Outraged

I fidget with my hands, the question burning in my mind, twisting in my chest like a dagger I was too afraid to pull out. “Are my parents still alive?”

Nana’s face faltered, her expression growing grim, as if she had been dreading this question for years. She let out a slow breath, her gaze softening with sorrow.

“Yes, my dear, they are still alive,” she finally said, her voice tinged with both relief and sadness. “I am one of your mother’s royal guardians. We share a unique bond—an ancient connection forged when I took my oath to protect her. Because of this, I can sense her life force. Though it’s been weak for the last seventeen years, she still clings to life, somewhere out there.”

My breath hitched. Seventeen years. It had been that long since I had been left with Nana, believing my parents were dead. But all this time… they had been alive?

“You see,” Nana continued, “your mother is not just any fairy. She is the fairy queen of this dimension, a ruler whose power was feared by many. But her love for your father—a powerful alpha king—was considered forbidden by the other fairy queens and rulers. Interrelations between species are punishable by death, especially for someone of her stature. The union of different species defies the ancient laws set by the high council.”

I clenched my fists, trying to suppress the swell of anger rising in my chest. “So they were forced to leave me?”

“Yes,” Nana said, her voice barely above a whisper. “They had no choice. Your parents knew that staying with you would put your life at risk. They entrusted you to me, hoping to shield you from the consequences of their forbidden love.”

The silence between us was thick, weighed down by centuries of tradition and the brutal reality of those laws. The world suddenly felt much darker.

“And what happened to them? Why haven’t they come back?”

Nana’s face clouded further, her eyes distant as if she were reliving the memory. “The other fairy queens had grown impatient. They wanted your mother to enter the mate selection process—the ritual where a queen is supposed to choose a mate from among the most powerful male fairies. But your mother… she refused. She resisted with everything she had.”

Nana’s hands trembled, and I could see the deep-rooted pain etched into her features as she continued. “They chained her down, Lenora. Draconian steel—the only substance in existence that can contain a fairy’s magic. They subdued her, locking her powers away, and forced her into submission. The plan was to have her participate in the selection ritual against her will.”

My teeth clenched, my heart pounding harder in my chest. “They… chained her?” My voice cracked with barely contained fury.

Nana nodded, her own pain mirrored in my eyes. “Yes. But before they could carry out their plan, your father arrived. He tore through the doors, a storm of fury and power, his wolf blazing with rage. In an instant, he beheaded the males they sent in to force themselves on her. His love for your mother was stronger than anything they had ever seen before. The connection between an alpha king and his true soulmate… it’s an unbreakable bond, one that no force in existence can sever.”

I could feel the fire of rage bubbling in my chest, spreading like wildfire. How dare they? How could they think to chain their own queen, to subject her to such cruelty? The thought was unbearable, and yet, the image of my father storming into that room, slaughtering those who dared harm her—it stirred something fierce within me.

“How dare they?” I seethed, my fists trembling. “How could they do such a monstrous thing?”

Nana reached out, gently taking my hands in hers, her touch warm and comforting. “They were desperate, Lenora. The other queens saw your mother’s refusal as defiance, a threat to the traditions they had upheld for millennia. They couldn’t control her, so they sought to break her. They believed chaining her down and forcing the ritual upon her would make her submit, but they underestimated the strength of her heart—and the strength of your father’s love.”

Her words hung heavy in the air. It was clear that this wasn’t just about power or politics. It was about control. Control over a queen who dared to defy their ancient ways. And my father… he had been the one to break her free.

“I remember that day as if it were yesterday,” Nana continued, her voice growing soft as she relived the moment. “They dragged me into that room as well, forcing me to watch as they tried to break your mother. I was chained, powerless to stop them. And then your father came. For the first time in my life, I felt pride in watching a wolf—a being of pure, raw strength—tear through a room full of my own kind. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t show mercy. And the other fairy queens… they fled. They knew better than to stand in the way of an enraged alpha king.”

I could see the tear slipping down Nana’s cheek, though she smiled softly. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The queens were cowards, valuing their own lives too much to fight. Your father didn’t just free your mother, Lenora. He saved her from a fate worse than death.”

The enormity of what Nana told me settled heavily in my chest, twisting my insides with a cocktail of emotions—pride for my father’s strength, sorrow for my mother’s suffering, and a burning rage at the injustice of it all.

“I’ll make them pay,” I whispered, my voice trembling with the weight of my vow. “For everything.”

Nana’s eyes softened, her grip on my hands tightening. “Lenora, your parents risked everything for their love. And they left you in my care to ensure that you could live freely, without being caught in the crossfire of their war. But now that you’re of age, the time has come for you to reclaim what is yours. You are not only their daughter—you are a queen in your own right. And when the time comes, you will have to decide how you will lead.”

Her words filled me with a sense of purpose I hadn’t fully understood before. My parents had been fighting a battle long before I was born—a battle for love, for freedom, for a future that defied the ancient laws of this world. And now, it was my turn to carry that torch.