OURS: The Hunted Prince

Chapter 2:The Hunt

_ZANE POV_

We ran through the forest. My legs were numb. My chest burned with every breath, but I couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. If I stopped, I’d see them. Mum’s blood. Dad’s head. Ariel’s tiny body. _Alpha blood spilled by family._

So I ran.

Ragnar’s heavy footsteps pounded beside me, his armor clanking a desperate rhythm. “Prince, we need to rest,” he finally gasped, pulling me behind a massive oak. “Just for a moment.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My throat was raw from screaming.

“I’m going to scout the rocky mountain,” Ragnar said, scanning the treeline. “Water. And danger. Stay here. Stay hidden. If I mindlink, you run. Understand?”

I nodded. Lying. I couldn’t run anymore.

He vanished into the trees, and I collapsed against the oak. The bark bit into my back through my torn birthday tunic. And it hit me.

Mum’s blood, soaking into her blue gown. The same blue as Ariel’s favorite ribbons. Dad’s head, rolling, stopping at Mother’s feet. Ariel’s tiny body, blue lips, not from moonberry tarts. From death.

_Pine and damp earth. Like Father’s hunting trips. He’d let me ride in front, his arms caging me safe. “A king provides, Zane,” he’d say, hands steady over mine. “A king protects. But first, a king must survive.”_

_My hands shook too much to skin a rabbit now. Father wasn’t here to steady them. Father was dead. And I was the prince who couldn’t even protect his baby sister._

A tear slipped out. _No._ I wiped it fast with a bloody fist. _Be strong. Dad’s last words. Trust no one but yourself._

_Crack._

A branch.

I froze. The forest went silent. No birds. No wind. Then I smelled them.

Wet dog. Steel. Betrayal.

My pack.

“Did you hear that?” The voice made my stomach drop into my boots. Tim. One of Dad’s most trusted guards. The one who taught me how to throw a dagger when I was ten.

He stepped into the clearing, nose to the air. His beta, Mark, flanked him. Then five more. Ten. Twenty. All in partial shift—claws out, eyes glowing gold. Hunters.

They weren’t here to protect me.

“Looking for someone?” Ragnar’s voice cut through the trees like a blade.

He landed between me and Tim, sword drawn, armor splattered with blood that wasn’t his. Not yet.

“Ragnar,” Tim sneered, popping his claws. “The loyal dog. Still playing nursemaid to the cursed prince?”

“Go to hell, Tim.”

“Give us the boy,” Mark said, rolling his shoulders. “King William wants him alive. We’ll even let you walk away, old man. You’ve served your purpose.”

King William. My uncle. The man who swung the sword. They crowned him already.

“Over my dead body,” Ragnar growled.

Then they clashed.

It was twenty against one. But Ragnar was Father’s war general for a reason. He moved like death itself—sword singing, taking a head here, a hand there. Wolves dropped, yelping, shifting back to human as they died. The forest floor turned red.

For a second, I thought he could win.

Then Tim’s claws raked across Ragnar’s back. Deep. Ragnar stumbled. Slowed. Bleeding.

_“My prince,”_ his voice slammed into my head, raw and desperate. _“Run. Don’t stop. Don’t look back.”_

Mindlink. I was 18. The bond had snapped into place the second Dad died. Now I could hear him. Now I understood why Dad said I’d know _them_ when the time came.

_Them_ was everyone.

“Ragnar, no! I won’t leave you!” I screamed, tears blurring my vision.

_“You have to. You’re the last of his blood. You’re the last kitsune. You’re the last hope. I’ll hold them. RUNNNN!”_

The command ripped through my skull. My body obeyed before my heart could argue.

So I ran.

I ran until my lungs tore and my legs gave out and I tasted blood in my mouth. Alpha blood. _My_ blood. I ran until the trees thinned and the air changed. It went from pine and blood to something else. Something cold. Something dead.

I’d crossed something invisible. A border.

My skin prickled. Like someone was watching. Like someone was _waiting_.

And the footsteps behind me stopped.

Silence. The kind that screams.

“And what do we have here?”

I spun, heart in my throat. Red eyes. Everywhere. Floating in the dark between trees. Twenty. Fifty. A hundred.

Vampires.

Their leader stepped forward. Tall. Pale. Black hair like spilled ink. He smiled, and his fangs caught the moonlight. “A werewolf,” he purred. “So far from home. How… _interesting_.”

The air turned heavy.

It pressed on my chest. My lungs. My bones.

A vampire’s thrall.

I couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t move.

“You shouldn’t have crossed,” he whispered, circling me. “Duskmoor territory. No wolf crosses Duskmoor and lives.”

Duskmoor. The Blood Trinity’s kingdom. I’d heard the stories. Bedtime threats. _Be good or the Heirs of Duskmoor will drink you dry._

My knees hit dirt. The world tilted.

Then black.

---

Pain woke me.

Stone. Damp. Silver burning my wrists, my ankles, my throat where a collar sat. The metal seared my kitsune blood. My wolf—still absent—howled in my head, but couldn’t surface. The silver was too much.

Blood in the air. Old blood. Layered. Years of it. Screams were carved into the walls here.

A dungeon.

I slammed my chained fists against the iron door. The silver bit deeper. I didn’t care. “HELLO?! SOMEBODY?! HELP!”

Laughter.

“And what do you think you’re doing?”

Two guards peeled from the shadows. Vampires. Lesser ones. Spawn. Their eyes were flat red, not the glowing crimson of nobility. They grinned, showing all their teeth.

“Since he wants attention,” one said, unlocking my cell, “let’s give it to him. He’s dead once the Blood Princes return anyway.”

_No._

Blood Princes. The Heirs of Duskmoor. The Blood Trinity. Draven, Lucien, Cassius. Three brothers. One soul.

The most dangerous vampires alive. Ruthless. Merciless. Every supernatural child in the world gets threatened with their name. My father used to say it as a joke: _“Finish your venison or I’ll feed you to the Blood Trinity.”_

_Kill by one of them, or get killed by all three._ That was their rule. That was their law.

And I was chained in their dungeon, waiting for them to come home.

Hands ripped my shirt. The sound of tearing fabric was louder than my heartbeat. Cold air hit my chest.

“What a beauty,” one hissed, trailing a claw down my sternum. It drew blood. He licked it off his finger and moaned. “Alpha blood. No—something else. Something sweet.”

“Hold him down,” the other snarled. “I want to taste him first.”

I thrashed. Kicked. Screamed until my voice broke. “No—please, don’t! Please!”

One forced me to my stomach on the filthy stone. My cheek scraped against it. My pants were torn, yanked down to my thighs. Just my briefs left.

I saw their eyes in the torchlight. Hungry. Not for blood. For something worse. Like I was prey. Like I was _nothing_.

One stood behind me. The other loomed in front, lips peeled back over fangs. His eyes dragged over me like I was meat. Like I was _nothing_.

That’s when I stopped fighting.

What was the point? Mum was dead. Dad was dead. Ariel was dead. Ragner was probably dead. I was 18, wolfless, kitsuneless, powerless. I was going to die in this dungeon, and no one would ever know what happened to the last Prince of the Silverfangs.

A cold hand hooked into the waistband of my briefs.

And then—

_BOOM._

The door didn’t open. It _exploded_.

Stone dust and iron shrapnel and screaming filled the cell. For one heartbeat, there was nothing but chaos and the smell of ozone and burnt vampire.

Then... silence.

The weight on me was gone. Torn away. I heard two wet thuds. The guards. Or what was left of them.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even lift my head. The silver was still burning me, and shame was burning me worse.

Three figures stood in the doorway.

Backlit by torchlight. Tall. Broad. Power rolled off them in waves that made my bones ache. The air itself bowed. I couldn’t see their faces. Just silhouettes. Just three pairs of glowing crimson eyes.

Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.

The dungeon air, which had been cold, turned arctic. Turned _absolute_.

And the last thing I heard before darkness took me was three voices, deep and lethal and perfectly in sync, speaking as one:

_“Ours.”_

A/N: THE TRIPLETS HAVE ARRIVED 👑🔥

⚠️ TW: Attempted SA, violence, blood, dungeon scene, captivity

Comment “I THREW MY PHONE” if that ending broke you. Chapter 3 is Draven’s POV 👀