Hate or Love

PROLOGUE

4 months ago 

Princess Estelle woke up gasping, in a need for air. Her chest felt like burning, her face tear streamed as she reached out to wipe it with her trembling hands.

All that was on her mind was a tall male figure and long blond hair.

Blue eyes that resembled the ocean.

The most beautiful, mysterious face she had ever seen.

And a kiss. A lingering kiss on her forehead that had put her into a peaceful sleep. The feel of it was unexplainable. Gentle, soft, almost loving, yet it felt like it had turned her world upside down. Every atom of her being was aware of it, aware of the beautiful stranger in the dark that had taken her breath away.

Estelle's wolf was aware of it. Actually, she was more than aware, she was tearing up her skin from inside, howling in her head, but Estelle couldn't wrap her mind around why her wolf was like this, at first.

The image of him never left her mind. He didn't smile, actually, he didn't look like he smiled much, yet somehow Estelle could picture him smiling on her head. Just a small lazy smile that he would have when he looked at her only.

However, the image was destroyed by itself on her head.

Blood.

The blond elf's hand was dripping blood.

No, not his blood, he looked completely fine.

Estelle's father's blood.

She gasped again, as if in an instant, the old empty room that surely belonged to some of the servants, didn't have enough air for her anymore.

Pool of blood under her father's lifeless body and his heart ripped out of his chest brutally was what she could only think about now. This, and the beautiful stranger's bloody hand.

A sob was heard on the dead quiet room and it took Estelle a few seconds to realize it was her who was sobbing. "Mate," she whispered instinctively, her wolf coming alive inside her head only at the mention of him. "Mate," she repeated over and over again, as if he would hear, when he was probably far away by now, running for his dear life.

And Estelle knew, deep inside her crying heart she knew, if her mate was to come back now she would throw herself in his arms and stay there for the rest of his life. If only he showed himself at the doorstep now... If only he had an excuse, anything to prove her he wasn't the killer. Even if it was a lie. It was enough if the lie was just a bit convincing for her to lie to herself as well, to tell herself over and again that her mate hadn't just walked inside her palace, murdered her father and ran away with her half-brother and her stepmother.

But he had. And he wasn't coming back.

Estelle buried her face on her knees, curling in a fetal position, grieving for what she knew it was to come.

The funeral of her father, and one day, facing her mate as well.

But he would have to face her too. Her and her wrath and her hate, for she would never accept to fall in his arms. The beautiful stranger had just murdered her father, and Estelle would hate him for the rest of her life.