Rescue of the Princess of the North: He was forced to save her and ended up wanting to possess her. 🔞🔥🩸⚔️

(WILLIAM)

I caught sight of the northern walls even before the cold became unbearable.

They always appeared like this: abrupt, heavy… inevitable. Like a memory the world insists on pushing back into your chest, even when you've spent years trying to tear it out.

Gray stone towers tearing through the pale sky.

Flags fluttering in the wind like open—and exposed—wounds that the kingdom displayed with sickly pride.

The castle hadn't changed.

Too large for the battle scars, too lofty for the external and internal cracks. Too convinced it would last forever.

As if it had never destroyed men to continue existing.

My jaw clenched without me realizing it. I only noticed when the muscle began to ache.

Everything there reminded me exactly who they forced me to be… and everything they ripped from me.

And, above all—it reminded me who I was about to see again.

I pulled my hood forward out of habit, not fear. The movement was automatic, but my fingers lingered a second longer, gripping the fabric, as if my body needed that physical barrier between me and the walls.

I learned early on that being seen was the first step to being followed.

And being followed, in the North, almost always ended in bloodshed.

Today… perhaps it would end in something worse.

The hardened ground creaked beneath my worn boots. Each step awakened memories I had buried too deep to touch—and yet they rose, sharp, pressing from within my ribs like something alive trying to escape.

I've walked this path before.

In another life, with another name, with a weight they called honor… and which I carried until it broke me.

Back then, I would have arrived on horseback, escorted by banners, with men marching at my command. The sound of metal. Of reins. Of loyalty.

Today, I came alone.

Without a coat of arms. No title. No permission.

The sword on my back was a symbol of nothing but necessity. I slept with it. I fought with it. I bled with it. Not for justice—I stopped believing in that the day I was thrown away like a useless object—but because surviving means never again allowing anyone to have enough power to destroy you again.

The wind pierced my worn cloak and settled in bones that had known too many battles to complain. Still, I didn't slow down.

I didn't hesitate.

But my fingers flexed once inside my gloves. Cold… or tension. Hard to tell.

The castle might have changed kings.

But nothing changed. The place still breathed decay.

Like the man sitting within those walls.

For a moment—too short to be comfortable—I wondered why I accepted the call.

I could have refused.

I could have disappeared before the messengers found me.

I could have kept running… as I had for years.

But running would mean continuing to live in his shadow. Under his hand. Under his power.

And I refused to run.

Even if it meant returning to the only place that could still make my blood boil before I even crossed the gates.

As I approached the main gate, the guards recognized me.

Not by name—that no longer existed—but by silence.

Men, like me, who survive for a long time, carry something in their gaze and in their secrecy that cannot be learned.

They recognize the same in others.

"Name?" one of them asked, his hand firm on his spear.

I raised my face just enough to be seen. My features etched. My shoulders stiffened before I could even answer.

"I don't have one anymore."

The guard frowned. The other didn't hesitate.

"It's him."

The gate opened.

No greeting.

No announcement.

Just an observation.

William was no longer the King's Knight of Honor.

That truth didn't need to be stated. It was in the details: the absence of the coat of arms on my chest, the fact that no one announced my arrival, the way the guards watched me—too attentive for someone who had once been one of them.

I no longer had my full name either.

William of Athelred had been erased from the records. Only William remained. Too common to be remembered.

Too dangerous to be left in peace.

The throne room remained too large. Spaces like that always hide too many men and too few truths.

The cold seeped through the ancient stones, climbed up my boots, and found shelter in my tired bones. I advanced with measured steps, my body alert, trained to perceive threat where others saw ceremony.

The sword remained on my back—not out of honor, but because no one dared demand that I leave it outside.

Even so, every muscle was ready.

Crowns are not to be trusted.

Much less that one.

The new king—Jhon—observed from atop his throne as one might gaze at something inconvenient… something he would rather eliminate, but still needed to use.

There was no respect there. Only calculation.

I knew men like that well.

Men who believe they own everything… including people.

I held his gaze. Without reverence. Without blinking.

Jhon sensed it as soon as I entered the hall.

The air seemed to contract, heavy, as if something predatory had passed through the doors.

I wasn't walking—I was advancing like an inescapable threat. And, for the first time since I'd seen that bastard wearing the crown, his eyes condemned him: They widened for a second, turning pale as if he had the raw, suffocating impression of being in the presence of death itself.

"You summoned me."

The murmur swept through the councilors like a nervous breath. In the past, that would have been unthinkable. In the past, I would have knelt before crossing half the hall.

"I summoned you," Jhon corrected, his voice too young to carry that throne. "You forgotten who rules this kingdom."

I almost smiled.

The corner of my mouth tensed… but didn't move enough to be called a smile.

"No," I replied. "I just don't care anymore."

A heavy silence fell.

“You took your time,” Jhon said, but his voice trailed off before he finished.

I tilted my head slightly to the side.

“I still haven’t gotten used to obeying orders I don’t respect.”

I saw John stiffen on the throne.

“You stand before your sovereign.”

“No,” I replied calmly. “I stand before a man sitting on something others died to sustain.”

Silence. Cutting.

He forced a thin smile.

“Still arrogant… for someone who could be hanged at any moment.”

I took a step. Slow. Controlled.

The guards reacted before John realized he had retreated half an inch on the throne.

“If you were going to kill me…” I said softly, “you would have already given the order. The truth is more humiliating than that.”

His eyes narrowed.

“And what would that be?”

“You need me.”

The word hung in the air like a blade. He gripped the arm of the throne tightly.

"I need a disposable man."

Hearing that almost made me smile.

"Then choose another. I no longer belong to this kingdom."

Jhon leaned forward, puffing out his chest as if the posture could make him larger than he was.

"But the kingdom still belongs to your past."

I didn't answer. I wouldn't get into that.

But my eyes darkened—deep, still, dangerous. If he wanted to turn that into a threat… I would end it right there.

I realized my hands were clenched into fists when the knuckles began to ache.

Jhon leaned forward, trying to appear larger than he is. Small gesture. Small insecurity.

"My daughter has been kidnapped."

The world narrowed.

For a brutal instant, I felt the primal urge to cross the hall and crush that word in his throat.

Daughter. His blood. His lineage. Everything that belonged to that family carried the same smell of decay.

It wasn't a choice. It never was.

That wasn't emotion. It was an old scar reacting.

My body remained still—too rigid, too silent. But inside, something was tearing me apart.

The same blood ran through all of them. For me… that was enough.

I stopped breathing for three seconds… just to contain what I really wanted to do.

"I'm sorry," I said. I wasn't. "But that's not my problem."

"Eleanor was taken by King Corvinus in the last invasion," he said.

The name hit me like something physical.

I felt a pang in my head before I realized it. The bitter taste rose dry in my throat, instantaneous, involuntary—as if the very sound of it scratched something still exposed inside my chest.

I inhaled, smelling wood, ashes, and wine. I tried to maintain control.

Too late to stop the reaction.

I laughed.

Short. Dry. Humorless.

"You took everything from me," I said, my voice low, too controlled to be calm. "My title. My name. My honor."

I took a step forward.

"And now you want me to risk my life for your heiress?"

"Not for my daughter," he corrected. "For your past."

My body reacted before my mind.

Memories tore through me.

The oath.

The loyalty.

The fall.

The feeling of fury that overwhelmed me as if I were still kneeling in the snow, blood streaming down my face and my most trusted soldier avoiding my gaze as the sword was pulled from my hand and the traitor's name echoed through the kingdom.

The day they ripped me from the world I defended with my own life.

I closed my eyes, breathed.

"She's nothing to me," I said.

"I know," Jhon replied. "That's precisely why I chose you."

"I won't."

"I have enough men to make your life short."

"Then keep your promise and kill me."

He smiled.

"No. I'll arrest you… or remind the kingdoms who you are."

There it was.

The invisible collar.

"Bring my daughter back" he continued "and I'll drop the charges. Your name will be cleared."

The air grew heavy.

The princess of the North.

Daughter of the man who ordered my downfall.

Living symbol of everything that destroyed me.

I thought of refusing, of fleeing, even of the gallows.

"Where is she?"

The question came out before I decided to ask it. My temples ached when I realized it.

"East tower of Arkhaven. Bring her back alive."

I nodded once.

Not out of loyalty.

Not out of compassion.

And definitely not for Eleanor.

When I left the hall, the cold outside seemed less intense than the chill that had settled inside me.

This wasn't a rescue.

It was a sentence.

And the princess…

She would pay for a hatred she didn't even know existed.

But, as I crossed the castle gates, a single certainty formed—cold, precise, impossible to ignore:

I wasn't just going to get her. Something… was already waiting for me, and it wasn't just a premonition.

It was physical.

As if something invisible had dug its fingers between my ribs… and was pulling me gently, insistently, patiently. A silent force, waiting for me to approach of my own accord.

My skin crawled without wind. My body recognized it.

Like a predator recognizes territory… or prey.

And the most disturbing thing wasn't the danger.

It was the unsettling feeling that… I'd known this for a long time.

I only stopped walking when the silence became too heavy to ignore.

I ran my hand forcefully across my face, as if I could crush the bitter taste that name left in my mouth.

I took a deep breath, but the anger didn't leave—it only sank deeper.

"What the hell am I doing? Risking everything… for her? For that bastard's daughter?"

I closed my eyes for a moment. This isn't redemption—it's wrong, and I should have known better.

"Then why does it seem inevitable?"