85 Chapter 85 : It’s a war
Ella’s eyes shot open when she heard the crunching of leaves from a distance outside the tent, at first she thought it was just a woodland creature or something but the pattern of the crunching sounded a lot like footsteps. She closed her eyes and focused on the noise and she heard breathing, breathing that didn’t belong to any animal she knew. There was a human or humans walking around outside in the dark.
Ella looked down at the dark haired man who was fast asleep on her chest and nudged him, “Adam, there’s someone outside.”
“Mmmh your skin is so soft..” the man mumbled and went back to sleep.
Ella rolled her eyes. She looked to the exit of the tent and focused her hearing on the outside. The presence there was certainly not an animal, but again after focusing she could tell that it wasn’t human either. What was that?
Ella gently slid Adam off her body with much difficulty, he was firmly latched onto her and he was incredibly heavy. When he was finally off, she rolled up her cloak into a bulk and placed it in Adam’s arms to hug. After the alcohol Adam had taken she knew he was not waking up anytime soon.
She walked out of the tent and immediately shivered when the cold air hit her exposed skin, she immediately regretted leaving her cloak with Adam. She quietly walked around the tent to where she heard the footsteps. Ella was moving so quietly and swiftly that she did not notice that her feet barely touched the ground, she glided quietly through the cold night air into the thicket of trees, following the breathing that she could clearly hear with her new sharper sense of hearing.
The blue eyed woman halted, her eyes turned red, her fangs sprouted out and she turned around sharply when she felt a presence behind her. The shadows of the trees lashed towards the presence, acting upon Ella’s instinct. The act surprised her a bit, she had no idea she could control shadows but this wasn’t a time to think about the details.
“My lady wait!”
The shadows halted just inches away from the woman who had her arms in front of her defensively. Ella’s eyes went wide when she laid eyes on the woman who had just spoken.
.....
“Maria?”
The shadows returned to their original positions, her eyes returned to their original color and her feet returned to the ground. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
When Ella saw another woman pop up behind Maria, she became wary and defensive. She took a step back when she saw the fangs in both their mouths and their slightly pointed ears. “You.. you’re nosferatu?” The shadows of the trees started moving again, “who sent you here? Was it Nathan?! I won’t let you take me back to him!”
“Princess no!” The other woman yelled in a panic, she could sense the raw power that was pouring out of Ella, it’s was so spectacular and so terrifying at the same time. “We have not come from Meria, your father sent us here. He sent us to bring you home.” The woman bowed lightly and looked up at Ella, “we are your escorts to Wintershold, Princess Melissa of the nosferatu.”
*
King Elric took long strides passed the knights who were standing on either side of the exit, he walked out of the palace to the courtyard where six big menacing looking men took a knee upon Elric’s arrival.
“You sure took your time to get here,” Elric spoke to the men as he waved his hand gesturing them to stand up straight.
“Our apologies my prince,” one of the men responded with a slight bow. “It’s has been many years since we dwelled these lands, navigating our way here was not the easiest task.”
Elric scoffed, “wolves who can’t track? Then what good are you to me?”
The man bowed again, “my apologies again your grace, but I assure you you’ll see that we can track elves the way a rodent soughts out a piece of cheese. We will find the elf and we will bring back your mate.”
“There has been a slight change of plans,” Elric spoke calmly, the way he looked down at the men with that vicious aura whirling around him, the men had no doubt in their minds that this was truly the alpha’s son, next leader of the silver pack.
“This is not just a retrieval mission anymore,” Elric added on, “it’s a war.”
The man with deep silvery eyes arched his brows in amusement, “you wish to wage war against the elves?”
“They kidnapped my mate at my wedding, that’s treason is it not?,” Elric spoke angrily. Every time he thought of that day, the day Adam snuck into his own wedding and stole Ella away from him made his blood boil. He didn’t even want to think about whatever that slimy piece of elf garbage was doing to his wife in fear he might transform and rip everyone within range limb from limb.
“Besides, I’m trying to reunite the continent again,” Elric added on, “restore it to its former glory with me as king, and my beautiful and lovely Ella as my queen.”
“I don’t mean to be presumptuous my prince,” the silver eyed lycan spoke, “but isn’t the initial plan to do exactly that? To overthrow the humans and restore the continent to its previous state before the cleansing?”
“Union of territory only happens with conquest, ” Elric responded, “that nonsense of ‘coming together’ to overthrow the humans is a foolish dream. A leader must take control and merge all the kingdoms under one supreme rule, that is true conquest.” the silver haired king turned to the man and held his hands behind his back, a taunting smile crossing his face. “And that leader who will make all of this possible, is me.”
The silver eyed lycan’s amused smile turned into a grin. This man was insane, he wanted to conquer all the lands of the continent by himself and deem himself supreme ruler?! What an insanely intriguing plan, talk about reaching for the sky.
“So I ask you, will you join me in my cause?” Adam questioned the men who were standing in a line in front of him.
“You are our prince,” the silver eyed lycan spoke, “we would join you in any cause.”
The six men bowed and swore their allegiance and the allegiance of the entire pack to Elric. The king grinned devilishly and turned to head back into the palace. “Theo, give them a place to drink, eat and rest. Make sure all their needs are well taken care of. We ride to war in a few days.”
Theo bowed respectfully towards the silver haired king and led the men away. Leaving Elric to his study where he rolled out a map of the great continent of Ronia Cresus. He already had meria under his rule, Gavaria was practically his as well, and now with the laycans, and in part the nosferatu on his side, all that was left was the elves, the dwarves and the kingdom of Cenia. Baiviles was governed by Gavaria after being conquered by Adam some years back so it was as good as his as well.
With the army he had amassed, king Elric was going to crush Adam and all the elves, and then he would take his wife back, get her pregnant and they could live happily ever after for all eternity! No one would ever dare take Ella away from him ever again, because he’d be the undisputed king of all!
Elric released a thread of chilling chuckles as he enjoyed the thoughts of crushing the elven army and keeping their dear sweet prince as a prisoner of war. He was going to torture Adam mercilessly, he would even make the elven prince a guard to stand watch while he made sweet love to his wife over and over again till that elf got the message that Ella belonged to Elric and no one else.
The silver haired king walked to his table and looked at a picture of his human mother and father, Bradley Aldos and Juliet Aldos. In a way he had them to thank for all of this, if he hadn’t been born a prince of Meria he wouldn’t have any claims to the throne, and if his mother hadn’t died, Bradley Aldos wouldn’t have given him the crown at such a convenient moment.
Speaking of the former king, Elric had almost forgotten to do his weekly visits to him at the country house where Bradley had moved to. The former king insisted that the palace held too many fond memories of his late wife so he needed to leave and start anew. That also was a perk for Elric, as the country house was so far from civilization that the king had no idea that humans didn’t walk the streets freely anymore and the silver haired king though it was wiser to just let him be. Elric had promised to visit him once every week and had done exactly that for the past couple of months.
Theo walked into the study and bowed respectfully before speaking, “all the guests have been tended to your majesty.”
“Excellent,” Elric responded without turning around, “prepare my horse and two royal gaurds to accompany me. I wish to go see how my father is faring.”
“At once your majesty,” Theo responded before exiting the study to do as he was told.
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