Her Fae Prince

Albwin

Albwin woke suddenly to the sounds of commotion outside his room. He jumped out of bed glad that he always slept fully dressed when he was away, call it professional awareness, or just thinking ahead. He made his way to the door and listened carefully trying to figure out the cause of the amount of noise in the hallway. He got a bad feeling as he pressed his ear against the hardwood.

“That’s the scout's room, collect him and bring him to me.” He heard a gruff and angry voice call out.

Albwin double-checked the door’s locks and backed away quietly. He snatched up his pack which he always kept ready and threw it over his shoulder as he made his way to the window. He paused only a moment as he listened. The wolves banged on his door loudly calling for him to answer. He knew they wouldn’t wait long before getting the keys to unlock it, or simply just breaking it down. He opened the window quietly and slipped out.

He had already scouted a quick exit when he first got assigned his room and found the ledge just wide enough for him to carefully sidle along. He counted out the windows as he passed making sure no one was inside them before he moved in front, when he got to the fifth window he gently pushed and it opened. He had found the unused storeroom with extra furniture and linens and things to replenish the guest rooms and had unlocked the window just in case he found himself in this very scenario. He dropped into the room lightly and closed the window behind him. Putting his pack on the floor Albwin pulled out the sweater he got from Ember and his scout kit. Inside the kit was a collection of magic amulets, powders, and potions he used for his line of work including a very strong masking charm, which he slipped around his neck. Next, he pulled out an expensive bottle of wolf scent and placed it carefully on the floor as he pulled the sweater on over his head. Keeping the charm under the sweater he sprayed the air in front of him with the scent and stepped through the mist as if it was a fancy perfume. He didn’t want to be completely scentless because that would arouse suspicion but he also didn’t want to have too strong a scent either.

He put his kit away carefully and placed it back in his pack again and shouldered it once more. He made his way through the room, careful to disturb as little as possible and sat down beside the door to listen. He heard the guards all yelling, he figured they had already broken into his room to find him missing. The leader was shouting orders to start searching the castle. Why did they want to find him so badly? He needed to find out what was going on. He was surprised when they didn’t search any other rooms on this floor, lazy, but glad as well because it meant he just needed to give them enough time to get some distance and he could slip out to find out what on earth was going on.

He waited another fifteen minutes from the last noise in the hallway before he pulled the hood over his head to cover his ears and slipped out into the hallway. He let his pack sit casually off one shoulder like he saw the younger wolves do and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his sweater, walking like he had all the time in the world. As he neared the busier parts of the castle he saw groups of wolves all whispering in hushed tones and looking around nervously. He got close enough to one group so he could just overhear what they were talking about and leaned against the wall as if he was waiting for someone.

“Can you believe it?” One she-wolf half whispered — half squealed.

“As if they would have the audacity to try something like this under our very roof!” Responded another.

“What I can’t believe is that the Prince was stupid enough to stick around. What was he thinking?”

“Doesn’t matter now he’s in the cells, they will get the whereabouts of our future Luna soon enough.” A tall haughty looking male wolf crossed his arms and looked at the she-wolves with a cocky expression, not bothering to talk in a hushed tone.

“But won’t they start a war with the Fae if we torture their Prince?” The first she-wolf’s eyes went wide as she spoke, the fear plain on her face.

“Maybe they shouldn’t have taken her then.” The male said with a shrug as the two girls nodded trying to look less concerned.

Shit, so Ember is missing and they think Prince Torin did it? Not good. Albwin thought to himself. He stood up and gave a small wave as if he found who he was looking for and started walking away from that group and across the hall. There was another group with almost an identical conversation going on and another. Each time he passed a group of people he heard the same things: Ember was gone, they think Prince Torin did it, and was this going to start a war between worlds. As he reached the entrance a group of warriors came in and Albwin turned to the side as if heading to the bathroom. Two of the warriors broke from the group also heading toward the bathroom. He quickened his pace and went through the door and into a stall. The two warriors followed shortly.

“Well, I guess we know how Torin got our future Luna. Had his man lure her out and take her. We can’t find that scout anywhere on the property.” Albwin heard one say.

“The nerve them Fae got, where d’ya think they get off taken our Luna? What game are they playin’?” The other sounded older and had a heavy accent. “Don’t make no sense, I tell ye. Why’d he claim to be mated with her just as they found her taken?”

At least someone seems to have some sense, Albwin shook his head he agreed with the older one none of this made sense.

“Maybe they want a war? Take the Luna, leave the Prince behind on purpose. Gives them a reason to come after us don’t it?” The younger one said.

“Hmm, still makes no sense ta me.” They finished then and washed their hands before leaving. This was bad, his disappearance only made Prince Torin look more guilty, but he was glad at least that he wasn’t sharing a cell with Torin. Otherwise who would plan his escape?

How are we going to get out of this one? Albwin had to lay low and come up with that plan. He would need to check security on the cells, if he could find a place near there to hide they would never think to look there for him. Then he would need a quick exit and food. That decided he headed to the dining hall first, they always had something out for hungry wolves between meals. Avoiding groups still gossiping and keeping his stance determined Albwin went through the doors and breathed a sigh of relief, apparently, no one was hungry with all this excitement so the dining hall was empty. He saw a table with fresh fruits, buns, granola bars, small packs of snacks and bottles of water. He loaded as much as he could into his pack before someone walked in, and grabbed a bottle of water, an apple, and a protein bar. The bar he stuffed in his pocket before he took a large bite out of the apple and a swig of water. He kept eating his apple as he walked out casually and made his way toward the cells.

The door that led down to the cells was at the very end of a long hallway tucked in a back corner of the castle past the kitchens. Albwin was glad that he had been there before because it was very easy to miss and one who had never been there would never be able to guess what was behind that door. Thankfully, the door to the cells was unguarded on the outside since you needed a code to get past it and there were stairs leading down to the guards on the other side, so they had the advantage. At the beginning of the hallway, there were a few doors and to Albwin’s joy, they all were unlocked and most seem unused. The room closest to the cell door had mirrors along one wall and padded floors and looked like a private training area, the next one had some stacked furniture with a white cloth thrown over it and the third looked like a backup armoury with crates of bows, arrows, small silver knives with special hilts and other weapons that wolves favoured.

Backtracking to the room with just some old furniture he figured it would be the least likely to have someone walk in. He closed the door quietly behind him and sat down leaning against the wall right beside the door. If it opened he would be behind it to give him the advantage of surprise, as well as being able to listen to the hallway from this position. He pulled his scout kit from his pack again and took the small enchanted mirror out and slipped it under the door. It worked a bit like a spy camera, what he saw in one mirror reflected in the matching one he kept in his hand, he positioned it just enough that it had a good view of the door He settled in knowing he might be there for a while.

It was almost boring waiting and listening. The guards are changed every eight hours, although he was surprised when he saw Luna Clary come down around dinnertime with a tray in her hands, the smells coming from it were tantalizing and Albwin was almost tempted to give himself another spritz of Eau de Wolf to go to the dining hall to eat, but he knew it was too risky. If someone recognized him — or didn’t, he would be caught and they would be stuck in an even worse situation. So he changed his focus on trying to figure out the problem. Who took Ember? Were they trying to start a war between the Fae and the wolves and why? His thoughts went to the vampires, they always had the hardest time in this realm because they had a lot of rules when it came to their species. Their diets made it difficult for them to live peacefully with humans and the other supers didn't want to have a full-on witch hunt, again, because they alerted the humans that super’s were real. It's been an ongoing issue. So are the vampires trying to start a war to distract the supernatural world so they could go on a feeding frenzy? Albwin shuddered at the thought. If this is the work of vampires then they must for sure have someone working with them on the inside. When it came to wolves they were all hot-tempered, Albwin figured a disgruntled wolf angry with his position was offered something in return for helping them. Maybe they thought in the chaos they could get a better status. Get the Elities killed and there would be a slew of new ranks in the pack. Albwin shook his head, he hated politics. Scouting was simple and didn’t involve mind games and he was good at it.

It was a long night and Albwin tried to get some sleep right after the midnight shift change but the fear of discovery ended up winning over the common sense of being too tired to fight his way out and he was only able to catch an hour here and there. He stood up briefly a few times to stretch so he wouldn’t be too sore or stiff, he also had to sneak out at one point to find a bathroom. Stories of spies and stakeouts and action movies like James Bond always left out these long boring parts and skipped right past them to the exciting action. But the reality was a lot different, hours spent watching the same position for something to change or happen so he can rescue his friend. It was finally time for the midnight shift to change out to the morning shift and Albwin was surprised to watch Luna Clary come once again with a tray. Why was Luna herself bringing food down? There was only enough food for one so he assumed it was for Prince Torin, just like the dinner the night before. He also noticed that the two guards this time were ones he recognized as the Gamma twins, they wouldn't usually be doing a guard shift. Were they going to torture Torin this time? Was there truth serum laced in the food? Panic washed over Albwin as he thought about what he could do to try and rescue the Prince before it was too late.