Prologue
He was angry, frustrated, and tired of being controlled. He was the king of the wolves! He should be able to do what he wanted, but he would never be able to as long as they lived. Who were the Rossa to rule over the monarchy? The rule of the wolves should be under the fist of the king, including the hidden Rossa Wolves, a pack allowed to destroy kingdoms in the name of peace. They had been created to stop him from having absolute rule, but that was just about over.
He and his Beta rode quietly through the kingdom. The order had been given when they learned that the next Rossa Queen was about to be born, but he would make sure that she never had a true mate, as the only male who could mate a Rossa queen had to be born between 3 and 6 hours after her in the Alabaster Kingdom.
The Rossa queens were always mated to a male from the Alabaster kingdom, and though there were many wolf packs around the world, only an absolute, a member of the royal country the could be mated to the demon queens, the only people with the power to destroy the best of the best. Without her mate, the next queen would be weakened, and when she came, to do the job of the Rossa pack, keeping the Albrite pack in line, his son, the current crown prince, would defeat her and they would finally have total rule of the entire wolf kingdom. The Albrite wolves would reign supreme with no one strong enough to stop them.
The announcement was made as the court bell rang. The Rossa crown princess had been born and her mate would be the next Albrite infant male born in the kingdom, as his queen was not near her due date yet. This was unfortunate but worked out better than the king had planned. The Rossa Queen was normally be mated to the third prince of the Albite kingdom, but if there was no third prince, the first male born in Albrite, after the new queen took her first breath, would become her mate, and as everyone in the Albrite pack was related, from the crown to the field, the bloodline remained shared between the two packs. But the next queens mate, whoever it was, would not live long enough to take more than one breath and she would never be strong enough to overthrow the current regime.
The midwives throughout the kingdom were ready to carry out their murderous orders, to kill every male child born in the next 6 hours, the time allotted for the birth of the child who would be mated to the new queen. He was not taking any chances. Yes, it would sadden the kingdom and take away potential warriors, but this handful of male infants was no loss in comparison to the strength and ultimate power to be gained.
As the kingdom began to rejoice the birth of the hidden Rossa princess, the Alabaster king felt a tug at his mate bond. Something wasn’t right. He felt worry and distress filtering into the bond from his queen, and even though she did not reach out for him, her distress was evident.
He waited atop his horse, in the streets of the city, listening to the mourning of the mothers birthing babies said to have died, but he heard nothing until a scream filled his mind and soul, a scream that almost blinded him urging him to ‘come home’! At that exact moment the king and his beta heard the cries of a baby born nearby. His beta went to the house nearest the gates leading onto the royal grounds, and congratulated the warrior couple on the birth of their daughter.
Again the queens scream filled his head, almost bursting the link, “Come Home! He’s coming!”. The link closed immediately after that, he couldn’t even push through to ask what was going on. “What?”, he whispered aloud to himself, “It’s too early!”. There was no way his son was… “Vernon, we need to get back to the castle! Now!” Vernon moved and mounted his horse without thought. He had never heard his best friend sound so frantic. Even the planning of the murder of the children had not stirred emotion in him. Quickly they sped toward the castle moving as fast as they could force their mounts to move, no longer hearing the scattered cries of the families mourning the deaths of their newborn sons.
The link had shifted. He could feel her distress, her worry, and the physical pain. He had felt this before, well the pain and worry, with their first two princes, and he had expected to feel it again with the third prince, the prince he was working hard to make sure would remain in Albrite and never be used to strengthen the Rossa guardians. He thought they had dodged a bullet when the expected time of birth for the new Rossa princess was two months before the due date of the third prince. His wife had cried as she realized that her son would not be born in time and their reign could end because of it. But he had other plans, plans that would keep his line on the throne indefinitely.
As he ran through the castle, contemplating on all he had done, his wife’s voice whispered in his mind, “He’s here.” There was no emotion attached to the statement, like he expected, just the blandness of the words. His steps faltered for a moment, wondering what had happened, and then it hit him. The midwives! The eery silence in the family hall erupted into screams and howls, his wife the loudest of them all. “No… no”, slipped from his lips, the whisper of a whisper, and he knew. The wails of his wife and the women in the room were deafening, only one stood silent, staring at him with the tiny wrapped bundle in her arms. She had done as she was told, his son was dead. Her eyes did not plead with him and even as he wanted to kill her on the spot, he could not, the murderer of his son, sanctioned by he, himself.
He ran to the bed, looking past the bloodied sheets, and held his wife. “Your Highness, my lady, would you like to…”, her words were cut off in her throat as she shifted the blanket from his tiny face. The queen leaned quickly and kissed his cool pale skin, never removing the infant from the midwifes arms. As she laid back, continuing to cry softly, her face pressed into her husband chest, the midwife held the infant towards the King. With his head held down he glared at her, but the glare pierced his souls. He could hear the cries of others whose sons had died this night, their breath taken away from them by his command. He reached forward barely touching the blanket, then pulled his hand back. “Go”, was all he spoke, knowing he had no right to look upon his son. The third prince, his son, the fated of the Rossa princess was dead, and it was his fault.
_At the Rossa Kingdom_
She was beautiful. Her skin was already bronzed and the crown of her head covered with curly ink black hair. The Queen and the Prince consort, younger brother to the current King of the Alabaster wolves, were overjoyed and cooed over the nursing infant. Soon they would get the news that the princesses fated had been born and the envoy would head out with the gifts due and the prince would be honored and welcomed into the Rossa kingdom. Though he would not live, or even see the kingdom until the wedding, he would know the importance of his status and who he was destined to be, placing him above the King and Queen of Alabaster.
The Rossa queen looked over at her husband, who was staring lovingly at his daughter remembering their conversations when he first arrived in Brazil. He had told her what his former kingdom, home, was like, and when she questioned if he would be able to adjust, he, at the tender age of 18, had looked into her eyes and told her, “Alabaster was never my home, you were.” She had been so blessed and hoped it would be the same for their daughter. They already knew her fated would be a commoner as the Alabaster queen was not due yet. Sadly, this meant that the monarchy of Alabaster would soon change as the fated of the princess was to be raised a royal, his family taking the monarchy within the next week, and the current royal family to be set aside. It was unfortunate, but it was the sacred plan and it had always worked.
When the princess was three hours old the bells began to ring. The new prince had been born! The Rossa envoy was already prepared to head to Albright after the celebration to assist with the transfer of power. The streets had been filled with their people at the birth of the princess who had waited for this very announcement. The party had begun! The music was starting and the fireworks were sure to follow. The queen and the chamber had been cleaned and soon they would be taking their sleeping child to the window. Tired or not, she was a Rossa and the queen would take the baby to meet her subjects on the balcony.
As they were preparing the blankets, the infant began to scream as if she were being torn apart! Her father cradled her gently, but she squirmed and continued to scream as if his touch hurt her! The queen was making her way to them when the doctor looked at the infant, took her and quickly laid her down in the bassinet. “What’s wrong with her?”, the queen and her husband cried out, desperately wanting to soothe their screaming child. The doctor looked back, his eyes wide, with black flecks becoming prominent, letting everyone know that his wolf was near the surface. In a deeper voice, the voice of his wolf, he told them what he himself could not believe, “She’s shifting”. Everyone had already exited the room, so only the parents heard. Each of them tried to say something but not one of them could. All of their wolves had come to the forefront, though not totally pushing them away.
The voices of the three wolves spoke together, “Soothe her, touch her, encourage her as if she were 18 and having her first shift. She is not an infant right now, do what you know to do!” The parents, as if in a daze, went into the motions of parents who were helping their young adult child shift. Their wolves causing them to forget the child was only 3 hours old, as the wolves called out to the pup pressing to come forth. This was unheard of and had never happened in the history of the werewolves! The shock was apparent, but they continued to soothe and encourage the shift, their wolves holding back the trauma, even as they were shocked themselves.
While the parents and the doctor continued with the infant, the royal beta burst into the room, her voice like thunder. This was not a time for tenderness, this was a crisis, and she could not contain her distress as she cried out, “The royal consort, third prince of Alabaster has died!” No sooner were the words out of her mouth, the infant let out a final loud cry and shifted! The wine red pup struggled to stand and the wolves of the king and queen began to surge forward but were held in a half shift, half humanoid, half wolf. As the cries of the people went up, the pup lifted its tiny snout to the air and howled in mourning for the loss of her mate.
When she had howled twice more the pup fell to her side, in the bassinet, and began to writhe in pain once again. “How do I tell her to picture herself human?!”, the current royal consort cried out, wishing he could shield her from the pain of shifting back. The Queen felt a blast of energy into the top of her head with a whisper riding on it making her head feel as if all creation had slammed into it, whisper she instantly knew was from the One Father. The words she heard would have caused her to pass out if she wasn’t a mother. “Oh, my god, my goddess”, over and over these words fell from her lips as she grabbed her husband’s hand and pulled them out of the bassinet.
“No one touch her. Pray, but don’t touch her!”
“No, I won’t let her die! Not like this!”, her husband bellowed.
It was rare that the queen spoke harshly to her husband, but the whisper, “DO NOT TOUCH HER!”, she cried out, with the strength of her wolf behind the command, a command he could not fight, a command she never thought she would ever give to him.
The wolf pup looked as if it was seizing, then the shift began, but the shift did not happen like it should. They saw the human infant but the pup was not becoming the human, the human was coming out of the pup! In mere seconds there were two babies in the bassinet. The human and her wolf lay side by side, exhausted and barely able to whimper. There was no time to be shocked. The queen, still in a half-shift, something also new, made her way back to her bed calling to her husband and the doctor to bring the babies to her, quickly.
As her beta, and best friend, helped the young queen get situated the baby and the pup had been bundled and were soon placed into her waiting arms. She did not know what came next but she was a mother now and she knew her babies needed to eat. The suckling of the two were the only joyful noises to her ears even as the mourning in the street continued for the fallen prince. There would be time to wonder later.
