It’s all my fault.

Blood runs in long strands from my mouth where I hang chained to the wall.

My face is so swollen I can barely move my jaw, and the two men watching me, have been ordered to kill me should I change, and I’ve been warned that should I do that, it won’t end with my death. Liana…she too would pay for my attempt to fight back or leave.

At first, I felt it was empty threats, but as the truth spilled from the lips of Crede, crown barely put upon his head moments before---he’d had his guards jump me, bind me, and then he’d personally spent time, carefully abusing every bit of my body that he could---he’d filled me in on the treachery of the entire Summer Court.

“We killed your father, little dog,” Crede says.

“You will pay for this. As if the wolves won’t come raining down onto your pride,” I spit at him hoping my blood will smear more of his coronation robes. “We outnumber the pride one hundred to one! Enough teeth to tear into your precious Summer until naught but bones are left!”

I pull at my chains and snap my teeth fighting the rogue for control. “Where is she! Let me see Liana!”

Crede smiles. He paces in front of me, knuckles bruised, cut, and bleeding from hammering my face with them until he’d tired.

He slants a look with a faux thoughtful expression. “She is a true mate, yes? In bed, I mean. A real test of a man’s control. I still dream about her, you know? I think about her when I’m with her sisters.”

I growl, lips peeling back from my teeth that are longer. “If you touch her, I will end you, Crede. I will end your line. Any son you might have bred out of your wives. Every family member of yours will pay for this. Wolves of every lineage will hunt your line to extinction. Mark my words, King of Summer. The end is near for you and yours.”

Crede swiftly grabs me by the throat, his face inches from mine, a mask of hatred so pure, I wonder how I’d not seen it coming. “She will be mine. Liana, Winter, your silly little wolves, all of it will be mine. I will marry her, as I should have, and I will put a child in your queen before the next full moon, and then what? Who will stop my line then, Noble?”

I hate him for helping to murder my father, but now, I hate him even more for the fact that fear bleeds into my very core. A fear of losing everything. A fear of losing Liana, most of all, runs rampant through me and I know he sees it, and I know his grin is in reaction to the pain and impotent rage and fear that shows across my features.

“No, Noble. I won’t kill you if that is what you wonder. I’m not stupid. Keep you here, locked away, and I’ll punish you at my leisure, but to kill you would make war. If there is hope, then the idiot wolves will try for a treaty. Hope will be their enemy more than the lion kingdom shall.”

With that, he steps away, straightening his robe, replacing his crown on his head.

“If he tries anything,” Crede says to the guards. “Beat him until he loses consciousness.”

While it had been Liana’s mother who’d decided it for her, and my wife may or may not have been aware of the plot to kill my father, the entire realm of Summer was culpable, since most had to have pieced it together by now.

And Liana, my wife, my love, she’d be torn to pieces by her own pride if she stood against such a tide.

It’s all my fault in the end. I’ve had time to think of it while hanging here, thinking of my stupidity from start to finish.

Katarina.

Her death had changed fate itself. And it was the start of my debts. If I’d not been a rogue and left her, and then later as a man, if I’d not wandered into lion territory and been attacked by Liana for stalking her at the pond, none of this would ever have happened.

We’d be free in our own realms. My father would still be alive. And my mother wouldn’t wind up a widow as well as the parent of a dead or imprisoned son.

Liana and I should have rebelled and not entered into a marriage that was doomed to fail.

And we should have never fallen into each other’s arms thinking the realms would wait or understand.

Because they won’t. Ever. I see that now.

What a fool I’ve been---we’ve been.

At every turn, Liana and I had been warned: love is not enough. If it was, then love stories wouldn’t so commonly end with tragedy.

No, Liana and I should have hardened our hearts, and I should have married a wolf, and she a lion, and we should have gone on to rule our own places as has been done for a hundred years.

The door to my cell swings open and a cloaked figure strides in.

In the small light, Liana pulls back her hood to reveal a fearful grimace. “I only have a moment,” she says, choking, hands shaking, as she reaches for my ruined face. “Oh, Noble. What have they done to you?”

I watch for even the slightest of hesitations. For a hint of motive. But my wife gives none. She bears my abuse like a living thing that moves across her face, feeling each blow, her features tight, her eyes watering, and her hands petting the very small patches to be found that don’t hurt.

“Tell me what to do, Noble. Please, my king and husband, I cannot free you, but tell me what to do?”

The guards exchange glances.

I gaze at Liana sadly. There is no rescuing me. “Will they let you return?” I pause to spit up blood. “To Winter? To home?” My voice is a croak of pain.

She leans in to whisper. “Yes, I believe so. To rule there. For them.”

“Oren,” I whisper, and she nods. “Arlo.”

“Arlo?” she whispers back.

The guards are moving toward us. “That’s enough!” one of them says.

“What about him?” Liana asks.

“Still alive,” I say, head sagging. My energy is leaving me. I don’t have much hold on my consciousness.

“Arlo is alive?” Liana gasps. “You mean…a trade?” she asks. “Between Arlo and yourself?”

I nod. My vision fades. “Go,” I say. “Go.”

I don’t want her here anymore. I want Liana away. With the wolves.

Where she belongs.

To be continued……..