Hekate’s Bride

*Rune*

It had begun with dreams.

Once, I had been a child, trailing after my mother for sweets and running after my knights with a wooden sword with a battle cry that I would deem rather pathetic, looking back on it.

I had been oblivious then.

I had been normal.

Until we met.

Rather, until I saw her. It had been the first time I felt him within me.

I have always thought the wolves to have the greater privileges of being granted beasts they can tame just as easily as they breathe. Lycans have it worse. I have it way worse.

Her wolf to her is what Hekate is to me.

A cruel joke. One would think I may have offended the Goddess in my past life–perhaps, I did. To be leashed for all eternity to him, constantly struggling for control, constantly struggling to survive.

I don’t ever win.

When he takes over, I stop being. I lose time. I lose everything I am in those moments, and I do not return until he wishes to leave.

Others pride in their true forms, but I, Rune Wilder, Heir of the Lycan throne, dare not shift to my true form. I dare not yield to him willingly. Or that will be the end of me.

I remember it like it was yesterday. Her birthday. Solstice. The first time we met. The day I got damned. Our parents had introduced us, but she had been too busy stuffing the frostings of her cake to actually look at me.

But I had seen her, and something in me snapped.

I had been too young to truly grasp it but not too young to understand the pain I had felt in that moment. The grief. The rage. The hate. None of which had been mine.

And for the first time, I had heard him speak. One word.

*Mine.*

The princess had turned sharply then, walking to where I stood, unmoving. She smiled, blue eyes glittering like stars in the night and though she looked absolutely ridiculous with two of her front teeth missing as that wide grin, I had never seen anything so beautiful. The hurt, the ache, it vanished suddenly, leaving me in a daze I could not comprehend.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“You called me,” she cooed, words scrambled together. Her hands rose and I went still as her small fingers grazed the curve of my hand and wrap around my tiny finger. “R-yune.”

I had shuddered and fled from the ballroom immediately, unused to the feelings that overwhelmed me.

That night, I dreamt. I dreamt of places I had never been to, a woman I have never met, a darkness that was both deadly and comforting. So it began. I would wake up with the taste of blood and ash in my mouth. I would wake up in places I did not remember going to, feet bare, clothes either in shreds or gone.

Every solstice brought upon the same suffering. Every time we came in close contact, he would stir, I would dream, and I would wake up in places I didn’t know, with absolutely no recollection of what had happened the night before.

It had not taken much for my father to figure it out. Having had the last priestess ‘examine’ me, she had come up with the same conclusion that no doubt damned King Hekate eons ago.

I was evil. I should be killed before the thing within me completely took a hold of me. I should be put down. The Hekate resided in me, not as a being possessed, no. But as my other half. The flip side of the coin. My lycan.

It hadn’t made much sense to me then. My father shared the same sentiment, discarding her thoughts immediately with facts known to all. Hekate was beyond the Void, building an army to destroy us all, and there I was, sick out of my mind and suffering from the madness being inflicted upon me.

One day, however, it became clear.

The first time she touched me. The first time I let myself touch her, kiss her.

Pulling an aura on her had been bad. Trying to make her forget what had happened between us, by compulsion, it was the worst thing I’d done to anyone–at least, the things I can remember vividly.

I had been restless in my room, angry. It took me one hour to wander back to her room, where I had left her asleep, and though I knew it was silly, I decided to watch her sleep, like I had done every solstice without her knowledge.

But her bed had been empty. Panic gripped me and I followed her scent through the hallways.

I didn’t stop until I found her. In bed with Orion. Vaguely, I had registered the presence of another behind me. The wolf she favoured.

It didn’t matter. My vision had turned red–the haze that came from blood lust. I knew if I stayed, someone was going to die. It took all of my will to fight it, to turn away and run.

I don’t remember much after that.

I awoke in the outskirts of my kingdom, naked and covered in blood. The blood wasn’t mine. It was in my mouth, guts and flesh were in my hair.

I had hurled my guts up when I returned home, falling so terribly ill, I could barely make out my surroundings.

When I came to, there had been more guards stationed by my doors than usual, all of whom seemed frightened of me. No one would speak to me or look at me. Not even mother.

I found later that in the first few hours of the fever, no one could get into my room. It was shrouded in a darkness and when father eventually pried the door open, I was cocooned in it.

The Grand Mistress had been called upon to get me out of that state, and all the while she had consulted with the Moon Goddess on my behalf, I had cried her name in my unconscious state. Astrid.

Father had asked me then, when I’d woken. What the wolf princess was to me, and I admitted it to him and myself for the first time. Erasthai.

He got me engaged the next day.

I’d raged, rebelled against the idea for months, but I’d come to understand why he’d made that decision. I’d never be strong enough to give myself a reason to stay away from her. He gave me one. A way out, to save her from me. To save me from her.

We can’t be together. Not until I find a way to not lose myself around her.

At this rate, I doubt that’ll ever be possible. I am a man cursed, and the best thing I can do for her is stay away. Reject her. Hopefully, she’ll move on someday. Hopefully, I’ll learn to live with my decisions too.