TRAPPED

THE TAKEOVER

She opened her eyes and scanned her surrounding, Shalom was alone in one of the bedrooms. Had she been dreaming? Surely Eric wouldn’t hold the palace hostage, why would he even do that? That was not the Eric she knew. Walking towards the doors, she tried to open it but it was locked from the outside.

"let me out!!! Help!! Somebody let me out!!" she started screaming and pounding on the doors until she heard footsteps, a click sound and the doors opened.
"just keep quiet, king Eric may have said not to hurt you but he did not say anything about tying you up and stuffing a cloth in your mouth" he warned her fiercely, making her skin crawl.
King Eric? She really needed someone to fill in the blanks.
"ah can I please talk to Eric?" she asked and the man growled at her
"its king Eric" he corrected with a scowl and she looked down, these men were really scary and she didn’t want to know what would happen if she disobeyed.
"Please, can I talk to king Eric?" she pleaded and bit her lower lip
"Fine, just sit and shut up, I’ll relay the request to him" he told her and locked the door then walked away.

The guests were still tied up and being held at gunpoint in the banquet hall while the royal family had been taken to the throne room and where sitting down on the floor, hands tied behind their backs.
Some of Eric's men were searching the castle for the crown and staff together with the seal. Eric was pacing back and forth with a gun in his hand, he couldn’t believe how things had turned out and he didn’t know how to proceed. Why hadn’t she told him that she was a princess? Why hadn’t she told him about the kingdom?
"what have you done to my daughter you imbecile?" Liam barked at Eric, he was bleeding from where Eric had hit him with the base of the gun, not how he planned on meeting Shalom's parents.
"please, she must be so scared, please don’t hurt her” Kira pleaded with Eric who walked towards her and squatted before her.
"look at me, look me in the eyes" he demanded and Kira had no choice but to obey, for the sake of her children’s safety "my grandmother always says I have my father’s eyes…can you guess who he is?" He challenged her and Kira stared straight into his eyes, taking a deep breath and calming herself as she tried to figure out where she had seen those eyes before. She kept on staring and memories came flooding back, how many times had he pinned her against the wall and made her stare into his hypnotic eyes? A single tear came down her face as she whispered
"Hakeem..."
"so you do remember him, you do remember how you betrayed him and led him to his death" said Eric angrily as he stood upright,
"no, no way.. all of them died!" said Liam who had caught on to what the two were talking about.
"all of them died, except for one who was still in his mother's womb" said Eric as he walked to Liam. "this throne does not belong to you, so just tell me where the crown is and go back to your kingdom, this is my kingdom" he said and Liam chuckled
"this is not your kingdom little boy…it doesn’t belong to you just as it never belonged to your father, that weak coward"  said Liam and Kira groaned, how could he be this stubborn when their lives were in danger?

Before Eric could react, the door opened and one of his men came to him.
"the princess is awake and she is requesting to speak to you" he whispered to Eric
"call Joshua, I want him watching them like a hawk" he commanded and left the throne room just as Joshua was entering.

Eric was nervous and confused as he walked to the bedroom, what would happen to them now? He took a deep breath and opened the door making Shalom quickly stand up. Eric just stood there staring at her, what sick joke was fate trying to play on him? How could the woman he believed was his soul mate be related to the monster who had massacred his family?
"Eric..wh..whats..whats going on?" she asked with a choked up voice, her body was shaking.
"why didn’t you tell me about your family?" he asked her
"I just, I didn’t want their status to define me as a person and to affect my personal relationships. Why didn’t you tell me about...whatever is happening here?" she asked and wiped her tears.

Eric rubbed the back of his head and looked down.

"its a long story.. I ..my father, he was a crown prince and he... his wife ran off, he ended up starting a war and got beheaded in the end.. your...your father had my father and his family killed when he took the crown, I just wanted to reclaim the throne" he tried to explain as much as he could
"my..my...father...no...my.." Shalom sat down on the floor and started sobbing, she knew her father was strict and tough but killing an entire royal family? Now she understood why they had two castles on opposite ends of the kingdom
"are... are you ..kill us all?" Shalom asked fearfully and Eric frowned
"Do you really think I would kill you?" he snapped at her, he was upset that she would make such an assumption.
"I don't know, I dont know anything anymore" she said and cried even more.

Eric went to sit by her side and wrapped his arms around her, what was he going to do now? How would he get out of this predicament? If he killed Liam like his granny and mum had advised Shalom would hate him and he would lose her forever, he didn’t want that to happen because he knew that Shalom was innocent, she wasn’t even there when the killings started and she was nothing like her father.
But he also knew that his people wanted to be ruled by their own king, even if they were not suffering they still felt oppressed and did not feel free being under a king who had just seized the throne.
He had to figure out how to get the throne and still have shalom stand by him.

A/N:
Thank you all for the comments and the stars.