disagreed with their attributes and traditions. That and the twins could neither be King. You see, in their eyes neither could Alexander seeing as he was with out beast.  What's an alpha without their pride? A mutt. And they figured, if they couldn't drive the predator outside of him, there wasn't any other choice but to strip him of that.

It wasn't worth it if he let them take it. They wanted to destroy it until nothing was left but a bastard in remanence.

Not even when he collides with another mud hole right beside a swampy lake, Alexander still doesn't fight. He digs his backside further into the ground hoping to disappear, vanish into the abyss.

Before they would attempt to relish relentless terror, the twins observe him for a moment, even as he's unrecognizable.

Their eyes filled with condensed inferno, repulse the stray from the outcasted while he swipes the blood leaking from his bruised nose. Under soft inspection, Alexander eyes the liquid on his fingertips, succumbing under raw rejection.

When their assault doesn't come like he expects he opens his eyes to find the twins peering down at him with raised scowls placed on their lips, tiny scars littered at random across their bare chests, heaving in sighs out of physical weariness.

Trying to decide whether he would be pissed or transcendent, Bane staggers back while Lionel and Adonis started flanking each of his sides until he was lifted from the ground again.

"Wait, what are you two doing," Adonis is smirking as Alexander fails to mask the alarm in his voice.

"I told you, brother. Enough of these child-like games." Adonis and Lionel steady the young alpha higher until he was rested on each of their shoulders.

"We have just the trick for you, brother," Lionel remarks slyly.

Suddenly before he could take another gulp of oxygen, the twin boys are shoving Alexander's head into the murky waters until he couldn't breathe any longer.

They repeated the cycle ducking his head underneath the pond, only lifting him up until he was on the brick of suffocation. He so desperately wanted to give in and finally let the water gather in his lungs, but his cheeks lit on fire as his natural urges denied.

The water felt to be poking at his skin softening the tissue, he felt already to be dead... so why did they continue to be drilling his head farther into the pond until he touched sea ground?

He focuses on the beating drum inside his ribcages that sped faster and faster by the millisecond.

His ears were drowned out by water but Alexander swears he could still hear voices from above him. Laughing out of mockery.

Abruptly Alexander is lifted, his soaked hair framing his face as he braced himself for another agonizing submerging where he was blind. Surprisingly, it didn't come like he had hoped... for this time he would've given in and lessened the process of his torture.

"What the fuck- why'd you stop!" Lionel is shouting in a turn to his twin this but feels someone wrapping their hands around his throat, slinging him to the ground.

Bane is taking loud engulfs of oxygen as much as he is willed, the remainder of his shirt is torn but saturated in water. Feeling for his eldest brother, with ease, he was gathered into his arms reminding to breathe.

"Why do you allow them to do this to you, Bane." The taller male whispers into his brother's hair that sticks to his face but Alexander still didn't say anything, just for his savior to sigh.

Alexander didn't bother to respond, "What the absolute hell do you think you're doing huh? You could've killed him!" Achilles scolds, shoving past Adonis who was helping Lionel stand to his feet after being shoved to the ground.

"So." Lionel barks back before raking his fingers through his own wet hair, he always did this when he was nervous.

"He's not our real brother anyway." Adonis spat shoving past the already furious Achilles.

"So?" Achilles growls as his canines began to sprout from behind his tight hooked mouth,

"He is your brother long as I'm here to say so. Look, I don't give a damn what that god-forsaken man has told you, We are supposed to defend each other always. Against all!" He doesn't hesitate to fist the shirt of Adonis still with the weak Alexander in his arms.

Achilles knocked Lionel down for the second time from off of his feet, only to picked up by the hair that hid his forehead.

Adonis tries to push Achilles away but fails with his aggravation dispersing along with his own claw-like talons,

"How would you feel if I treated you this way?"Achilles spat.

"Do you understand?" With irises of gold and grip so strong, Achilles showcases canines that were lengthened to stake a victim.

"Do you understand me, Adonis? You are never to do that awful, shit again." His claws were so delicate, scraping his brother's neck.

Adonis only steadies his gaze on Alexander who hadn't said a word for all he was... a mere child. Even still, Adonis demised everything about his younger brother and he wasn't keen on hiding it.

He thought he was the better brother worthy of Achilles's liking. He thought he was superior to this weakling, Bane, who was poor in every way.

Adonis's green eyes glaze over revealing how truly angry he was but he bit back the fight he bargained for because He knew he was defenseless against the golden boy who was temperamental like every other alpha borne,

"We weren't actually going to kill him Achilles. Just until he shifted to defend himself." Lionel intervenes, hesitantly did he push Achilles's grip off the neck of his twin brother, 

"Yeah, it was only gonna be until he shifted. You know he never fights back. Father's orders." Adonis reprimands.

Achilles had been training to no avail for the King's position because he was fully aware Augustus wouldn't just hand it over without honor and indictment, he was expected since he was the rightful heir, the firstborn, the first everything. The thought of Alex's side of training slipped his mind in the spur of competitive combat.

While they deemed it necessary to show no mercy toward Alexander for their father's appeasement, he insisted on training him so the twins wouldn't take advantage.

"Every day I debate on whether you are worthy or simply driven on being mad." Achilles mumbles lowly to Alexander who laid wordlessly with drifting eyes.

"I believe you could do it. I know one of these days you'll show everyone you has wronged you who you really are." Achilles chuckles.

the twins stiffened from behind him at his words but they only exchanged glances out of interest, out of reaped integrity.

Alexander for the first time relaxes his posture in his brother's arm as soon as the manor came into vision, with his eyebrows knitting together. Then Achilles continues his long encouraging banter,

"When I'm King. I'll show you that Adonis isn't meant to be feared. Nor Lionel, not even father." The young alpha looks into his youngest brother's milky golden eyes seeing his true heroic savior. He thinks to himself admittedly, it was only so much Achilles could do until he couldn't.

So he settled on the false installed hope Achilles gave in his pep talks.

"The black sheep, the residential victor."

...

Vera.

I searched for many answers and even as I've received them I haven't come to a solidified conclusion.

In all my life there had been a disequilibrium between decision making and letting fate decide for me faithfully, but now I needed something,

I needed someone to tell me what to do next.

Heidi had made it clear that everyone's lives had fallen to the palm in my hands and all that was left was contemplating. I have to kill a Lycan to restore a balance that could affect everything.

How is it that a person who stemmed from poverty and not royalty has to determine the next king threw a bond only mates could share? I've registered that inevitably Alexander would accept the throne over countless lives and amounting wolves, I just did not consider a possible fight for it.

"Time is running out, Vera." It is Heidi's voice a reminder, ringing in the back of my head which aches from overthinking. "You have to make a decision."

"So a decision, I will."

I muttered with my voice barley being heard but my determination would be felt.

I left the room descending down the stairs, with only one male prolonging within my mind, I needed to find him and Heidi followed so quietly I couldn't tell if she was there or not.

Maybe she wasn't.

Maybe I had nobody.

•••