Fated to the cruel Lycan king

Chapter 3

For two days after that night, I pleaded, cried and begged him to let me go, but he got more and more irritated with me each time I asked.

I wanted to beg more but I hardly ever got to see him around the palace.

The guards kept me confined to my room for fear that I would try to escape.

Everyday Sarah would come with trays of food for me, then she would proceed to tell me about their history, lands and customs for hours.

I didn’t care about their lands and customs, I just wanted to go home.

One day I finally had enough and snapped at her.

“Why are you wasting your time telling me all these things?!”

“The lord requested that I should teach you our history, ways and customs.” She replied.

“Why?” I asked, puzzled. “Why waste time teaching a prisoner your history?”

“I don’t think the lord considers you a prisoner child, he asked me to teach you how things are because you will soon begin your duty as his personal Slave ”

“What? his personal slave?” I asked in surprise, I thought he would dump me in a random place somewhere in the castle and leave me to rot.

I thought he would hate looking at or seeing me.

In truth, I was a little relieved that he would be giving me a job that would allow me access to him.

It meant I could still find a way to convince him of my innocence.

“You are very lucky the master is kind enough to let you stay here.” Sarah told me.

I snorted at that, ”your master is only keeping me prisoner here because he suspects i’m a spy. So he’s punishing me for trespassing.” I replied sarcastically.

She frowned hard at my words.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing, its just that the Lord is not known to keep any prisoners at all, most especially spies”

“Really? What does he do with spies or people that offend him then?”

“He kills them”…she replied back with a casualness like it was the most normal thing in the world to have a killer for a King.

After 3 days I was allowed to take a walk in the royal gardens.

The garden was so big that it would take you half a day to walk from one end of the garden and back.

It was very beautiful and artfully designed.

I was busy admiring a particular beautiful plant when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand… like someone was watching me.

I looked around and caught the Supreme Grand Lord Arthur looking at me through one of the upstairs windows. He didn’t look away even though I had caught him staring.

He kept staring at me until I felt too self conscious so I quickly moved away from his line of sight.

That day at the Garden, I met another boy my age. He was a handsome boy with a kind smile. He showed me the different types of plants and showed me how to water them.

He made jokes that made me laugh and for the first time since the lord kidnapped me, I felt a little joy.

But that Joy did not last.

Later that same night as I was changing in my room, the door suddenly slammed open, I screamed and hurried to cover myself.

I turned ready to unleash hell on the intruder, but I stopped in my tracks, shocked to see lord Arthur at the door of my room, looking at me with an intense fire in his eyes.

That was the first time he had ever come to my room.

“Can you knock before barging into a Ladies room? Or are you here to peep at me while I change?“

I was too annoyed to remember that I was talking to a dangerous man that could have me killed.

He snorted “You, a lady?” he laughed.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I have seen countless ladies much prettier than you, and they are always more than willing to throw themselves at me. You are just average looking at best.”

“What do you want!” I snapped at him, feeling embarrassed to hear what he thought about my looks.

“Stay away from that boy” he snapped. I didn’t spare your miserable life to have you shamelessly flirt with the servants.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Why, Why do you care?” I challenged.

“Are you worried he would make me happy while you try your best to make me miserable?”

His eyes flashed with anger,

“I’m warning you, don’t test my patience Erica.”

“Or what?!” I taunted.

His eyes suddenly glowed red, reminding me again of the demon that chased me the night I ran into Elron forest.

I jumped back in shock and fear.

“Don’t tempt me Erica”, he growled.

“you wont like what I will do to you ”

With that he turned and slammed the door.

I didn’t go back to the garden for a long time after that.

———————————————————

I have been held captive in Grandor for one week now.

Every day I wonder what’s going to happen to me.

A day ago, I started working as Master Arthur’s personal slave. I was tasked with cleaning his rooms and running errands for him.

Sometimes when I come to clean his quarters, he would drop whatever book he was reading or whatever letter he was writing and he would just stare at me as I worked.

I would try to ignore him most of the time, but I could always feel his gaze on my back while I worked.

I would try to work as fast as I could and run out of the room.

Not because I was scared of him, but I was scared of how his gaze made me feel.

I would sometimes feel an unfamiliar tingling in my belly when he looked at me a certain way. A way that made me think of him much more than I liked.

So I tried to avoid meeting him at all.

That wasn’t hard to do at all. He was usually very busy every day so, I hardly saw him during the day, but we always met at dinner.

He had instructed that I always serve him dinner, and he made sure I would wait at his side until he finished it.

We never said anything to each other, whenever we talked it was usually me begging him to free me and him always saying no

When I wasn’t serving him, I spent most of my time exploring the huge castle and making friends with the people working there. It was a truly magnificent palace and the people here were mostly kind .

I quickly found the palace library and started to spend all my free time there. That was where Master Arthur found me that fateful afternoon.

He was looking as handsome as ever, his beautiful dark hair hanging around his face.

“We will be having guests join us for dinner tonight. Wear something nice".

That was all he said before leaving and slamming the door behind him.

I sighed in frustration. He had an annoying habit of ordering me around whenever he felt like it and it was really getting on my nerves.

Wait… why did he say we? The guests were joining Him for dinner, he was the one who would eat while I watched.

I shook my head at his absurd behavior.

As I got dressed for dinner that evening, I asked Sarah about the guests we were meeting.

“Oh the flowers of the east.” Sarah exclaimed excitedly.

“The what of the what?" I asked, intrigued.

“Your guests, they are called the flowers of the east.

They are two of the prettiest, smartest, most graceful women of the kingdom. They are both daughters of two powerful kings of the east. It's rumored that the Lord is supposed to marry one of them”. Sarah said, giggling excitedly.

“You seem very happy at the idea.” I muttered darkly.

“Of course! The Supreme lord has been alone for too long. He always tries to hide it, but he gets quite lonely some nights.”

I tried to picture the proud lord looking lonely and having some sad emotions. But remembering his proud look and his emotionless eyes, I couldn’t quite believe her words.

I quickly found out that Sarah was not exaggerating the beauty of our guests, if anything, she was underrating it.

The two ladies were not just beautiful, they were stunning.

Victoria.. or vicky, as the lord seemed to enjoy calling her, was tall with dark hair and a snobbish look.

She was very rude and kept ordering me back and forth from the kitchen every other minute. She would fit the lord quite nicely. They can be proud snobs together.

Liza, her companion, was a petite blond with kind eyes. She was polite to me and didn’t order me about.

Victoria on the other hand was extremely rude. Constantly eyeing me and once during the dinner, she “accidentally” spat wine on me saying that the drink was too warm.

But I could see from her smirk that it was no accident.

All the while Lord Arthur just smiled politely at them.

The dinner was over quickly enough and I heaved a sigh of relief.

I was ready to run back to my room when Vicky turned to look at me.

"Erica …come with us, I need a lady's assistance."

I turned to Lord Arthur hoping that he would save me from whatever wicked plans she seemed to have for me.

But of course he said nothing.

I hesitantly followed her to her room.

The minute we reached her door, she whipped around to face me.

“Stay out of my way.”! She yelled at me.

“What? You just told me to follow you!” I exclaimed

“Stay away from Arthur.”

“WHAT?! I despise him”

“Oh please” She scoffed at me. “You may think you’re fooling everyone here, but I see you for what you are. Consider this a friendly warning Erica.I always get what I want and what I want is Arthur”

With that she strode into her room and slammed her door.

I felt anger build up in me and burst like a dam.

I was rejected by my mate, humiliated by my village, kidnapped and held against my will by a cruel King. Now this stuck up princess was trying to start a war with me?

Why did everyone feel like they could just do anything they wanted with me and go free?

The memory of King Arthur's words came rushing up in my mind. And I felt a fresh raw wave of anger wash over me.

At that moment I decided, I would show them, I would show all of them they could no longer control and hurt me anymore.

If it was war she wanted, it was war she would get.

I went to sleep that night with a lot of naughty plans brewing in my head.

“Well Victoria... let the games begin”.