TO KILL A KING

EIGHT-EYEFORANEYE

KING

We awoke with a jolt to a violent banging from downstairs, in seconds we were up and alert, untangling our sleeping limbs from one another as Cole and I shot each other worried looks whilst we threw on our clothes from the previous day that lay in a crumpled heap beside the bed.

"What's going on?" He hissed, as we flew down the stairs, through the door I could already hear Elijah's shouts. I didn't have time to answer before I was cut off by his screams.

"King hurry!" He cried, I could hear the tears in his tone. Elijah never cried. He rarely even broke his stoic mask. "She's gone!"

Cole reached the door seconds before I did, throwing it open so hard that I felt the whole cabin shake. Ordinarily I would've scolded him however even I could tell that something was critically wrong.

"She's gone king!" He was already pulling me out the door by my arm, and I followed without question. "I can't find her anywhere!"

"Who Elijah? Who's gone?"

"Farrah. I lost her in the woods." His voice cracked as he added. "-And I think she's been taken."

Cole cursed and I felt my heart drop like a lead weight into the pit of my stomach. "Elijah and I will go to the pack house. Cole you wake everyone else and bring them there."

He nodded and took off in the opposite direction as Elijah and I sprinted towards the pack house. Many people were milling about the entrance, all ready to change over from night patrols to morning, all eager and waiting for my command.

They all started to turn though as they saw Cole and I flying towards them. 

As the distance between us closed I climbed the grand pack house stairs so that I stood, elevated above them. I whispered to Elijah, "Go get the rest of them from inside and bring them out here, quickly!"

Before long more than four hundred individuals stood groggily in the sprawling field before me, yawning and wiping their eyes of the last remains of the nights rest.

"Listen up!" I began, and at once every soul fell silent. "Farrah-"

I was interrupted by a blood curdling scream from somewhere past the tree line that caused the entire crowd to turn simultaneously. Elijah tried to move in the direction of the sound but I grabbed his arm. "Don't."

"But It could-"

"Don't." I said grimly, not taking my eyes off of the mouth of the woodland. You could've heard a pin drop, even the birds ceased their calls, the only sound being a distant rumbling. Slowly growing louder. Until it developed into a crescendo of snapping twigs and heavy foot falls.

If I hadn't known any better I would've said that the trees themselves had uprooted and we're moving towards us, at least that's what it looked like. The spaces between the darkness of the tree bark turned black, filled by endless bodies.

I hadn't realised that somewhere along the line I had forgotten how to breath, until my head began to spin and the world tilted dangerously on the edge of oblivious blackness.

My lungs burned bitter fire with every shaky breath I took, but still I held my head high. My people looked to me, and I showed them not to be afraid. 

Together we are strong.

-And then it clicked, as the mass of men emerged from the tree line. Together we are strong. The same words the captured Beta had carved into his ribs.

I felt sick, my stomach twisting violently in on itself as the realisation dawned upon me. This wasn't just any attack. This was revenge.

Grey Ridge.

A white hot pain pierced my heart as I made eye contact with the great mountain of a man that led these beasts. Their Alpha.

"Elijah." I couldn't tear my eyes off the monster of a male. "Go get the prisoner. Chain him up and bring him out."

He gawped at me, not believing I would ask him to go, "I'm not leaving you!"

"Go." I growled. "-And if you see Cole, tell him to take the people down to the bunkers."

The beast before me was a mass of tightly bound muscle and sinew, wrapped beautifully around a heartless body.

I had never seen anything like him before.

His tanned olive skin. His sinful dark hair. His piercing blue eyes that I could already see from here were burning holes of hatred straight through my soul.

I felt as though I might as well have been naked before this man. He already looked as though he could see right through me. I resisted the urge to try to cover myself, to try and make myself as small as possible beneath this man.

Before him I felt exposed, like an open book, like he already knew every single one of my darkest secrets.

They stopped before the pack house, my people parting like the Red Sea for this pack of feral looking men, and even though I stood atop the marble steps I still felt as though I were just a child before this man. I still felt as though I were beneath him. 

The beast within my clawed to the surface, hissing and spitting to get to him but instead I shoved her back down. I refused to admit the horrid realisation that my entire body turned alight with fire before him.

This beast.

This monster.

I wouldn't even acknowledge it, the presence of those secret sparks. I couldn't. Not now. Not ever.

The very being mothers told their pups bedtime stories about, and now I learned that every word of them was true.

From the hint of a jet black tattoo that peaked out from around the collar of his shirt to wrap around his neck, even down to the way he held him self with such... Purpose. 

-Straight, with meaning and conviction.

-But still I didn't cower. I didn't turn away. I didn't even quiver, though inside I was shaking like a leaf so hard that I barely trusted myself to speak.

I refused to convey how I really felt. Instead turning my features into an indifferent mask so that nobody could ever read the weakness that lay hidden beneath.

My voice rang out loud, authoritative, and clear amongst the worried whispers of the pack.

"How can I be of assistance, Alpha.." I trailed off, insinuating that I did not know his name. Which I didn't, Farrah had never got round to telling me.

His eyes narrowed dangerously, by not knowing his name I had also inferred that he was insignificant to me. A nothing. A nobody. 

A sign of disrespect.

Nothing could've prepared me for his voice. 

The power. The resonance. The sheer... ferocity.

"-North." He snarled. His rumble almost caused the floor beneath me to shake, and it's echoing resonance could be felt reverberating off of the tree so that even the blackbirds took flight from their branches. My knees grew weak and I wondered if they would give way, I prayed that they didn't.

"I believe you have something that belongs to me."

"Is that so?" I said coyly. We both knew that I knew exactly what he was talking about, and he didn't look like one for games.

"Where is your King?" He spat the title like it was a bitter taste on his tongue. Like it meant nothing to him, which of course it didn't. Little did he know.

"Bring him here!" He added with a sly hint of a smirk. "-Or he is too much of a coward to face me himself!"

I c****d my head, narrowing my eyes at the man.

Thundered in return, refusing to break eye contact. 

"I am the King."

I didn't look away, I would not submit to him as he deemed a female should. Especially one he felt belonged to him.

A sign of defiance, a sign of authority, and in this case asking for death.

He stared at me for a while and I struggled to hold myself together, despite the creeping cold shiver that crawled down my spine, as his cerulean eyes dragged their way hungrily down my body, before slowly making their way back up to meet my eye once more. I raised my chin a little higher, my countenance only growing colder.

"Is that so?" He asked incredulously, the slightest hint of a smirk on his lips only fuelling the small fire of anger that began to burn inside me. 

He signalled to his men and all of a sudden they threw twelve severed heads to the floor that rolled to the foot of the marble staircase.

I didn't react, didn't even flinch, but I could hear several pack members cry out in agony as they witnessed the remains of a loved one roll to my feet.

A family member. A friend. A father. A son.

Each head had belonged to a live lived, and Farrah's words rang through my mind. 

Somebody's daughter. Somebody's son.

Most notably was the woman who fell to the floor in grief, clutching the severed head of her mate close to her chest above a belly that was swollen with a pup fit to burst.

With great effort I tore my eyes away. I couldn't let him affect me.

I didn't answer his taunt. He didn't deserve an answer if he was going to scrutinise me like that. Did he not think I was worthy? Did he not believe that I won this title rather than being born into it. Maybe it didn't matter, in the end it all came down to blood.

He uttered something to one of the men beside him and I watched in horror as three females emerged from the crowd, all three held at the neck by these savages.

Straight away my eyes locked on her, with her dark curly hair and once rich skin that now looked more grey than brown.

Farrah.

Sweet, innocent Farrah. Along with the two other females from the cells, Rose and Grey, but they didn't matter. Not to me. Not now. Not when next to one of my only friends in the entire world. One of the only people who truly and undeniably understood me, as I did her.

As if on cue Elijah returned throwing the bound prisoner before my feet as I struggled to maintain my composure. I felt Elijah's entire body tense besides me as he spotted her, the smallest sound escaping his lips, akin to a cry of pain.

Now it was his turn not to react. He knew better than to act as if she were important to us. 

That would only get her killed if this man knew exactly what she meant to us.

I grabbed the beaten man before me by his hair, hauling him to his knees before his brother, his head tilted back to let the light shine upon his bloodied face, swollen and barely recognisable.

But he knew it was him.

Like me, he had obviously spent many years learning how to turn his face into an indifferent mask, because to anyone else he would've looked completely emotionless. Not a single feature on his stoic face so much as twitched.

-But I knew.

I knew how he really felt. I could feel it in my gut.

I could feel it through the god bound bond that tied us.

On the inside he was raging. Screaming. Planning a thousand ways to tear my flesh from my bones, -as I was him.

Maybe now that his brothers life was at risk he would take me seriously. 

Elijah handed me the dagger from his shaking palm, that I then held to throat of the beast's brother. 

"Is this what you were talking about?"

I watched as he clenched and relaxed his jaw, his eyes following the single bead of blood that trickled down his dear brother's throat.

"You see.." I said with a snarl, "-I caught your little assassin, and I didn't really appreciate you trying to have me killed."

Pressing the dagger just a little harder to his neck so that there was just a little more crimson to stain his skin as I continued.

"-And now I want retribution."

He said something in a foreign tongue to one of the brutes holding the three women, and he thrust the frail brunette into the Alphas arms. Rose.

He stared me dead in the eye, completely unfeeling as he snapped her neck and she fell to the floor in a crumpled heap. 

An act of war.

Gasps and shouts of fright echoed amongst the pack members and the knot in my stomach clenched a little tighter, praying that Farrah would not be next.

"There will be no retribution." He snarled, stepping over the dead girls body. "You're lucky I'm not taking your pack as payment for harming my brother."

A small groan left the lips of my hostage, he was still clinging to life.. but hardly, only bare threads remained to tie him to the land of the living.

Completely ignoring everything he had just said and done I continued, "In exchange for the safe return of your darling brother I only demand two things."

I could almost see the cogs turning in his head, wether to risk attacking at once, hoping I wouldn't honour my pledge to kill his brother.. Or to wait it out, hear what I had to say, and then possibly even comply to my demands.

He doubted I had the guts to kill a man. I could see it in his eyes. In the way he looked at me, like some pathetic little woman playing Alpha until her mate arrived. He didn't think I could do it.. because we were tied.

He didn't think I was capable.

He didn't think I was capable of hurting him.. Of breaking him, so completely and utterly.

Just the thought alone set the fire inside me roaring, scorching the path for a vicious rage. He was wrong.

"What are your demands?" He taunted with a smirk.

"I want your lands." I said, allowing the silence to stretch out between us as the whole crowd waited for us to continue. Finally, dragging my eyes over his Adonis body slowly, I knew he was watching my every move and I could've sworn I saw his muscles tense beneath my scrutiny, "-And your men."

I didn't expect to gain either without a fight, but I was more curious to see which he valued more.

His pack or his blood.

His eyes tore through me with an inferno of violent rage. "No."

I could see it. He didn't think I would. He didn't think I could.

His own ignorance would cost him more than his pack and lands, but also his family.

"Your choice.." I taunted, sliding through dagger slightly across his beaten brothers throat, causing a thin trickle of blood to slide down over my hands, coating them in the sticky liquid. We both watched, as his brother's blood began to crawl down the white marble steps. The colour was thick and red, and beautiful in some twisted way.

"I'll allow you five seconds to decide."

He went to step forwards, but stopped himself as he saw the stream pooling at the bottom of the steps. "Five."

It felt like an eternity that the world stood still between us. Everything except from us vanishing into the oblivion before my words shattered the silence once more, leaving the shards of a possible solace broken and scattered throughout Orian's blood like glass daggers. "Four."

It was as if I could see him weighing up his options. Trying desperately to decide which he valued more. A bond of a lifetime bound in blood, or a position of power that he had spent his existence fighting for.

"Three."

"Wait." He roared, "You can have the lands.but not the people."

"Two." That wasn't good enough. Lands could be replaced, people could not. I wanted him to be completely and utterly alone in this world, just as he had tried to leave me.

"Don't you feel it?" His sonorous voice was far softer than I had excepted, catching me off guard for a second.

-But just a second. I knew exactly what he was dyeing to do, to use our bond against me, to try and distract me long enough with a promise of a lifetime of love so that he couldn't think of a plan, but instead I didn't stop. His affection meant nothing to me.

He was a selfish beast. Never in his life had he been given an ultimatum before, he didn't know what to do. I could see it, the panic in his eyes as Orian spluttered and coughed, spraying the white marble scarlet.

As the words left my lips I watched as he launched himself towards me. Trying to stop me in the only way he knew how, with the kind of silence only the sweet embrace death could offer.

-But he was too late.

"One."

-And just like that. The dagger kissed Orian's throat, splitting skin and blood alike, right before I shoved him down the marble steps to land at his brother's feet.

***

QOTD- How do you guys feel about cast lists? I have had mixed feed back on them in previous books so haven't done one for TKAK but I can do if you guys want (Obviously you can imagine the characters as whoever you want, a cast list would only be how I imagine them.)

Any thoughts? Theories?

Don't forget to vote and comment!

-TFOA