"It's a winding road, when you're in the lost and found. I'm a runner, you're a lover and we go round and round. And i love you but i leave you. I don't want you but i need you. You know it's you that calls me back here baby." 'Colder Weather' Zac Brown Band

Kaylee smiled as she watched her brother, Vanessa and Faith chasing each other around the yard. She was glad to see Kayleb laughing and smiling again. He had been like a completely different man the last month since fully mating to Vanessa.

"Ugh!" Kaitlyn exclaimed as she slammed the book she was reading down on the table. "It's supposed to be summer vacation. I shouldn't have to read a stupid book and do a stupid report!"

"Huck Finn is not a stupid book. It's a good book." Kaylee replied as she finished braiding one of Gwen's long blond pigtails and started on the second.

"I would rather be watching tv or playing a video game. Or at the mall... You know they have the cutest new pink purse there that would match my new sundress perfectly!"

"Oh no! Somebody take the girl to the store before the perfect pink purse is gone because we all know what a terrible tragedy that would be." Kent teased as he walked out of the house and sat down on the porch.

"Leave her alone." Jordan said in her pixie like voice, as she too walked out and sat down on Kent's lap. "She comes by her obsession with fashion honestly."

"Thank you, Jordan." Bethany said walking out and tossing her glowing blond hair over her shoulder.

"I think she meant that she got it from her daddy." Kent replied.

"Gee thanks, Kent." Greg said as he walked out and Kent strained his neck to look up at the tall skinny man and nodded.

"No problem, Greg." Bethany glared at Kent.

"You're such a troll." she said.

"You keep talking so sweet to me princess and I might just have to switch mates."

"You all behave. Every one of you is over one hundred years old, now act like it." Rebecca scolded as she stepped out onto the porch.

"Not me!" Kaitlyn said.

"Or me." Kaylee agreed.

"No me." Gwen piped up. Suddenly thunder sounded in the distance and the sun seemed to be swallowed up by the big black clouds moving in.

"Come on in everybody. It's getting ready to storm and I have dinner ready." Rebecca said quickly. Kaylee finished Gwen's pigtail and watched the girl follow everyone else inside, leaving Kaylee alone on the porch.

Kaylee walked off the porch and out into the yard as the summer wind grew cooler against her bare arms. She pulled down the bottom of her tank top and hugged herself tightly. The bright sunny day had quickly turned into a dark and dreary one. Kaylee gave a humorless laugh as she realized the day was a little like her. One moment she was happy and feeling blessed as she enjoyed her family and the next she was thinking about the loss of her parents and Damien's month long absence and she would feel suddenly sad and gloomy.

She missed her parents almost desperately. She knew that the other adults in the family missed them as well but they all had mates and children of their own to share their pain and little Gwen was too young to miss her mom and dad.

It was hard to believe that Kaylee felt alone when she was always surrounded by so many people but alone is exactly how she felt. She missed Damien. Never before had he been gone this long without at least a five minute visit to check on her. She was worried about him but she knew there was no way to know whether or not he was okay.

"You okay?' Hunter's voice broke through her thoughts as he walked up toward the house from the barn.

"Yeah." she replied giving him a reassuring smile. Hunter stuck his thumbs in his belt loops and stood there awkwardly for a minute. "Uh.. I don't do real good with words Kaylee but everybody is worried about you. You want to talk about anything?" Kaylee looked at her cousins mate and shook her head.

"No, I'm okay." she replied. Hunter nodded and Kaylee could tell he was relieved that she wasn't going take him up on his offer. A fat droplet of rain landed on the brim of his stained brown hat and he gave her a dimpled smile.

"We better get on in the house or we're going to get pretty darn wet." he said and Kaylee looped her arm through his and let her lead him inside.

888

"Was it worth it, Damien?" Rotan asked coldly. Damien did not reply because he knew if he opened his mouth his screams of pain would escape. He could her the steady drip drip drip of his blood on the stone castle floor. Wind was beating and echoing off the castle walls as lightning bolts of pain shot through his body.

Rotan held the blood covered knife up as he shook his head.

"I will never understand you, big brother. Father gave you everything and yet you refused to take your place as a demon prince. You forced him to denounce you as his heir and still you insist on acting in such a way that earns you these punishments." Rotan lowered the knife back to Damien's stomach and drove it deep into Damien's already mutilated body.

Damien clenched his jaw as his veins popped out and his face turned red. Sweat covered his body as he pulled against the chains holding him to the stone table. Thirty days he had been enduring this pain as his brother would mutilate his body and then allow him to heal, only to mutilate it again.

"You have been denounced as a demon prince. You are no longer permitted to use the royal magic, Damien. Did you think father would not sense it when you used that immortality spell? We may not know who you used it on but I can guarantee I know why. It is because you have grown soft."

Damien's entire body shook with the force he was using to keep from crying out in pain as he glared at his younger brother.

"Are you angry?" Rotan asked with curiosity. "I have never felt anger. It must be a side effect of living among the 'lower beings'." Damien turned his face away from Rotan and looked at the wall beside him. He heard a wet, splashing sound as something, most likely an organ, rolled from his body and fell to the ground.

"Perhaps it... is a side effect... of being tortured by....my own....brother." Damien gasped between the waves of pain.

" Was that humor or do they call it sarcasm?" Rotan shook his head. "Humor and anger. You have been among the lowers for too long. Come back home, Damien. Take your place beside father and I."

"Nothing has....changed Rotan... I will not... kill innocents.... That.. Makes me useless... in father's eyes...."

"That makes you foolish Damien." Rotan replied as he pulled the knife blade away and wiped it on his leather pants. "I will see what father wishes to do with you now that your thirty day punishment as been completed."

Rotan turned and walked out of the dungeon chamber, shutting and locking the metal door with a thud.

Damien allowed an angry yell of pain to escape from him now that he was alone. His heart thundered in his chest and the pain worsened as his blood poured from his body. He knew his body would not heal quickly. His brother had given him a drug to worsen the pain and hamper his healing. It would take days before he was fully healed and pain free. That is, if they stopped his torture today.

He closed his eyes against the pain and nausea and let himself picture his beautiful wolf's face in his mind. Her light freckles, her soft red hair. Everything about her was soft and warm, and the hard, cold demon inside of him craved to be close to her.

The metal door opened with a click and Damien heard Rotan's footsteps walking toward him, splashing in the pools of blood on the stone floor.

"Father says you have served your punishment and you are free to go." Rotan said as he unhook the chains from Damien's wrists and ankles. Damien used all his strength to rub his sore swollen wrists. Sitting up or moving was impossible thanks to his shredded abdomen.

"Father also says you have to leave immediately. You are not permitted to stay here any longer."

"I cannot leave.... if I..... cannot move." Damien replied. Rotan shrugged.

"Not my problem." he replied with a sneer.

"Now.... Who is... getting emotional?" Damien asked and Rotan gave him a cold smile.

"Goodbye brother." he said. He snapped his fingers and several sub demons walked into the room. "Throw him out of the castle." Rotan said and then he turned and stalked away with his long black coat whipping around his lean legs.

The subs wasted no time in throwing Damien from the castle and out into the freezing, arctic cold. He looked down at his naked body as he lay helpless in the thick white snow that he was quickly turning red. Mercy toward a son was not something that his demon father would ever even consider feeling.

Damien grimaced when he saw that his stomach was a mess of blood and cuts.. There was nothing holding his insides in and the frigid temperatures were quickly freezing his organs. He had to get somewhere warmer... Somewhere where he could lay safely a few days and heal from his thirty days of torture.

He was tired... His eyes barely remained open as he thought of where to go. He decided on his home near the equator because that seemed like the warmest location. He lost consciousness as he dashed and the last image to pass through his failing mind was Kaylee's smiling face.