+CHAPTER 37+ Trapped In The Cursed Woods

"I told you not to repeat my mistakes, I told you to follow your instinct but you have to act like a bastard and have us all thrown out of that fucking place." Connor spat those words at his brother whose head was hanging low.

"After twenty years I got so close to her, I was so close to her, I knew that it was her the moment her arrow had pierced my shoulder. You destroyed everything. Look what your fucking bullheadedness did." Connor snapped, his beast was so close to the surface.

"You would have done that too if you were in my shoes." Darach said while he looked away from his brother.

"No, I would have not done that if I was in your shoe. You fucking had a living example as your own brother. Do you want to suffer like me? Do you want to make an enemy out of your own beast?" When Darach didn't reply Connor continued. "We were thrown out of your mate's land while the bitch fucking cursed me!!" This time Connor's words earned him a punch from Darach.

A sickening crack echoed in the forest. 

Blood flowed out of Connor's broken nose but this time it was healing quickly, after twenty years his Beast was finally helping him to heal.

"Don't you dare disrespect my mate you fucking nasty piece of scum!" Darach roared while pinning Connor to the ground.

Two brothers were pouring their frustration in their fierce blows, pinning each other on the ground in the cursed forest.

It's been days since they were roaming the forest trying to find a way out of it. The portal through which Amber had thrown three of them out of her Queendom had opened in these abandoned woods. 

As if Amber was playing an inside joke on them. . .

The same dark woods that had once destroyed their Uncle's life~

After that incident, these woods were named as the cursed forest. An unstated rule had been established in the Lycan kingdom, to never enter the cursed wood.

Because the cursed woods play tricks on the person who dared to enter in them~

No Lycan had been there since that cursed night.

And now the three Lycan siblings were trapped in the woods, the woods were playing mind games, they were not letting them leave.

"It's okay for you to disrespect Amber but you'll go berserk on Connor when he will repeat your words. Now don't be a hypocrite brother! After all, you were the first one who called her a bitch. Connor is just following your lead." Lucia's statement was like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over Darach's head.

"He has no right to call her names!" Darach growled.

"And you think you have the right just because you are her mate? Do you get the right to call a proud Queen a curse in front of her own people just because the Moon Goddess mated her to you?" Lucia challenged.

"I wanted to hurt her as she had hurt me. She told me that she was going to murder my child how was I supposed to react?" Darach screamed.

"She told you and you believed her? A woman who had given her protection to the Lycans whom we were unable to protect, a woman who's ruling the hearts of the people that resides within her Queendom, a Queen who doesn't need a king to rule beside her, do you think a woman like Amber can abuse her own child?" Lucia inquired. 

"Then why would she said those things to me if she had no intention of acting on them?" Darach challenged, still not believing Lucia.

"Because you must have hurt her idiot, have you said anything that would have triggered that type of violence and anger within her?" Lucia asked she was trying hard to knock some sense in her brother's thick skull.

"She might have listened to our conversation at the healing center." Darach replied.

He still can't forget the look of betrayal in Amber's eyes when she had asked him that a Queen like her would be suitable for his breeding whore's position.

Darach was indeed an idiot.

"You called her a vile creature, you mocked her origin no actually you made it clear that how much you loathe the fact that your mate's a witch. You even proudly declared that you want to keep her as your breeding whore." Connor snarled those words at Darach as if they tasted foul in his mouth.

Laying on the ground Darach looked away from his siblings in shame, his beast already wanted to kill him for hurting their mate and Connor was reminding him of the things that Darach was regretting saying to his mate. He was ready to sacrifice anything to go back in the past and take his words back.

How her eyes had begged him to confess his love for her. . .

He had made Amber feel as if something was wrong with her, how she had begged him for his love. Tears welled in his eye when he remembered how Amber had offered him that she will hide her scars if they bother him.

He had made a proud Queen feel as if she wasn't good enough but the reality was that Darach wasn't good enough for her. He didn't deserve a mate like Amber.

"Stop ridiculing each other! Look at you! Both of you are my brothers and I don't even know you guys anymore. You have destroyed your mate bonds with your own hands now you guys are not man enough to accept the responsibilities of your own actions. Just stop blaming each other don't you realize what both of you have done!" Lucia gave them a disgusted look as if she was repulsed from them.

"I have done nothing wrong!" Connor declared stubbornly.

"So you did nothing wrong that's why your mate Amanda is hiding from you? Is it the reason why Amanda faked her own death to get rid of you?" Lucia snarled, giving Connor a reality check.

Both lycan brothers dusted themselves off, standing from the ground with their heads hanging low, looking like small pups who were being scolded by their mother. Lucia has always been acted as a mother figure for her two grown-ass elder brothers who love to act like pups.

Darach stared at his baby sister, it's been such a long time since she had confronted him along with Connor, it's been such a long time since he had fought with his brother. It's at this moment that Darach realized that he had missed fighting with his siblings. He had missed getting scolded by his baby sister.

"You know Darach how ashamed I felt in front of Amber? She's everything that I'm not, everything that we aren't. So what if she's apart witch Darach? She's not the one who killed our parents. Let's not beat around the bush! Every person present there along with three of us has witnessed the rise of her beast, it's cut from Uncle Aric's Beast's soul. We can't deny the fact that she's our cousin. What if Uncle Aric returned and accepted Amber as his daughter? Where would you stand in that scenario?" Lucia questioned.

Darach was left speechless by Lucia's questions. He had never thought about things from this perspective.

"You have told Amber that she's an outcast, a curse for you. Just imagine if Uncle Aric returned then Amber's going to be the next heir to the lycan throne when Uncle Aric will reclaim his throne. And Darach King will be an outcast then!" Lucia taunted.

"I have warned you Darach that where your hatred is going to lead you! I have told you not to repeat my mistakes. I wasn't at fault this time Lucia, his actions got me cursed!" Connor pointed an accusing finger at Darach.

"You mean to say that before this time it was your fault?" A gasp escaped from Lucia's lips when Connor looked away from her in shame. "Your silence speaks volumes, Connor!" Lucia muttered in disgust.

"Look what you have become! One an unstable King who had never fulfilled his duties, who had just whored around in his reign. And you Connor, a cursed Lycan who had done something that had forced your own mate to run away from you and your own beast turn against you. And now both of you got your ass scared by Amber because your actions from the past were catching up to you." Every word coming out of Lucia's mouth was true and the bowed heads of the two royal Lycans in shame were proof of that.

"Amanda wasn't my mate~ she was the one I forsake my mate for." There were tears in his eyes when Connor admitted that. 

Both Darach and Lucia were too stunned to say anything after Connor's admission.

Voices started echoing in Darach's mind~

Connor got fucked because of his own mistakes. . .

Their Uncle got fucked because like Connor he gave someone the place of his mate, someone who wasn't his soulmate. . .

Aric King gave the witch a taste of a happily ever after and she came back for more. . .

Darach had been a slave of his hatred, he had worn his hatred for Amber's kind like a second skin, forgetting the fact that every hate remands it's due. Darach had nourished his hatred like his own child, feeding it a part of him until it got embedded deep in his soul, overpowering his love for his mate, Amber.

He has to get his mate back. He can't hold Connor and Uncle Aric's fucked up fates as an excuse for the damage he had done to his mate bond.

He has to get Amber back, he can't live without her, his beast can't live without her. Amber was the woman he and his beast had yearned for so long. 

They both were fucking in love with her~

"It doesn't matter that Amber is Uncle Aric's daughter, It doesn't matter that she's a witch and lycan Hybrid. . . The only thing that matters is that Amber is my mate and I'm in bloody love with that witch." Darach exclaimed in a determined and strong voice.

Darach's head snapped towards the sound of a sharp intake of breath that didn't come from Connor or Lucia.

When Darach's eyes fell on the person who was standing in the shadows all the air vanished from his lungs.

Gasps that came from Connor and Lucia were proof that Darach's mind wasn't playing tricks on him, he wasn't going insane.

It wasn't an illusion~

"Aunt Emmeline. . . ." Lucia said in a breathless whisper.

Who would have thought that the Fey Princess whom the Rightful King of Beasts was so desperately searching will encounter his niece and nephews in the same cursed wood that had once separated them?

There she was the Lycan Queen, the Fey Princess, standing shell shocked by the aid of a lifeless tree as if her legs weren't supporting her.

She was regarding Darach and his siblings in disbelieve as if she can't believe what they had just confessed. 

There were tears in Aunt Emmeline's eyes, tears in a Fey's eyes. She was looking at them brokenly.

Darach can sense an air of misery enveloping the Fey Princess~

She wobbled on her feet before she could fall on the ground Darach pulled her in his arms. 

She looked like a broken porcelain doll~

So beautiful yet so damaged. . .

It was the first time Darach was witnessing such vulnerability in a Fey. . .

Fey, known to be trained lethal weapons~

And here their Princess was holding on to Darach for her dear life.

Broken wails started coming out of her quivering lips which pulled at the strings of Darach's heart.

Her breaths were coming out as heaves~

Hugging Darach close to her The Fey Princess cried in his arms until no tears were left in her eyes.

Tears welled in Darach's own eyes. The aunt who was more like a mother to him was breaking in his arms as if she had longed for arms that will hold her while she will let out all the pain that she had stored within her soul for centuries.

Soon the sky opened and started pouring on them as if it was crying with them in their grief.

Darach watched the red roses that had started blossoming all around them in the dead woods.

The forest was changing around them~

But the question was that was this change an indication of something good or a warning of doom that was waiting for them. .?