The Alpha King's Claim

Chapter 74

The Alpha King’s Claim chapter 74 by desirenovel

Aero

“We agreed there would be no girls here,” my twelve-year-old self cried out in disappointment when I

saw my long-time friends Adamar and Adaen approach me with a tiny creature in tow. A pipsqueak. So

easy to crush, so frail-looking. Wearing a white ankle-length dress and sporting a short hair, she hid

behind the twins who obviously towered her.

My fae friends and I decided we wouldn’t admit a girl into our circle, much less into our hangout spot,

but look at them now. They had broken their promise and I was left complaining about it.

Adamar, the older twin, tossed an arm over my shoulder and flashed his pearly whites at me.

“Let Ysanna be an exemption, Prince Aero.”

“Yeah, she’s our future boss,” added Adaen.

I lifted a brow at them, disgusted at the sudden idea in my head and disgusted at the tiny creature with

saucer-like hazel eyes with bits of green and purple still looking at me.

“Why? Are you two going to marry her?”

“What?” the two chorused.

“No! Yuck,” cried Adaen.

Adamar on the other hand laughed, releasing me and doubling over. They sure know the idea of

marriage despite their young age and well, I was the same too and this was one of the reasons why we

clicked, turning to friends immediately despite us as different species.

“She’s too fragile to become our wife,” Adaen explained. “Plus, she can’t marry. She’s to become the

High Priestess of our realm.”

“A priestess eh? That’s weird,” I remarked, then left it at that, transferring my attention to the box I

brought with me still lying on the grass.

“What do you want to do now?” Adamar asked, following me.

“Father brought this game from Earth. You want to try it?” I told him, raising a board game called

‘Snakes and Ladders’ high up in the air.

“Sure! Let’s play!” Adaen butted in, leaving the pipsqueak behind a tree trunk, alone and staring at us.

It was freaky, but I just ignored her…

The images blurred gradually and I was brought to another memory of my childhood. This time, I was

two years older, growing taller than my fae friends. My mother still continued her illicit affairs with the

male servants in the castle and father was either trying to keep a blind eye to it or he just wasn’t aware

of her immorality. I frequented Salviste Lake to escape my mother and her crazy group of

handmaidens. I considered myself lucky to be able to escape them even. This place was my only

solace. I could play around the golden lake and be myself. Be at peace.

“Why are you here? Where’s Adamar and Adaen?” I asked, looking down at a crouching form behind a

cotton shrub next to the biggest tree in the lake. Ysanna glanced up but didn’t answer me. I could see

her sobbing though, nonstop tears streamed down her flushed cheeks.

“I hate girls. I hate crybabies. I hate crybaby girls,” I announced, sneering at her.

I left her alone, but since she was hiding in a spot where I loved to take a nap, I wasn’t able to truly

leave her.

Two hours later, she was still sobbing. It somehow hit my conscience.

“Are you hungry?” I asked, peeking through the leaves and stems.

She wiped her eyes dry and nodded slowly.

“Here, eat it all,” I handed her half a loaf of bread that I pulled out from my satchel. “Don’t waste it.”

She grabbed the bread, sniffed it before taking a bite. I felt good as I watched her do it. With a small

smile leaking from the corner of my lips, I turned around and left her spot. For two years since I met this

freaky girl, never had I heard her voice.

Not until now.

“Th—ank you,” I heard a soft voice say.

Looking back, my eyes rounded and my mouth gaped.

“So you really can speak,” I exclaimed.

Crouching down to her level again, I stared at her and asked, “Are you afraid of me? Is that why you

didn’t want to talk?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she continued munching.

“You didn’t need to be afraid of me. Yes, I hate girls but I guess, you’re an exemption.”

She looked up and inside those big hazel eyes, I saw a flicker of gratitude.

“You don’t seem to be the same as those handmaidens who maltreat me,” I sat down near her and

gazed at the calmness of the lake. “You’re harmless so you’re good. In fact, you look so weak that I

want to protect you.”

“Pro…tect me?” she asked softly, still chewing her food.

“Yes, protect you,” I nodded and smiled towards her way. This was ever the first time I showed

kindness to the opposite sex ever since I promised to hate them.

Ysanna didn’t reply. Silence reigned around us until I decided to change the subject.

“Do you have parents?”

“N…o,” she muttered whilst shaking her head.

“What no?” I asked. “You mean you don’t have a father and mother because they’re dead?”

“Mother is dead,” she explained, her eyes starting to show sadness.

It was too late for me to backpedal now. Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“And your father?” I continued.

I waited for her to share anything, but she didn’t anymore. Again, silence was her constant answer.

This should have irritated me, but it didn’t. I pitied her instead.

I didn’t ask any more questions to her that day. I just continued to sit next to her as she observed the

golden lake and the bugs playing around it.

This had been our routine for the next week until the twins finally showed up.

“Her father is rumored to be a knight but nobody knows who he is,” Adamar explained as I asked him

about Ysanna’s parents. “She’s an orphan but she’s a special orphan because of her mother. She’s the

queen’s older sister. That’s why she is groomed to become the High Priestess.”

“Is she even allowed to go outside?” I asked again.

Adaen and Adamar exchanged glances and sighed. “Actually, no,” confessed Adamar. “She is

supposed to stay strictly inside the Rexhus Tower. We just took the liberty of giving her a chance to see

the outside world by bringing her here. One of the elders guarding her is our mother. She gives us

freedom although she knows its forbidden.”

“And those times that you two weren’t here?” I fitted the pieces of the puzzle.

“I think she escapes, Prince Aero,” Adaen replied. “We don’t know how she does it, but she escapes.”

He scratched his head and glanced at Ysanna who was happily playing with some rainbow-colored

species of bug I had never seen before in the lake. She was with a feline-looking creature too, with

midnight blue fur and coiled tail. The twins, as its owner, called it Sprint, and Ysanna had grown fond of

it.

“Then, how about when she gets caught?” A sudden worry filled me for her. This was ever the first time

I was concerned for the welfare of a girl, or the opposite sex for that matter.

Again, the twins exchanged glances. “We don’t know, actually,” they answered, lowering their heads,

“but what we do know is that they punish her.”

“But I don’t see any bruises on her face, arms, or legs,” I knotted my brows.

“Fae punishment varies, Prince Aero. Who knows what the elders do to her in that tower,” Adamar

announced. I sensed worry in the twins too and a certain degree of acceptance. Acceptance that they

couldn’t do anything for this girl except to give her some few glimpses of freedom…

Again, this memory blurred slowly and what replaced it was another which really hit me hard. It was the

last day I saw her.

“Adamar and Adaen?” I asked, sitting next to her on our now-favorite spot under the gigantic tree.

Ysanna was still the same. She wore the same-colored dress. Still weak and thin. Still with short hair.

Still a pipsqueak. But like me, she was also growing, but I just couldn’t imagine what she’d look like

when a fully grown woman. Probably, she’d turn out to be the most beautiful fae I’d ever meet.

“They are in training again, sorry,” she answered, now using short but full sentences.

“Don’t be,” I showed her a smile. “I like it when it’s just the two of us here. Those twins always cause a

ruckus.”

She giggled and for a moment, I found that it was the best damn sound I had ever heard in my young

life.

“You never told me why you keep on coming here,” I stated, still watching Sprint doing its usual playful

activities with the bugs along the shore.

“I like it here. I get to relax,” she answered. Drawing her knees together, she rested her head on it and

stared at her pet. Since she liked Sprint so much, Adamar and Adaen gave it to her. I was there when

they did it and I got to see a big smile on her face, something that was rare.

“That’s all?” I asked over my shoulder with some kind of hope bubbling inside me. Hope for what? I

wasn’t sure what.

“Yeah, I guess that’s all,” she muttered softly with a faraway look on her face.

I remained silent and she did too until an hour after when I heard her sob.

“Why are you crying?” I asked, suddenly feeling alarmed.

“The elders…they force me in many tasks I don’t want to do. It’s overwhelming,” she cried out.

I frowned and stood up in front of her.

“You should fight back then! Don’t allow yourself to be bullied. Stand up if you think it’s the right thing to

do!”

I was speaking by experience. I fought back. I tossed my weak self and found ways to escape from my

mother’s twisted games.

A sense of realization shown brightly in her eyes as I said it.

“Thank you, Prince Aero. I’ll keep your words to heart.”

After wiping her tears dry, she bent down and picked up a stone near her feet. It was that kind of stone

affected by the elements of both realms: the roughness of Phanteon and the luminous quality of

Ehnrelil. She handed it to me and said, “A gift, as a sign of our friendship.”

’Friendship,′ the word rang in my head. Then and there, I realized, it wasn’t the kind of relationship I

wanted to have with her. My mature state of mind wanted more. I wanted to possess her. I wanted to

own all of her.

But, I saw it a damned idea in the end. She was to become a priestess and such position entailed her

being free from any forms of relationship.

“Yes, friends. We will be friends forever,” I told her with a pained smile. I accepted the stone and placed

it in my coat pocket, treasuring it that very moment.

“I’m going to give you a gift too. Will you come back here tomorrow?” I asked.

She quickly nodded. “Yes, I will. It’s a promise.”

‘A promise…’ I thought with utter disappointment. Ysanna never came back after that or on any other

days thereafter. Adamar and Adaen were the same, but their absence didn’t impact me as much as

hers did.

Days after, I found out from my father that the realm of the faes had closed their world for good. This

would have been an understandable reason why she didn’t show up anymore, but still, I couldn’t accept

the fact that she broke her promise that easily.

She could have used whatever power she had, that same one when she escapes her tower, but she

didn’t. Instead, she left me with a false hope and that broke my young heart so much that it added to

my already growing hatred of women. I felt deceived. I felt betrayed.

I had shut myself after that. Deciding to never again be fooled by a female.

Returning to the present, I cringed. How ironic it was to be slapped in those same words again right on

the face.

Serena stared at me filled with love in her eyes. Awarding me a gentle smile, she slowly sat up and

reached to touch my face.

“Aero…” she stated.

Now that I was wiser, I realized her voice was of the same quality as before, only now it dripped with

confidence.

Her hand moved to trace my jaw just like she usually would after a good sleep, until…her eyes slowly

rounded with recognition.

“Aero!” she cried out, her mouth opening wide in surprise.

I grinned at her, my eyes turning dark with quiet rage and delicious mischief.

“You’ve grown, pipsqueak.”