Five Years Ago
Alorea felt a tremendous surge of life crash against her spirit. Her soul seemed to snap away, wrested from the grotesque grip of death. A gentle comfort radiated beneath her skin, caressing her flesh and anchoring her body. She had been adrift, but now gravity had returned!
Her eyes fluttered open. The sunlight assaulted them brutally, forcing them shut once more.
"Could you close the window, please?" She complained to the familiar figure she glimpsed during the brief moment her eyes were open.
"Of course, dear. But you really should get out of bed, you know." The figure's voice was soothing, soft, and tranquil. "Today is a big day, Alorea. You wouldn't want to sleep through it and miss all the fun."
How deeply Alorea had yearned for this voice. It resonated against her heart with profound affection, delicately healing the deeply inflicted wounds and sealing the gaping voids.
"Mom?!" She suddenly realized.
Bolting upright, she scanned her surroundings. She was home!
"Home?!"
Her eyes closed and reopened, but the scene remained unchanged - home! There was no sign of Nathan. No Demeatris. No Scorpio. No red ladies. Just home.
"Is everything alright, dear?" The soothing voice inquired once more. Alorea swiveled her gaze to meet the most compassionate face she knew - her mother's.
"Mom?!" Her eyes welled up and her heart fluttered. All she needed was a hug, and she received a deep, comforting one.
"Easy, darling. I'm here for you." Her mother consoled her with a warm embrace, despite being clueless about Alorea's emotional state. She had always been there for her, in every situation, at every moment of sorrow.
As they remained entwined in that prolonged hug, Alorea realized that this was the missing piece of her life. Despite all the time she had spent with Nathan, all the years of suffering, it was her mother's affection that she needed to ignite a flame against the darkness in her heart.
"Is this a dream?" She finally managed to ask after a lengthy bout of sobbing.
Her mother pulled back slightly, a look of surprise and suspicion on her face. She probably thought this was some kind of joke from her daughter.
But noticing the serious and weary expression on Alorea's face, she sighed, held her by the shoulders, and looked deeply into her daughter's eyes.
"A dream? No, my dear. This is reality. This is us."
"I'm not married? What about Nathan?"
"Who is Nathan?" The perplexed voice inquired, but received no response.
"Well, about your marriage, dear. Who knows? You might meet your future husband today."
"Today?"
"Yes, have you forgotten? Your father's 'greatest banquet', as he calls it. And of course, darling, it's your birthday!"
Greatest banquet? Alorea remembered almost instantly. Her father often spoke of it. He would host an extravagant banquet, the grandest in a century, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his coronation. He vowed that all the alphas and all the kings would attend.
That day also happened to be Alorea's twentieth birthday. She remembered all of this, but she also recalled that the banquet had already taken place five years ago.
"Princes from all over are coming. From the Stoneheart pack, Pearl-edge, even the Chimera family. Everyone will be present. It was exactly the same for me, twenty-five years ago. Your father journeyed from here to my parents' kingdom, and the moment I laid eyes on him, I knew he was the one. You'll experience the same tonight when you meet your soulmate. You see, my beautiful girl, don't worry. The chances of your engagement are as certain as..."
"As the presence of the sun," Alorea finished her mother's sentence, bemused.
"What? How do you know?" Her mother looked puzzled. "I don't recall ever saying that before."
But Alorea remembered. She remembered every single event that had happened before, and everything that would happen afterward. Because she had lived this day before, she had lived this life before.
She remembered how her mother had roused her from bed five years ago to prepare her for this banquet after the maids had failed to wake her. She remembered how her mother had promised that she would find her mate that night, only for everything to descend into chaos.
She met many princes, but none of them captured her heart. Not even for a moment. Each had their flaws, each one worse than the last.
All of these events had occurred in the past, but now they were the present. It seemed certain that Alorea had traveled back in time!
"What's today's date?" She mumbled, further puzzling her mother with her questions.
"It's your birthday..."
"Yes, but what year, mom??"
Her mother paused. She would have answered Alorea's question, but a voice from outside interrupted.
"Your highness!" The voice sounded agitated. It was Declan, the queen's brother and Alorea's uncle. Alorea was especially shocked to see him, alive and well. In the future, Declan was a dead man. He was executed a year after Alorea's marriage to Nathan for committing treason, murdering Alorea's father, the king. He was killed by Allister, Alorea's brother who assumed the throne after his father's death.
Alorea wouldn't have known any of this, but the prison guards had told her these stories to spite her. They informed her of every horrific event that had befallen her family.
"The king wishes to see you urgently, Marianne. He has been searching everywhere for you!"
Declan's voice trembled, clearly indicating something was amiss.
"I wonder what the issue is." Marianne rose from her daughter's side, ready to follow her brother. "Be ready in a few minutes, Alorea. I'll send the best dressers to prepare you."
Alorea watched as her mother left her room.
This was the same way Declan had come to summon her mother, five years ago. Everything seemed to be replaying.
She knew exactly why the king had summoned Marianne; she remembered.
There was a problem with the Giants, a small kingdom of large and ferocious werewolves. That was where her mother originated, and the king had summoned her to inform her of her father's death. Marianne's father had been assassinated by his brother, who then usurped the throne. The traitor would subsequently start a war with Alorea's kingdom. The war would last two years, after which Nathan would help her kingdom defeat the Giants, saving them from certain annihilation.
Everything was unfolding just as it had in her past life.
"How???" She couldn't believe it.
Alorea moved towards the window, and there it was, the kingdom of her birth, a place she thought she would never see again until her final breath, spread out before her like an endless ocean.
Everything was as it used to be. Her body was as it used to be, before she became a rag in Nathan's possession.
"This is amazing!" She said to herself. "This is a good thing! I know everything that will happen for the next five years!! I can reshape my own future!!!"
No one else could possess this knowledge she now held. She knew everyone's intentions, each person's desires. She could clearly discern friend from foe based on their future actions.
"Do you like this dress?" The dresser asked, as Alorea tried on a new dress in front of the gleaming mirror. It was the tenth dress she had tried on.
"Yes, Lisa. This one will do." She stared at her reflection, a beauty stood before her. A beauty that had been lost in the future, the gentle creature she used to be. Now, she was that creature again, lovely and gracious, but no longer gentle. This time, she was ready to find him and make him pay for all he had done to her!
"Nathan Hale of the Rising Shadow pack, this time I'll be the one calling the shots. I promise."
Fully adorned and sparkling, Princess Alorea stepped out of her room, a sight to behold.
Meanwhile, sequestered in his dark room, feasting on a seven-year-old girl, her fresh blood smeared around the corners of his dark lips, was the king of the vampires. Five years younger, one might say, but he looked exactly the same.
A door opened, and a hooded figure walked in, striking a woman's pose.
"What do you say, exalted one?"
She fell to her knees, facing the ground as Demeatris rose from his meal.
"I had a dream! I believe it's a prophecy, a terrible one."
His eyes were blood red. His fangs protruded beside his chin. His soul radiated anger and fear.
"They killed me," he grumbled. "Both of them, a man and a woman. Werewolves!! He, the greatest alpha, and she, his queen."
He growled loudly, and the entire wall of darkness trembled.
"What should I do, great one?"
Demeatris turned his head, only his red eyes were visible. Everything else was shrouded in darkness.
"Find them. End them!!!!!"