The Princess Whistleblower And The Hellborn Prince

Chapter2

Lady Gwendolyn heaved a dramatic sigh and sank onto a carved wooden chair beside the fire. "Perhaps. But your father sees only power to gain. The northern passes, the silver mines — the Silver Veil Pack controls them all. Their soldiers are fabled, their bloodlines elderly. With this alliance, the Oak wolf pack would be the strongest in the territories.”

"And I am the price." Lyra paused her pacing and looked out the window. Past the palace walls was the forest that blanketed up to the distant mountains—the mountains that paled toward the border of Silver Veil territory. Somewhere beyond those peaks, Alpha Carlus awaited his bride.

“You have always known this day would come.” Lady Gwendolyn said gently. “Because a princess marries for duty, not for love.”

Lyra pivoted, the devil in her eyes. “Did you marry for duty, Aunt? Were you happy with the match you were arranged with?”

A flash of pain crossed Lady Gwendolyn’s face. Her own husband, a second-string alpha from a coastal pack, had been unkind in ways that didn’t show on the outside. He had died five winters ago, and not a soul in the palace had mourned him.

“I did not matter, my happiness did not matter,” she said quietly. "As is yours. We are women of royal blood. Our bodies no longer belong to us — they belong to the pack, to its future.”

Lyra made her way to her aunt, dropping to her knees in front of her and grasping her hands. "Help me, Aunt Gwen. There has to be a way to convince Father to change his mind, some argument he would hear.”

Lady Gwendolyn shook her head sadly. “Your father has bet his reputation on this match. The blood oaths are sworn. And to break them would risk war with Silver Veil—a war we cannot afford.”

“Then I am trapped,” Lyra whispered, a little of the fight going out of her. “In three weeks, I will be bestowed to a stranger, shackled to him by the laws and magic of a court too old to break.”

Her aunt’s fingers curled around hers. “Stronger than you know, niece. Warrior blood courses through your veins. Whatever happens, you will meet it bravely.”

Lyra rose to her feet, squared her shoulders. “Courage will not deliver me from Carlus’s bed, nor from whatever fate claimed his previous wives.”

“Perhaps not,” Lady Gwendolyn admitted. “But it can carry you until you find another way.”

A knock on the door interrupted them. Lady Gwendolyn got to her feet and smoothed her skirts. “Remember, Lyra—be obedient to your father as he expects. It will give you time to figure out what to do."

Lyra waved to the servants to be dismissed. "Leave me."

Lightning cracked outside the window, thunder rattling the ancient stones. Lyra squinted as she looked into the storm.

“Twenty-one days,” she whispered. “Three weeks until I’m married to Alpha Carlus.” Her hands made fists. “I am not going to go quietly to slaughter. “I will chart a way out, even if I have to write it myself.”

Thunder cracked, and she remembered: her mother telling a dying old servant.

“Beneath the palace are the secret chambers… the archaic books… knowledge from before the wolf law banned it..."

Midnight. Lyra changed into black clothes and walked by her guards. Fools. They want the obedient princess to stay in her chambers, not roam the palace like a thief.

The chapel was empty and moonlight came through the stained glass. Lyra traced the symbols on the altar

Click.

Nothing happened.

“Damn it,” she hissed, studying the altar once more. Seven symbols — deeper than the others. She pressed them in sequence.

A screeching noise echoed through the chapel. The altar rotated to reveal a staircase leading down into the dark.

Candlelight danced as Lyra slipped into a room filled with books, crazily balled up against its shelves. One silver-bound volume caught her eye: Pacts and Bargains: The Art of Dealing with Those Beyond.

But hours later, she caught a lucky break — a ritual to summon the Boundary Walker.

“There are just three things,” she whispered. “Blood of royalty, word of strange blood, and unto the dark of moon shall they have them lonely at midnight.” She checked her almanac. "Tomorrow night. The final opportunity I get before Silver Veil comes.”

*******

“You are looking radiant, Princess,” the dressmaker simpered.

“The delegation will be extremely impressed,” Padded in a tone that left no room for argument.

Lyra smiled demurely. “I serve the pack only, Father.

Under her veil of compliance, her mind was racing. Midnight. Dark of the moon. Freedom.

Lyra took her time, drawing a chalk circle on the floor and inscribing impossible symbols within it, the chapel quiet. Midnight approached. She pressed a silver knife against her palm.

“Blood freely given,” she whispered, and as three drops fell in the center of the circle.

The foreign ones tasted wrong in her mouth, an extra beat before their syllables dropped. When she pronounced the last word, darkness engulfed the chamber.

Then—light. A fluctuating light gathering into a ghostly form of nameless loveliness.

“Princess Lyra of the Oak wolf pack,” the entity said, voice like silk sliding across her skin. “You have called and I have answered. What would you ask of me?"

Lyra stood transfixed. "Who are you?"

“I exist many ways, in many names, many worlds. You may call me Azrael." He advanced to the periphery of the circle. “But the more pressing question, Princess, is who are you? What fuels your ambitions to dabble in forbidden arts? What desire burns so brightly that you would risk your soul?”

“I want freedom,” she said emphatically. “My father has betrothed me to Alpha Carlus of Silver Veil, a cruel man. Three wives he’s had, and three are dead under … suspicious circumstances.”

“And you think I can save you?” Azrael c****d his head. “And what would you give me in return? Freedom has a price."

"I have royal blood. Power and privilege. What would you want as fair compensation?”

Azrael laughed like crystal bell chimes. “I have plenty of blood and power. I seek... rarer commodities. Tell me more of this Alpha Carlus you fear so much.”

Words spilled out of Lyra — the betrayal of her father, the reputation of Carlus, her dying need to escape.

“If you feel fear for this match, you are correct,” Azrael said when she was done. “No, Carlus is cruel — but not in the ways that you think. His treatment of his wives was... innovative in its brutality. Princess, there are cruelties that do not involve physical pain. " Carlus is master of them all.”

“Then you know why I have to leave. Will you help me?"