-Lyall-

It's unfair.

People often refer to me as the villain. Other kingdoms, my political opponents, even my own people. The people I trust, the people I have protected, the people I care about.

It's like I can never get a break from being a monster.

They say I killed my stepmother in cold blood. It doesn't matter that she murdered my parents first and then tried to take my life along with the crown, too. It doesn't matter that she used dark magic because all people love to sing in their songs is how the lycan king mutilated his stepmother for revenge.

They say the curse turns me into colder, crueler, that it takes out my heart. Oh, my favorite verse from a famous poet in the kingdom goes like this:

A curse of stone

Turns the king's heart frozen

All hail the beast on the throne

And the worse thing they call me is 'Child Murderer.' It doesn't matter that Adina betrayed me first and almost killed me in the process. It also doesn't matter that the child was actually the real monster born from dark magic. The nickname stays because, for some reason, it is much easier to see me as a villain.

It's unfair.

But I stop caring ever since I put Adina in a magic jail tower. Ever since I realize that the person closest to me can stab me the deepest, I could not give any less fuck to all the nicknames they call me.

Monster.

Villain.

Beast.

Cold-blooded murderer.

And many more.

For years, I think nothing of the nicknames they call me. And with the curse, it's much easier for me to ignore them. Sometimes, I even use the curse to my advantage. It comes really handy, especially in interrogating criminals.

Until a werewolf girl stumbles upon me in the wood and ever since then she has been wrecking my mind with no mercy. I don't think she even realizes that the smallest things she does can make me go crazy.

For the first time in a long time, I hate those nicknames. I don't want her to catch a whiff of all the things they call me because... I don't want her to distance herself from me or to fear me.

Because when she looks at me with her shaky and glistening eyes... when I see her hands tremble in front of me... I... it hurts.

I don't know why, but it feels like my chest was bleeding. I feel the intense pain but not the blood pouring out. The ache is so deep that I can't locate it until it has spread to every inch of my being.

And at that moment, I hate what I am.

I despise the monster that I am, the person who causes Mars to look at me like that.

The smile that I saw her give to that baby she helped deliver seems like a million light-years away now.

Tch.

I scoff to a small chuckle while I descend a spiraling dark stair. There is an oil lamp I can take to light my way, but I prefer the darkness. My senses are sharp enough to get me through the stairs with no light, anyway.

Once I reach the dungeon, I stand before the second dark cell from the stair. The smell of sweat, something rotten, blood, and humid becomes one putrid stench that would assault any lycans' noses. It's truly an unpleasant smell, but I much prefer to stay in this dungeon than look at Mars's face again.

There are bones piled in almost every cell in the dungeon. Puddles of bloodstain are on the stone floor and we deliberately never clean them. Rats are attracted by the smell of rotting carcasses, maggots have feasts with the same dead bodies, and those bodies stay for a few days to remind the remaining criminals what would happen to them soon if they don't give us the information we want.

Only the worst and the toughest criminals are sent to this dungeon for me to interrogate personally. Without emotions, I rarely feel pity or empathy, which is beneficial for me, and a nightmare to those who dare to test the lycan king's patience.

The only annoying thing about all this is that I literally have to instruct my guards to prevent all the captives from killing themselves before I get to question them. In the end, we chain their entire bodies to the dungeon wall and put a ball of socks to their mouths in order to prevent them from biting their own tongue to kill themselves.

It's a hassle, honestly.

"Your Highness," Roy greets me with a bow. I know he has loyalty to Adina, but because he already has quite a high standing in our warrior ranks, I can't just strip him of his title just like that. It won't be fair for him to take the brunt of Adina's fault anyway, whether or not he thinks she is in the wrong. Instead, I have been putting him in charge of this dungeon.

Roy interrogates spies and criminals in this kingdom the most. He is good at what he does and he is the second most merciless after me. Being in the dungeon keeps him away from public gatherings and most knights' assemblies. That is how I control Adina's influence. At least a part of her vast influence.

"How many are left?"

Roy opens the cell door, revealing a dark room with the thickest blood stench. Fresh blood.

"Two, Your Highness." Roy lets me enter the cell.

Two men are chained to the cell wall across from the iron bars. Both of them are gagged. One grunts in feral with my arrival. The man still got some spirit in his bones. However, his companion is quiet and looks lifeless.

"Him." I point to the quiet man. "Sit him down."

Roy's men grab a chair to the middle of the cell. Then they take down the quiet man and sit him on the chair with chained hands and feet. Lastly, they take out the gag to allow the man to answer me.

With every step I take, the quiet man shivers, and the one still chained on the wall grunts even more in anger. The man in front of me whimpers. I guess he has heard tales about my cruelty to prisoners. Then again, he's been watching me interrogate his three other friends in the same dungeon.

He knows what he will get if he doesn't give me what I want.

I pop out my claws slowly, making sure the two men hear every sound of my bones cracking during the transformation.

"Where is your hideout?" I ask, straight-forwardly, "Where are you taking the lycan females you kidnapped from my territory?"

The man's pupils shake fervently. But I can still trace my silhouette from the reflection in their eyes.

Dark, full of blood-lust, with black sharp claws and eerie, glowing green eyes.

Each minute the man doesn't answer me, I draw out painful cries from him with a flat face. The man's blood splatters on my face and neck, but I look unfazed. Even when I am plucking his nails and teeth one by one, my face is icy cold.

I have gone too far today.

Mars's scared face keeps entering my mind during the interrogation and it makes me forget all else. Even forgetting that I am interrogating them because I have to save the people that they have kidnapped.

We have four chances to gain their hideout place because we had four rogues captured. Two have died without talking until the end of their lives.

Now, I have let another chance slip away.

I hardly can stop myself. Once I do, I step back to look at what I have created in the dungeon this time.

A blotch of ruined flesh and a fountain of blood paint the entire cell. The last rogue is crying for his comrade.

And still, the face reflected on the man's empty stare is unfazed.

I feel nothing. Not to the man I just tortured to die, not to the rogue who has to watch this, and not to the people I have yet to save.

"You're cruel," Adina's voice slithers in my mind. Ever since she toyed with dark magic, sometimes she can insert things into my brain when I am off guard. Even if she is locked in the magical tower, dark magic has ways to slip between the cracks of the walls. "And she is too innocent for you."

"Just look at how she looked at you." Only I can hear Adina's voice in my head. If only Roy can hear it too, he'll finally realize how manipulative that woman is.

Adina inserts Mars's face into my brain. Vividly.

And it breaks something deep in my heart every time.

"She thinks you are a murderer," Adina whispers inside my head.

I look down to see my hands soaked in blood. Then I laugh. My voice echoes in the entire dungeon. Even Roy jumps a little at the sound of my laughter.

She is right.

I am a villain.

I am a monster.

I don't deserve my true mate's pure smile. I don't deserve her at all

"You're more compatible with me, Lyall," Adina whispers, "I'm stronger than her and I am not scared easily. I helped you defeat your mother, remember?"

I ignore Adina's words and it agitates her more that she starts screaming in my mind while I walk back to my office alone.

"I gave everything up for you. We were great together! We were a powerful couple. If it wasn't for that damn curse, you would not have even looked at that stupid werewolf girl! What does she have that I don't?"

Only when I have reached my office bathroom and stared at myself drenched in blood in the mirror that I reply to her with a clear but low voice.

"You're not her."

A simple answer, yet it angers Adina so much.

"If you didn't stop loving me, none of this would have happened! It was all your fault! I become like this because of you!!" she cries out in my mind so loudly that I get dizzy. The mirror in front of me even cracks because of her intense rage.

But it's about time her magic runs out for the day. A second later, she is gone from my mind and I can breathe easier.

Finally, there's silence.

I look at the cracked mirror. What's reflected is a lycan king soaked in thick, red liquid, with an empty expression.

A villain. A monster. A beast. A murderer.

***

For the next few weeks, I have decided to not see Mars at all. In truth, I am trying to forget her fearful face and try to see if my feelings fade after being away from her for some time. Perhaps I can make better, more objective decisions once I am void of feelings again.

Yet no matter how much time passes, I keep coming back to the same conclusion: I can't let her go.

Ever.

Whether I have fallen for her or if a year has passed, I know for certain I won't be able to let her go.

Even if she thinks I am a beast holding her down in my kingdom.

Even if she thinks I am a cruel being.

So, the only thing I can do now is to give her space to breathe, to not be afraid of my presence, and to do whatever she wants to accomplish.

But if she is the one who comes to me... this villain doesn't have to walk away, right?

–to be continued–