PREQUEL: Royal Ancestors

“I will stay with you, my lady.” Helena said as the rest of the staff scurried away.

Beatrice looked sideways at Helena and nodded. She didn’t have the time nor the energy to argue. Helena picked up Austin and followed after her Queen.

“Where are you?” Beatrice mindlinked the mates of the royal guard.

“We are in the tunnels, hiding.” Joanna replied.

“I need someone to come up and take my child.” She said,

“Where?” Joanna asked but Beatrice didn’t have the chance to respond.

“Queen Luna?” The rogue wolf who called himself Jacobs entered the kitchen with wolves all around him.

He sniffed the air and smelt blood. Before his eyes could land on Beatrice, a woman stood in his path. She sat down the prince and he ran behind her.

“Run, my Queen.” Helena said just before she shifted into her wolf.

Beatrice didn’t waste any time or the sacrifice that Helena was making. She grabbed Austin by the hand and ran as fast as her trembling legs would take her. She screamed when she saw the chaos in the corridor, nearly tripping over Neil’s body.

“Queen Luna!” Forrest was in his human form, bloodied and bruised. He threw himself in front of the Queen, defending her against the rogers.

Beatrice bent down to rip off the bottom part of her dress, wrapping it around Ember to hide her from the battle. She camouflaged the newborn against her chest, hoping that no one would discover that there was a second royal child.

“Mommy!” Austin screamed just as a wolf lunged towards us.

“No!” Beatrice cried, but it was too late.

The wolf clamped his powerful jaw around Austin’s body, piercing his heart with one of his canines. Beatrice let out an ear splitting scream as her son’s lifeless body hit the ground. The power of her scream ripped through the palace, shaking the earth itself and traveling through the realm. Everyone felt her pain, everyone knew that the young King was dead.

The walls of the realm began to shake and crumbled like a violent earthquake, fires exploding from the ground, tornado force winds ravishing the lands, tsunamis exploding from the seas; the realm was collapsing and there was nowhere to run.

“My child,” Selene’s voice invaded Beatrice’s mind, clouding her vision and numbing her pain, “You must stand. You must get the princess to safety.”

“There is no safety.” Beatrice sobbed.

“There is, my dear.” Arlo’s voice thawed her stone cold heart and she started to cry even harder.

“Arlo?”

“I’m waiting for you, my love. I’m waiting for you with our son.” Arlo spoke softly,

“Austin?”

“He’s here with me, he is safe. You will be with us soon, my love, I promise you. You have to stand and get Ember out of here. She and the bloodlines of the royal guard must survive.” Beatrice felt Arlo’s hand caressing her face and she closed her eyes, relishing in the moment, “You must be strong one last time, my Queen. Get up. Run!”

Beatrice pulled herself from the ground and ran as far and as fast as she could. When she had finally broken free from the fighting, she slowed her pace and began to move with caution.

Beatrice crept through the halls of the castle, her heels echoing off the large stones that made up the floor and the sound traveling through up the cathedral ceilings. She paused for a moment to tear off her shoes, not wanting to attract anymore attention to herself. She continued down the corridor, completely barefoot, the pads of her feet pressing against the cool stone.

Her gown and cape were made of some sort of sheer fabric in varying shades of blue fanned out from behind her and cascaded down her body like a roaring waterfall. The fabric was torn and covered in blood, some of it was hers and some of it was not. Her legs, which were covered in sticky globs of her blood, stuck out from the bottom of the dress where she had torn the fabric.

Her dark brown hair was stuffed up in the hood of her cloak and her headband crown was secured in place, glistening from the warm candle lights all around her. As she ran, the crown fell from her head, clattering loudly on the ground. She didn’t bother to stop. There was no use for the crown any longer.

“Your highness!” A familiar voice whispered and she waved the candelabro in the direction that it came from.

“Joanna.” Beatrice released a sigh of relief.

*****

“Joanna!” A voice called through the woods and the sounds of howling filled the forest air.

“Faster!” Noelle yelled and the girls ran as fast as they could in the direction of the portal.

The rogue wolves were closing in on the mates of the royal guard, but they would not be quick enough. The realm was crumbling around them, seeming to be falling to pieces with its monarch. Soon, the people feared, there would be nothing left of the werewolf realm.

Finally, the glittering gold light from the portal appeared and the mates of the royal guard launched themselves through it, without a second thought and without a second look back at their home. They stumbled out of the portal and continued to run. They had to reach the safe house before they could truly feel relief. The house had been enchanted by witches, undetectable by any of the rogue werewolves who escaped the realm before it collapsed.

*****

“The realm is being destroyed!” Eliason yelled to his comrades.

“How is this possible?” Harvey shouted over the fighting.

“The bloody Moon Goddess!” Cardinal growled.

“This is why I insisted on having a portal made for our escape. We must retreat now or we will all perish here as well.” Jacobs ordered, killing the wolf who was attacking him before running from the palace.

Jacobs, Harvey, Eliason, and Cardinal ran from the castle and towards the portal they had hidden in an abandoned watershed a few miles away. They left their rogue followers to die with the rest of the realm’s people. They knew that this was best. There were plenty of werewolves in the human realm to carry on the species. With the death of the realm and its people, no one would ever question how they had come to power.

The four men jumped through the portal and exited the other side, new men, free men, powerful men. They strut down the empty street of the human town with confidence. The royal bloodline was dead, extinguished. They were the only four to have survived the realm and the only four who knew of the bloodshed that was caused in the name of forming the Council of the Werewolves.

At least, that’s what they thought.

*****

“We must split up.” Noelle said as they sat around the small kitchen table in the safehouse.

“Beatrice wanted her daughter hidden away in a pack without any idea of who she is.” Joanna informed them.

“Leave the princess here. We’ll find a safe pack for her to be raised in. The four of us must spread out across the country.” Marybelle said,

“Beatrice said that our survival was imperative to the future of the realm. We can’t risk being seen together. We should change our names, as well.” Elisa suggested.

“No, our names remain. Beatrice said that our bloodlines were important so I must believe that so are the name’s of our sons.” Noelle argued.

“Where should we go?” Joanna agreed that their sons should know their father’s names, their family names, but she also knew how important it was for them to all stay hidden and to survive.

“We should go as far as possible.” Marybelle pulled an Atlas out from the desk of the safe house and opened it up to reveal a map of the United States, the human country they were in, “Here, here, here, and here.” She pointed out four states and the women made their escape plans.

That night they said their goodbyes, refusing to cry and drawing on the strength of their Queen Luna. They left the safehouse on different days and disappeared without a trace. Joanna was the first to leave since she had to find somewhere to put Ember, first.

Deep inside the Oregon woods she found a primitive pack that was just starting out, it only had a few dozen members. She left Ember in a basket at the front gate with a note that said only these words: Ember Arlo Merriweather. Our savior.

*****

Magnus, Merdell, and Merida looked over the she-wolf as she laid the sleeping infant into a basket. When the she-wolf ran off with her own child, the three witches moved gracefully out of the forest and towards the basket.

“The child is safe.” Merida said, “The Moon Goddess will be pleased.”

For months, the three siblings were dreaming about the destruction and demise of the royal bloodline and the werewolf species as a whole. The Moon Goddess spoke to them, telling them of a prophecy in which the werewolves would live, the realm would be restored, and the species would know a time of peace. As witches who were constantly prosecuted by the other species, peace sounded pretty good. Thus, they pledged their loyalty to the Moon Goddess and her cause, agreeing to be her liaisons inside the human realm.

“Someone is coming.” Merdell said, pulling Merida away from the baby.

“Alpha, it’s a baby!” One of the men declared, picking up the basket and delivering it to their Alpha.

The Alpha looked over the newborn child and she looked up at him with wide, hazel eyes. The Alpha saw something glistening in those eyes that made him pause in his quick dismissal. Instead, he pulled the basket close to his body and delivered the baby to his Luna.