The King's Prey (Unedited Edition)

Chapter 39 : She-wolf

Ineffable • [i-neh-fuh-bl]
Too great or extreme to be expressed or described into words.

🖤

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"Sh-shifting..?" I stammer.

"Samuel—" Liam starts.

"I was right..." is all Samuel breathes out as he continues to stare at me—stare at those claws that are now growing by the second.

"How the hell does she have wolf blood in her?!" Liam yells over the deafening sounds of the carnage occurring around us. My heart feels as though it's about to burst out of my chest, racing at lightning speed against my ribcage. The words that left Samuel's mouth force a feeling of nausea to run through me as bile rises in my throat.

But even he seems clueless as to how this is even physically possible—how a human is able to shift into a wolf. "Samuel." I stifle the vomit attempting to crawl up my throat as I speak. "What are you talking about?"

The pieces don't seem to be putting themselves together in my head. My bloodline is pure royals, nothing else. There's no possible way that I have wolf blood in me.

He looks at me for a moment before pulling me into his arms, sitting me upright against his warm chest as my body continues to drown in the excruciating pain. Thankfully, the vomit returns down into my stomach at the change. "Remember how I had crushed your hand at the Ball? And then when your leg was mangled by that rogue out in the woods?" he begins. I only nod weakly. "Werewolves' wounds are able to mend within seconds after the damage is done. It took you a fraction of the amount of time to heal from those injuries as it takes for a normal human—sometimes within days you were better."

"You knew..." I exhale, staring wide-eyed at him.

But he only shakes his head. "I was never sure if I was right. I only had my assumptions." And then those icy eyes soften. "Anastasia, I'm so sorry for everything. I never should've..."

But his words are drowned out amongst the chaos as my ears begin to ring and utter disbelief confuses my thoughts. I can't blame him for keeping this from me though—being wrong would've been a tragic cost for him and all of Mylithia. But after everything—after all of the lies that have spilled from his lips—they were all meant to protect me from this cruel reality. He never wanted to keep me in the dark, he was just trying to maintain my innocence for a little bit longer—maintain the time I had left as a human. Even if he had his assumptions since the ball—even with everything now being a horrible, shocking surprise—he didn't want this to ruin how I perceived him and his kind. The constant hiding and lying might've broken me into two, but he was trying to keep me whole—preserved—all along.

My face turns pale as the pain numbs for a moment, allowing me time to absorb this shocking news. All I can do is stare at my hand that has now fully morphed into a paw, now revealing a midnight coat of fur against the claws. And once the pain subsides, I'm able to feel how natural this all really is. How this experience was bound to happen since I was born.

This was never a mistake or some cruel joke or a skewed reality I was dropped into. This was how things were meant to be. All of the pieces may not be there—may not fit in with the others—but they're a part of me, regardless.

A wolf's body is suddenly hurled above us, bringing my attention back to the massacre—back to Samuel's blue eyes as my hearing clears out. His body shields me from seeing most of the bloody battle behind him, but I don't bother focusing on it as much as I'm fixated on the fur growing up my arms.