Barely able to see through the bag which had been forced over his head, Charlie instantly began fighting back only to find it was too late for him to do anything.

This didn't stop him from thrashing like a fish out of water, kicking and striking at everything he could reach but wasn't able to collide with anything. He snarled in fury, "Let me go, I will come with you in peace."

Yet his desperate words brought him no freedom or help, only silence.

From somewhere above him, he heard a smirk mostly muffled by the bag around his head.

"Of course we'll take you to the rest of your family," he explained, the smile lacing his face was what Charlie could only think to describe as pure evil. Hatred all but beaming from his expression.

"And we'll treat you just like the rest of your family."

In that moment Charlie was filled with a panic like he had never witnessed. Were they already dead? Had this all been some horrific ruse, whose only purpose had been to torture him in the moments before his death.

Charlie snarled in anger, but the words were cut from him before they had even reached his lips with a kick to the stomach. It sent Charlie sprawling, and dragged with wind from his lungs but he was dragged to his feet before he could pull himself together.

Losing it wasn't even an advantage anymore, these were people who could beat and kill him even in that state. For the first time in a long time, Charlie knew that he wasn't going to be able to save himself.

And he had little other choice then to go with the flow.

He quickly recognised the feeling of the earth inclining beneath his feet, enough to tell him that they were making their way up the face of the cliff. With little help from the people keeping him in line, Charlie skidded on the soaked ground and each pace was followed by a stumble of some kind.

Yet his struggles were only accompanied with bouts of laughter from the merciless folk around him. A growl echoed from Charlie, mostly to despite himself as all this brought was a further blow to the back of the head.

Logic all but leapt out of the window at this, as Charlie tore at the mans hand and managing to grip it in his jaws. The shift taking over his body before he realised he had turned from skin to fur.

Again laughter was all that the wolf could hear, Charlie continued to tear and rip at anything he could get his jaws around. Now the bag was gone from his head, ripped and discarded on the floor in their wake but his captors didn't seem to care.

He was no threat to them, for all they cared he was entertainment for them to enjoy.

Keeping him at bay with various weapons, Charlie had little other choice then to follow their directions. He tried to force his way between the small gaps they left, but it was of no use.

Regardless of what form he took, how much sanity he had left, he was stuck.

Exasperation leaked from him with every step, tail twitching from side to side as he followed in silence. Head hanging low and tail even lower, he watched his captors with fury in his darkening his gaze.

One in particular caught Charlie's eye, who was staring down at him with an infuriating smirk on his face. Every step or so he would land a blow against the wolf's back, belly or neck, just because he could.

With little choice other then to accept it, unable to bite or retaliate in any way. All Charlie could do was pin his ears at the stranger and try his best to ignore the torment being inflicted upon him.

If he could die achieving anything, it would be that he would bring that idiot down with him.

Looking around, it terrified Charlie how quickly they had managed to work. It had felt like he had been gone only ten minutes if that in his quest to bring wood to the palace. In his desperate attempt to do anything to help them.

Yet he had never had any indication that anything was happening behind the scenes as he worked. They had done all of this in the space of half an hour, and it seemed to only be a glimpse of what their true power could be.

It felt like only a fraction of whatever Charlie had achieved in two decades, compared to the enemies year and a half. A more competitive man may have been angered by this knowledge, hurt that the enemy was capable of so much more.

Charlie was angry too, but for reasons of his own. Partially much less logical reasons.

After what felt like an eternity, the land at last flattened beneath his paws and the palace came into view. Charlie twitched his ears, trying to see any of the chaos which he had seen as he left the palace but saw none.

It was a silent place, almost eerily so. Gone was the bustle of movement and sounds echoing against the wall, replaced with nothing but silence. Before all Charlie had been able to smell was blood, sweat, and people.

Now there was only one scent on the air.

Death.

Every instinct told him not to do as he was told, to fight against them and he renewed his attempts at escape. Managing to land a bite on the leg of an not suspecting man who happened to be nearby.

But he had no choice.

He was forced to continue in spite of his desperate attempts.

Soon the stone ceiling of the palace was above his head, and part of Charlie wondered if it would be the last time he saw the sky above his head. He stole a glance back at the world behind him, but found it quickly being closed off as the great doors were slammed shut and he was lead deeper into the depths of the castle.

Quickly recognising the path as not the one which lead to the cells as he had excepted, but upwards. Towards the royal bedrooms, and Charlie hesitated. Guessing where he was being taken before he even see it.

His father's bedroom.

The last place he had seen his mother alive.

And the place he had sealed her fate.

Bile rising to the back of his throat, Charlie began to shake as he was lead to the great room. The door was slung open and he was thrown in with a hefty kick to his back. He skidded to a stop, preparing to lunge back through the opening only to find it being slammed in his face.

A furious growl ripped from his throat, and he threw himself against the door with everything he had but to no avail. It was stuck, and fast.

When he turned back, he jumped at what he saw.

Robert, Evie, Briar and a handful of other men and women who Charlie recognised as either high ranking members of his father's Kingdom, or people who were especially loyal servants to the crown.

It meant at the very least that they had not been killed, yet.

That was when Charlie noticed the little girl who was clinging to Evie's leg. Looking up at her with pure terror lighting her eyes. Blue, Charlie noted, the almost perfect copy of her mother. Save for her father's cheek bones and nose that Charlie would have recognised against a million children. It meant one thing.

This was the Lyra he had never expected to meet.

And now he was wishing that he hadn't.

His brother had himself placed firmly between the little girl and the large wolf. His arms crossed and eyes darkening until they were almost a perfect black. He let out a low growl of his own, which only caused the child to shake more with fear.

"Back off, or I will personally kill you." He promised firmly.

Violet was by his side and taking up a similarly protective stance, his elder sister's eyes bright with caution. They both knew that whilst she might not have been able to win, he wasn't about to attack his sister.

Charlie regarded his brother only with a nod of his head. Understanding his intentions, now with a little more logic in his head, though that wasn't difficult. But he made his own intentions perfectly clear.

Never in a million years was he about to shift until either the end came, or a miracle happened.

Time for a miracle to happen was quickly running out.

Charlie picked himself back to his paws, and found his way to the corner of the room furthest from everybody else. Here he curled into a tight ball, and closed his eyes into the fur of his left flank. Not saying a word for a moment.

Silence surrounded him, leaving the same eerie feeling here as there had been bellow.

Not since the death of his mother had he stepped a paw inside of this room, and now he it was making him feel sick to his stomach. This wasn't a place that had been full of very many happy memories.

Here was where it would end for him too.

Charlie didn't move for a short while, the fear and the pain finally beginning to take its toll.

Part of him wanted to fall asleep and never wake up, to let the darkness envelop him.

But he knew he couldn't let that happen, too much was at stake. The people he loved and the Kingdom he belonged to needed him to be strong.

Opening an eye slightly to look at the little girl, who was now sitting in her mother's lap. As her parents tried desperately to console her, but it was no good. There was nothing they could say which could possibly have made this better.

We all need to be strong right now, Charlie thought.

A smaller, more childish and immature part of him didn't want to have to be.

His childhood had been robbed from him, and now the futures of his friends and family would be too. And its all my fault.

Finally Charlie found the words which had been playing at his mind but evading his tongue. He spoke up with a quiet tone, struggling to figure out how to structure his question without being too blunt.

In the end, he was as subtle as a brick wall, but at this time he didn't care.

"Where's Arthur?"

"We don't know," Robert's words were equally blunt, but the pain was apparent in his tone.

"Father?"

"Him neither," Evie interjected with a sigh. Resting a hand on her husband's shoulder, an attempt to calm his temper. But right now, nothing was going to calm him down, they were all at a loss.

The next word sat on his tongue like a poison, and he had to force it from his lips. "Anthony?"

Robert's only response was to raise an eyebrow at Charlie, unamused and clearly pestered by the incessant questions. It appeared that the prince in all his optimism and kindness, had given up.

If Robert didn't have faith that they could get out of it, Charlie began to doubt his own hopes.

Pointedly ignoring his brother's pessimism, in spite of his own growing fears. Charlie sat up a little, grunting in pain from his wounds. He was beginning to feel a little dizzy from the exertion of the last few days.

"Do we have a plan?" Charlie asked, drawing his gaze across each of his friends. Though careful to not look at the little girl, he didn't want to scare her any more. It may have been there first meeting, but he already felt a draw to her. The need to protect kin.

A snort from Robert told him that the answer was most likely no.

Everyone else had a very similar manner about them,

Briar spoke up in his brother's turn, the pain bright in the witch's eyes, he was unaccustomed to seeing the young woman so open with her emotions. In the short time he had known her, she had always been an expert in hiding everything.

Now it was all on her sleeve, and it only proved to Charlie how much of a dire situation this was.

"There is no way out," Briar's words were firm despite it all. "We're stuck here."

Despite this being very much what Charlie had been expecting to hear, it didn't mean that it didn't hurt him on the inside. Charlie flinched at the hopelessness of it all, the way they all carried themselves.

No one seemed to think they were going to get out of this alive.

And a small part of Charlie was thinking they were right.

"The palace is impenetrable, from both the outside and the inside." Evie added with a frown, her arms still wrapped around the sobbing Lyra. Evie was doing her best to hold herself together for the sake of her little girl. But the façade was beginning to falter.

Charlie resisted the urge to walk over to them, join them in their grief and fear. To say their goodbyes, but he didn't move. He refused to give up. Even if every instinct was screaming at him that there was no way to win this.

Shaking his head with a frown, Charlie spoke up again. "There has to be something, anything?"

Lifting himself to his paws, he didn't wait for an answer as he approached the room's one window and looked out, but to no avail.

The drop outside was almost perfectly sheer. He could spot a few small footfalls that a careful man could have used. But they were no mountain goats, even in wolf form it would have been next to impossible to descend.

Coupled with the fact that one of them would have to carry Lyra, there was no chance they would get down.

And all that was ignoring the eagle like stares from everyone at the foot of the mountain. That was not an option.

Sighing frustration, Charlie straightened again. Refusing to take no as an answer, the young wolf began to creep around the edges of the room. Searching for faults, anything which might indicate a hidden passage.

But he had known these halls since he was a boy, and he knew better then to hope for that.

"Stop, Charlie," called the firm voice of Evie. "It's no good, just accept your fate."

The very idea infuriated Charlie, his ears pinned back and he had a sharp retort prepared.

When the door to the room opened.

And a man was thrown inside.

The King.

Bloodied, bruised and broken.