Filed to story: The Alpha Kings Hated Slave
“Do you know what my duties are? I will have to be with another man who’ll become the king and rule with me. I will have to get married! Do you think I want to be with another man!? I don’t want to!” She was almost shouting. So close to losing it.
“Danika-“
She took deep breaths. “I am carrying your child within me. Your child is growing inside of me, Lucien. Doesn’t that even matter?” she whispered tearfully.
He faced her then. “Don’t say words like that ever again. You know I will die for my son. You know I will go through hell over and over again for my son.”
“Then why are you pushing me away? Why?”
Silence.
Then he turned away from her. “Because I know I have to give you your freedom, Danika. You need to have your freedom and your status again, and that is when you will be able to have an opinion. A choice.” He swallowed tightly. “You do not know how it hurts me, but I am giving you freedom and choice. You never had either of those before.” The last statement was said in a tone so low she almost didn’t hear it.
But she did.
The pieces fell in together. Suddenly, it was making more sense to her. With the clarity, came more pain.
“You think I won’t choose you, right? That you will make me queen and I will disappear straight to my kingdom without a backward glance? Is that what you think of me?” Pain laced her voice like living thongs.
“I made you a slave. I took away your life and your status and made you a slave. I hated you so much and tortured you because I wanted revenge for what your father did to my people and me.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You have every reason to hate me.”
“But I don’t hate you!” she shouted, wishing there was a way to let this mansee how she felt about him. “I did, at the beginning, but I got over it! I have no idea how it happened, but one day I woke up feeling so much love for you instead of the bone-deep hatred. I love you, Lucien!” she shouted, her breathing coming out harder.
“What is there to love, Danika? Do you even know what you feel?” He whirled around and faced her. “Are you even sure of what you feel? You have been in this walls for a long time, having no choice but to survive. I understand that deeply ingrained push to do everything within your power to survive… including loving your captor. Or thinking you feel that way.” He gave her his back again. “It’s these walls. It was that collar on your neck. You had no choice.”
“I love you. I love you. I love you.” Tears spilled from her eyes. “Twisting my feelings for you in that damaged heart of yours does not change what I feel for you! Why is it so hard for you to believe that I love you!?”
She was too upset, which in turn troubled him more greatly than the squeezing in his chest did. Automatically, he turned towards her. “Calm down, Danika. You’re too upset; don’t forget your condition.”
“You’re the one hurting me, not my condition!” she screamed at him, unable to think clearly anymore. It hurt. It hurt badly.
“I wanted to give you your freedom. I wanted you to have a choice,” he stated.
“All this time I worried myself to death thinking I’d done something so grave, it worried me for the past few days. I didn’t know it was because you wanted to push me away! Because you didn’t trust me! Because you don’t even love me! Did you ever care!?”
“Danika.” He reached for her in an effort to calm her.
She pulled away from him so fast, she almost lost her footing. “Leave me alone! I don’t want you to touch me!”
He reared back like she just slapped him. Maybe, she did.
Danika realized what she just did and her eyes widened in horror. She was a mess-so hurt and confused-she wasn’t even thinking about his reasons…or anything at all. She wasn’t thinking clearly anymore.
So she did the only thing she could.
She turned and ran away….
Sally was searching fanatically for her princess as she ran into the palace with an ear-splitting smile. She spotted Danika hurrying away from the hallway that led to the king’s chambers, and her princess was crying.
Sally’s smile dried away to be replaced by worry. “My princess!? My princess!?”
At the familiar sound of Sally’s voice, Danika hurried towards her and threw herself in her friend’s arm. “Oh, Sally? You’re here?”
“Of course, I’m here. I came immediately when I heard that you were freed and crowned. The new queen of Mombana! By heavens, I am so happy!”
Danika held her tight, crying her heart out. It was hurting too much.
“Please, why are you crying, my princess? You’re scaring me! You know you can tell me anything!?” she whispered, leading Danika away from the hallway.
Chad came up behind her, his eyes asking her what the problem was, but Sally shook her head to her husband, indicating that she had no idea. A look passed between them. Sally nodded, and then he continued towards the end of the hallway, his destination being the king’s chambers.
Alone with Danika, Sally pleaded with her princess to tell her why she was crying.
“He n-never cared about me, S-Sally. He does not even want me to stay. He d-does not t-t-trust me. It hurts, Sally, it hurts b-badly.” Sobs racked Danika’s throat.
Quickly, Sally tried to understand what her princess was crying about, and as she did, tears were already dropping from her own eyes. It had always been hard for her to hold it together whenever her princess cried.
“It’s okay, my princess. Please, stop crying. Please.” They could talk about all this later, then Sally could understand better. For now, her princess needed to stop crying.
Danika kept pouring her heart out in her lamentations. “He m-made me a queen. It’s what I w-want, and I’m so h-happy, but he doesn’t believe that I will s-still want to be with him when I h-have my freedom and my s-status restored. Why would he ever think that I would love him less!? I d-don’t! I will n-never!” She took a breath. “And now, I have to go back to Mombana…so f-far away from him…from Salem. How do I live without him? I was so mad, I t-told him not to t-touch me when he t-tried to. I told him that I d-don’t want his h-hands on me!”
“Oh, my princess!” Sally gasped shocked and at the same time, feeling so much pity for her princess and the situation at hand.
“I know, I know, I didn’t m-mean it!” she cried. “I was just so mad and hurt and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was a m-mess! I am still a mess!”
“You are, my princess, you are. So stop crying. You need to rest and think clearly so we can know which way to go forward.”
Danika was shaking her head so miserably, she opened her mouth to say something else but the door opened.
A maid stuck her head in, gasped in relief and pulled her head back. “The queen is in here!”
At the sound of footsteps from outside, Sally helped wipe away the tears from Danika’s face with her own clothes, and by the time the door opened again, they had a semblance of control.
Three guards and four maids entered the room. They bowed their heads. One of the guards spoke up.
“The kings are waiting for you in court, Your Highness. It’s time for the last rites before you go home. Your people have also assembled outside the palace. They are waiting to take their queen home.”
Danika looked at Sally helplessly.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?