by Jayme Morse
Theo wasn’t too far ahead of us. I watched as Caroline Wickburn walked over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. She shot him one of her painfully obvious attempts at a seductive smile, and I rolled my eyes.
When was this woman ever going to get over him?
Not anytime soon, that was for sure. I couldn’t help but think that it was the entire reason why Professor Wickburn seemed to hate me. I was barely passing her class, and she always seemed to call on me when I didn’t know the answers. I couldn’t get past the idea that she somehow knew I didn’t have the answers and wanted to make me look like a fool in front of my peers.
I wanted to believe that I was only being paranoid, but I didn’t think I was. That bitch wanted Theo, and she was willing to do whatever it took to get him.
Well, newsflash: she was going to have to get through me first.
God, I sounded like such a jealous mate, but whatever. She was barking up the wrong tree.
I wished that someone—maybe Theo himself—would just tell her that he had a mate already and that even if I wasn’t his mate, he would have no interest in her because of the whole Ancients only being attracted to Ancients thing. She needed to know that she didn’t stand a chance, regardless of whether or not I was in the picture. Maybe that way, she would be able to move on and I would be able to actually pass her class.
Theo looked away from her then, his blue eyes locking on mine. He smiled at me. I smiled back.
I watched as Caroline Wickburn’s gaze drifted in my direction, and she glared at me.
Ugh.
“And this is where the Ancients lived,” I heard Headmaster Black announce from ahead of us as we reached a little neighborhood of cottages. “Some of the Ancients, anyway. Others lived in these woods and on the beach, living off the land. The climate was cooler in those times than it is now, which is the reason werewolves are believed to have such warm blood. The Ancients’ bodies adapted to the cool temperatures, paving the way for all of us to be able to survive in winter climates.”
As I stared at the cottages, one of them stood out to me. I wasn’t sure what it was about the cobblestone cottage with a peak on the left side and a little window above the front door that stood out to me, but something about it felt so… familiar.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and snapped a picture of it. I wanted to be able to remember what it looked like for later, just in case any memories came back to me.
We continued down the streets of Nocturne Island, with both Headmaster Black and Aiden telling us little historical facts about the place. Every once in a while, something looked familiar: a tree, a bridge overlooking the water, a storefront.
But I couldn’t seem to make sense of how or why these landmarks stood out to me. I just kept taking photos in hopes that it would all come back to me eventually.
As we continued to walk up a hill, I saw it from a distance.
The castle.
From the moment I laid eyes on it, I felt a sense of familiarity. It was that de ja vu-like feeling that tells you that you’ve been somewhere before.
I got the feeling that I had stood right where I was right now, staring up at this castle.
It wasn’t what I had been expecting. I had been picturing the type of castle that you saw in a fairytale book, but this didn’t look like that at all.
The once gray stone now looked dark and worn. The castle appeared to be in a state of abandonment. Desolation.
A feeling of darkness came over me as I stared up at it. Regardless of whether or not I was truly Princess Fallyn, a war really had been fought here. That was something I knew for sure—a war between the vampires and werewolves.
There had been a battle, and lives had been lost.
I wasn’t sure how I knew that, but I just did.
“Now, we’re approaching Nocturne Castle,” Aiden told us, snapping me out of my thoughts. “This is the castle where the King and Queen, as well their daughter, Princess Fallyn—” His eyes met mine then— “once lived. Today, no one lives in the castle, but it is operated by the Holkrie pack, the only pack that continues to live on Nocturne Island. It is a preserved historical site and today operates as a museum, which we are about to enter.”
An eerie feeling crept over me, but I wasn’t entirely sure why.
I felt it again then: that sudden urge to vomit.
Vince glanced over at me. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m just suddenly not feeling good again,” I admitted.
He stared at for a moment. “It seems like the closer you get to this castle, the sicker you feel. Is it possible that maybe you weren’t supposed to return to the island?”
I considered what he was saying, and he was right. I first started feeling sick when we arrived on the island, and now that we were getting closer to the castle, I was beginning to feel sick again.
Was it possible that, somehow, Nocturne Island didn’t want me here?
I knew that was a bit of a stretch, but it actually did make sense.
“I guess we’ll see how I feel once we’re inside the castle.” The knots in my stomach just seemed to tighten at the thought of stepping foot inside that castle.
I tried to shake it away, but the feeling just seemed to consume me.
Walking up the drawbridge that led to the castle, I became overwhelmed with this feeling of dread.
What would be waiting for me inside the castle?
I held my breath as we stepped inside, almost afraid to know.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
As I walked through room after room of the castle, it all seemed familiar… but only vaguely familiar. Just like with everything else so far, I felt like I had been here before, but I wasn’t able to recall anything specific. No specific memories were coming back to me yet. I had hoped something would, so I felt a little disappointed.
“Raven, come look at this,” Vince said as I entered the room that he was standing in. I stared into the glass case, which held numerous dresses. There was a yellow ball gown, a black gown, and what appeared to be a white wedding dress.
“Why did you want me to look at this?” I asked.
“There were all Princess Fallyn’s dresses,” Vince replied. “Now look at the size of them and then look at you. It’s hard to tell because we can’t hold it up to you, but I’m pretty sure these dresses would fit on you perfectly.”
As I stared at the dresses, I couldn’t help but think that he was right. And that’s when it happened.
A flashback.
The ball gown felt tight on my hips, but not as tight as the corset that held me in.
I was dancing with someone. A guy with dark brown hair. He was spinning me around, and I was laughing.
I felt so happy… I had never been in love before, and I wondered if this may have been it.
“What is she doing?” I heard a woman whisper from somewhere behind me. It took a moment for me to realize that the voice belonged to my mother, the Queen.
“I don’t know,” a male voice responded.
“She can’t dance like that. Not with him.” My mother sounded absolutely disgusted. “He’s nothing more than a servant. She is engaged to marry another man. If he were to ever find out about this, he would want nothing to do with her. We have to put an end to this.”
Her words only made me dance faster and spin more with this dark-haired guy. I wanted nothing to do with my fiancé, but she just didn’t seem to get it.
I wasn’t eighteen yet, so decision to marry wasn’t mine to make. I was going to be forced into this marriage with the Lord whether I wanted to or not. The least I could do was enjoy right now.
“Come on, Nicholas,” I whispered to the dark-haired guy. “Let’s get out of here. This party is such a bore.”
And then I did the thing that I was getting to be so good at. I slipped out of the room with Nicholas, getting as far away from possible from my mother.
My parents wanted to control everything a
bout my life. They were going to force me into this marriage with a man who I didn’t love. And it was all to form an ally between our two packs.
I wanted to run away with Nicholas. I planned to do just that.
“Raven? Are you alright?” Vince stared at me through eyes filled with concern.
“I think I may have just had a flashback,” I whispered, swallowing hard. “I was wearing that yellow dress, and I was dancing with a guy named Nicholas.” I paused. “My parents—the King and Queen—were going to force me into marrying a guy who I wasn’t in love with, and I planned to run away with this guy Nicholas.”
It all felt so… real. Too real.
“Whoa. So, are you saying that you believe you really are Princess Fallyn?” Vince asked.
“I-I think so,” I replied, shaking my head. “I’ll be back. I need to find Aiden.”
I began to look through each and every room of the museum, in search of Aiden. Finally, I found him in a room that had once been the King’s bedroom quarters. He was talking to Jessica Davis.
Um. What. The. Hell?
I knew she was his student, so he couldn’t blow her off completely. But the fact that he was talking, in private, with the girl who I recognized as an enemy kind of caught me off-guard a little.
Her dark eyes met mine as I stood a few feet away from them, waiting for their conversation to end. There was an undeniable look of anger in her eyes.
Months had passed since she’d attacked me in the woods, and we’d had very little contact since then. In fact, I’d only bumped into her once in private in the bathroom at school, and she hadn’t said a word to me.
I was just surprised to learn that, even after all of this time, she was still angry at me. If she thought that was still a way to get me to join the She-Wolves, she was out of her damn mind.
Turning to Aiden, she touched his elbow lightly. “Thank you for all of your help, Professor Flores. I was wondering if we can go over this some more once we get back to the Academy. Maybe I could come to your office for some private one-on-one time?”
I could feel my blood beginning to boil. The fact that my enemy wanted some “private one-on-one time” with my mate had sent me into a jealous, angry rage.
I knew that she was doing this intentionally, to try to get under my skin. And the worst part about it all? It was actually working.
I watched as Aiden nodded. “Sure, you know when my office hours are, so feel free to swing by at any time.”
“I will. Just like I always do.” She shot a smile in my direction. “He’s all yours now.”
As she walked away, I narrowed my eyes at him. “She always comes to your office for ‘private one-on-one’ sessions?”
“I mean, every now and then.” He shrugged.
“Why haven’t you told me about this?” I questioned.
“I didn’t know I needed to inform you every time one of my students needed some additional help,” he replied.
“She’s not just one of your students. She’s my enemy. Do I need to remind you of how she attacked me in the woods? And how you and the others had to basically save my life from her?” I found myself growing angrier and angrier that he was acting like Jessica “swinging by his office” was no big deal when it was actually a huge deal.
“Raven, relax. Between you and me, Jessica is actually struggling with the History of Werewolves. She comes by for some additional help sometimes. If anything worth mentioning were to ever happen—or anything involving you—you know I would inform you,” Aiden replied.
I stared into his eyes. He seemed completely genuine, but something about it all rubbed me the wrong way.
“I just came by because I wanted to tell you that I had a flashback,” I informed him.
His brown eyes widened. “A flashback of what?”
I told him about the flashback, and he just stared back at me. “Wow. It seems like my theory may be accurate.”
“I think so.” I paused. “There has to be a portrait of her, doesn’t there? Somewhere? I mean, this is a museum, and she was a Princess. Didn’t royals in those times always have family portraits done?”
“That’s actually one of the things that I’ve been keeping an eye out for since we arrived. There is a room of family portraits, but for some reason, Princess Fallyn isn’t included in it.”
“Of course she isn’t.” That would have made this too easy for us. It was the one way that we could have known for sure whether or not I was Princess Fallyn.
“I think I’ll go ask the wolves who are running this museum if there are any portraits of Princess Fallyn,” Aiden said.
“That’s a good idea,” I replied with a nod. “And I’ll go see if any of these artifacts or rooms give me anymore flashbacks.”
I knew that flashback wasn’t proof in itself that I really was her, but it felt pretty promising, to say the least.
“Sounds like a good plan.” Aiden glanced around then, making sure that no one was looking. Once he knew that we were entirely alone, he closed the door and then pressed his lips to mine.
There was a sense of urgency behind his kiss—a passion that had been building up for a while now. It sent an adrenaline rush through me.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled him in closer to me, not wanting to let him go. It had been so long since he had kissed me—since any of them had kissed me. It felt exactly like what I needed, right when I needed it the most.
When we broke away from one another, we were both breathless. Aiden stared into my eyes.
“This probably wasn’t the time or place, but you have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that. It’s just that lately, it hasn’t felt right.”
“I get it,” I replied with a nod. “I’ve missed it.” I paused. “I’ve missed you.”
In some ways, I missed the physical side of things with Aiden more than I did with the others. We had gotten the furthest with one another. I was dying to go a little further with him.
Really, what I wanted more than anything was to go further with all of them, even though I knew that it would only complicate things more.
Aiden’s eyes lingered on mine for a moment longer. “Alright then. I’m going to go see if I can locate a portrait.”
I nodded. “Meet up with you soon.”
I waited for a moment for him to leave the room before I exited it myself, just so that no one would suspect anything. Then I began off in the opposite direction, ascending a flight of stone stairs.
As I reached a stone landing at the top of the staircase, I walked through a stone archway that led to another flight of stairs.
I hesitated. No one else seemed to be up here, making me wonder if this area of the castle was off-limits or something.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure that no one was watching me before continuing my way up the staircase.
I wasn’t completely sure what it was that I was looking for. All I knew was that I was looking for something that would give me answers about who I was—or who Princess Fallyn was, at least.
When I reached the next landing, I found yet another staircase—this time, a spiral one.
There was something about this staircase that was drawing me to it. It was similar to how I had been drawn to the Darken; it was like I felt some sort of magnetic pull to this wing of the castle, for some reason. I wasn’t sure what it was, but my gut was telling me that this was the direct I needed to take to get the answers I was looking for.
That staircase led me to another spiral staircase, and then another.
When I finally reached the top of the final staircase, I realized that I was at the top of a tower.
Aiden’s words echoed through my mind then, “…but I never met Princess Fallyn—partly because she was kept under lock and key. The King and Queen allegedly kept her in a tower, sheltered from the rest of the world.”
I was fairly certain that my gut had led me to this tower for a reason.
I was standing in what had been Fallyn’
s tower—her prison.
This tower wasn’t anything like Rapunzel’s tower, though. No. It wasn’t how I had pictured it at all.
It was so much darker… so much creepier.
What type of parents had the King and Queen been that they had kept their daughter locked up in here?
I glanced out the window, which overlooked the drawbridge that led to the castle. And that was when a vision came to me.
I was running away with Nicholas.
We were on the back of his horse, and I was wearing pants. Pants! Mother would have killed me if she saw that I was wearing pants. Princesses, she thought, weren’t supposed to wear pants.
That only made me want to wear them all the more.
I was tired of being a lady. Actually, what I was tired of was being the perfect little princess my parents wanted me to be.
I wanted nothing more than to leave this island, to start a life for myself with Nicholas. I didn’t care that he was a castle servant. I loved him more than anything. I loved him far more than I would ever love my fiancé.
My fiancé was a strong and powerful wolf. My parents felt he would take good care of me, but did they not realize I was a wolf myself? I didn’t need any guy to take care of me.
What I needed was true love, and I had found it.
If I had to give up being a princess in order to be with the guy I loved, then so be it. I really hated being a princess, anyway. I was tired of having tea parties and being proper. I was tired of entertaining girls from other packs who were just… boring.
I wanted to live my life without a care in the world. The further I could get away from Nocturne Castle, the better.
***
We had ridden to the edge of the island. Nicholas had built a boat for us to leave the island with. It wasn’t a large boat, and he had only filled it with the supplies we needed in order to get by: some food, water, supplies to build a fire, and some blankets in case it got cold.
Once we got to Wolflandia, where we planned to make a new life together, we would get more supplies.