"Are you okay?" Amaryllis asked her brother. He'd been acting weird all day and he kept making faces like he was in pain.

He nodded his head as he ground his teeth together. "Luca, I think we should take you to a doctor," she said. She reached out to grab his arm but he made an almost inhuman growling sound before he snatched his hand away.

"Did you just growl at me?" She asked.

Right before her, she saw her brother beginning to change. The colors in his eyes were swirling together to create a new color and he made more of the awful growling noises.

"Ulric!" She screamed. She was afraid, afraid of what was happening to her brother and afraid of what he might do to her.

In an instant, Ulric was at her side. He pushed her back, away from his brother, and called out for Darrien. Darrien appeared quickly after and took notice of what was happening to Luca.

They were outside already, her and Luca had been walking around the gardens together. Darrien gently picked her brother up and carried him to an open space in the yard, not crowded by plant life. Luca didn't try to rip away from Darrien's touch as he did to her's.

"What's happening?" She asked worriedly as her brother rolled around on the grass in pain.

"He's transitioning," Ulric said.

"What?"

"Into a werewolf."

"A werewolf? He's not a werewolf! He's a human," she exclaimed. How could he possibly be a werewolf?

"I don't know how, but he's transitioning. I could smell it on him last night when he was at the house."

"Why didn't you tell me?" She asked. She would've liked to know her brother was a werewolf all of a sudden.

"I didn't recognize it at first until you said about him and Darrien beings mates. Then it all clicked, but you jumped me and said you wanted me to distract you. We were busy all day today, I didn't want to stress you out even more than you already were," he said as he watched Darrien and Luca in front of him.

Amaryllis was pulled from her thoughts when an agonizing scream ripped from Luca. She wanted to run to him and comfort him, but she didn't think he would want that at the moment.

"What's. Happening. To me?" Luca groaned out.

"You're transitioning into a werewolf," Darrien replied as he traced a comforting hand down Luca's face.

"A werewolf?" Luca groaned.

"Yes, Luca. It's a full moon tonight, so the timing is right."

"I'm not a wolf," he said right as he screamed once more and his body seemed to distort. His arm bent at an odd angle and so did the other one immediately after. Then she heard a cacophony of bones snapping and screams. She looked away, hiding her face in Ulric's chest. She couldn't bear to see her brother in so much pain.

"Oh my gosh," she heard a familiar female voice next to her. She looked up and saw Marley and Thierry before hiding her face again.

"I didn't know he was a wolf," she said with surprise.

"I heard screaming, I didn't know it was Luca though," Thierry said.

"Did you smell it, Thierry? When he was at your home? I could smell something when he was visiting with Amaryllis, but I didn't recognize what it was until he left."

Thierry nodded his head. "I smelt something odd, but I couldn't exactly place it. There were all kinds of new smells from Darrien and Luca being in the house that I didn't really think about it much."

"I didn't smell anything," Marley said with a huff.

"That's because you don't have a trained nose, Mar," Thierry teased.

After fifteen minutes of pure torture, the screaming and sounds of bones horrifically snapping and reconnecting stopped. She looked up and saw that a wolf with bright white fur had replaced her human brother. The wolf's eyes were a light gray with silver shining through. He was beautiful.

Darrien stretched his hand toward the wolf and the wolf eagerly rubbed his face against it before rubbing the rest of his body against Darrien.

"Do you mind if we take a run?" Darrien asked Ulric. Ulric shook his head. "Go for it. You won't run into a faction of wolves for quite some miles," Ulric answered.

"Thank you," Darrien said gruffly, itching to let his wolf out and run with his mate.

Darrien began to step out of his clothing and the four of them looked away. She heard snapping of bones, but it all happened very quickly and there were no screams. Within just a few seconds, a light brown wolf with dark and light streaks stood in Darrien's place. Darrien was larger than Luca, which made sense since he was an alpha. The wolves sniffed each other before Darrien took off running and Luca followed behind.

Amaryllis pulled away from Ulric and made a B-line for the door. She ran through the castle and up the stairs until she stood in front of her parent's suite. She banged on the door when she found the doorknob to be locked.

"Amaryllis, What are you doing?" Her mother answered. They were asleep. It was ten o'clock at night.

"Why is Luca a werewolf?" She demanded.

"A what?" Her father asked as he came to stand beside her mother.

"A werewolf. My brother just turned into a werewolf and ran into the woods." Her mom and dad stared at each other, having a silent conversation, and Amaryllis knew they were keeping something from her.

"Why don't you come in," her dad said. "We can talk." She walked through the door and sat at the table in the kitchen. Her parents sat on either side of her.

"Luca isn't our biological son," her mother started. Amaryllis's eyes almost popped out.

"When he was just a little baby, your father and I found him in the woods when we were on a hike. There were two dead werewolves next to him. They looked like then been shot and left for dead." Her mother said.

"We think they shifted into their wolves when they heard someone in the woods with them. They probably tried to protect their son, but someone had shot them. When we found Luca, we could tell the bodies were quite a few days old. There were bugs already eating at their skin and their bodies had already started to smell," Joseph said sadly. He didn't like to tell the story, and she understood why. It was horribly tragic.

"No one came for them, we assumed that maybe they weren't apart of the pack. If they were, perhaps the other wolves would've come to see what happened to them and would've taken the baby to raise, but no one had," Lucinda said with tears in her eyes.

"We took him to raise. We couldn't leave him there and there was no way to contact anyone who might've known his parents. We never planned on telling him about his werewolf gene. We hoped if he wasn't around his people, wasn't raised in that environment, that he wouldn't ever shift, but I guess we were wrong." Her dad said.

"I don't think you should've kept that from him," Amaryllis said.

"We didn't know what else to do. We thought it would be best for him if he never knew," Lucinda said.

"That's a lot to take in." She felt horrible for Luca and for his biological parents. His poor parents were killed and he was left for dead. She was extremely grateful her parents stumbled upon him and decided to take him in, but she didn't think they should've kept this from him. He a right to know.

"I'm gonna go get a breath of fresh air," Amaryllis said. Her parents nodded and hugged her goodbye. Amaryllis stepped into the hallway and saw Ulric leaning against the wall.

"Did you hear that?" He nodded his head and pushed himself off the wall.

"Do think Luca is back yet?" She asked. "He and Darrien just got back," Ulric said as he could smell them approaching the castle.

"He growled at me." She tried not to feel offended because he was in pain and only wanted his mate, but it still hurt her feelings, she was his sister.

"Don't take offense to it, little mate. Their skin is very sensitive when they start to shift and it hurts to be touched. He was afraid and in pain. I wouldn't have let him hurt you," Ulric assured, pulling her body close. She nodded, understanding what he was saying.

She heard footsteps pounding down the hall toward them and soon she saw Luca's body round the corner of the hallway. "Amaryllis!" He called.

He stood in front of her, reaching down to grab her hand. "I'm so sorry that I scared you, Ames. I-I didn't know what was happening to me and everything hurt. I'm just so sorry for scaring you. I'd never do anything to hurt to you," Luca said, sincerity lacing his voice. She looked up when Darrien approached them.

"It's okay Luca. Ulric said that you were in a lot of pain and only wanted Darrien. I understand."

Luca nodded and hugged her. "I love you."

"I love you, too," she said, pulling away from the hug.

"Thank you for alerting me, King Ulric," Darrien said. "I had smelt the scent of a newly shifting werewolf on him, but I'd assumed it was some type of outside smell. He didn't smell like a wolf or like a pack, he just smelled human."

"I smelled it too, but I didn't recognize it immediately. I thought it was some outside smell, too, since there was no reason to believe he was a werewolf."

"How am I a werewolf?" Luca asked, but it was a rhetorical question. He didn't expect anyone to know the answer.

"You should talk with mom and dad, Luca," Amaryllis said.

"What do you mean?"

"They can tell you about yourself and the whole you being a werewolf thing," she explained.

"How do they know? Did they tell you something?"

"I think you and Darrien should just go speak with them. It's not my place to say," she said. Luca looked at her confused, before walking past Amaryllis toward his suite. Darrien followed behind.

One week Later

Amaryllis's parents had left a few days ago. Darrien left as well, as he was the alpha of his pack and had to tend to his duties as their leader. Luca followed Darrien back to his pack. He returned home first, with Darrien's Delta - the third wolf in command- Brant. Brant would assist him with packing up his things and safely taking him to Darrien's pack.

Luca was shocked, to say the least about what their parents had to tell them. He was thankful for what they did for him but similar to his sister, he felt it was unfair that they tried to keep his true self from him. His parents apologized, saying they wished they would've done things differently, but at the time they thought they were making the best decision.

Luca held no hard feelings toward them. He loved them deeply and still considered them his real parents as he never met his biological ones. He promised he'd come to visit them from time to time since he was leaving.

Ulric's family had left shortly after her own family. Only one issue arose with his family and that was with his oldest sister, Aviva. She had made a comment about Amaryllis being inadequate to lead a kingdom of vampires because she was only a human.

Ulric had lost his marbles. He'd told her that he was lucky he allowed her in the castle in the first place because he'd never liked her and that she'd been a brat since she was a child and it had followed into adulthood. He said the only reason she didn't like Amaryllis was that she had taken the position she wanted. Aviva always believed she should've been the Queen, and Ulric should not have gotten the position as King. She'd always considered herself to be of more importance than anyone of her siblings. Her ego was entirely overinflated.

Aviva was shocked by his accusation but offered no rebuttal, proving Ulric's point. She was simply power hungry and was only jealous of Amaryllis's position.

Then Ulric said that Amaryllis will be a better Queen than Aviva could ever imagine because she would lead with integrity and consider what will best benefit the people of the kingdom, whereas Aviva would lead the kingdom into dismay, chaos, and poverty as she would've only made decisions that benefitted herself, without caring about the people of the kingdom.

In shame and embarrassment, Aviva and her mate left the castle shortly after. Tensions were high between the family, but Vulk broke it when he said, "Good riddance. Everything the man said was true." The rest of the family chuckled.

Lavinia had been bratty, and Ulric didn't particularly care for her, but he didn't genuinely dislike her as did Aviva. He did quite like his brothers, though.

Amaryllis couldn't help the pride that swirled within her when Ulric had defended her honor against his sister.

"Ulric," Amaryllis said when she opened up his office door. He had a small stack of papers in front of him and a pen in his hand. She took a seat in the chair in front of his desk.

"I thought you were designing the new daycare with Binta," Ulric said. He placed the pen down on the desk, giving his full attention to his mate.

Binta had come to Ulric and had a proposition for a new daycare for the young kids. The one that they'd been using was outdated and didn't cater to the children's young minds, curiosity, and energy as efficiently as it could. Ulric referred Binta to Amaryllis, sure she would like to have her first project as a Queen. Besides, she had more of a creative touch than he did in that sense.

"We finished already. We figured out what we want it to look like and everything. Now we just have to talk to someone to build it."

"Good," Ulric praised, happy that she seems to be liking her new project.

"I wanted to talk to you about humans," she said, folding her hands on the desk in front of her. She needed to use her new position to evoke change. She'd been living an easy life for too long, and now it was time for her to use her position for good.

"Humans?"

"Yes. At our picnic a few weeks ago, I saw the obvious divide between the humans and the vampires. It hurt my heart, Ulric. The vampire children and human children don't play with each other because both of them are told not to play with the other kind. Children shouldn't have to worry about those kinds of things," she said. She was nervous to bring this up, she wasn't sure what his reaction would be at all, but she refused to let her confidence waiver.

"What are you proposing?"

"I think that you are too harsh on humans," she stated.

"Too harsh?" She could feel the air around them tensing.

"They are slaves to you, Ulric. Humans have no freedom in this world. I know you're not an evil man. I can see it and I can see that you aren't nearly as harsh as you were when we first met. You've grown kinder. I know there's a place within you that can understand what I'm saying," she pleaded.

Ulric stared at her, but he didn't respond. He was waiting for her to continue with what she was saying. "I don't think you should keep humans enslaved anymore. We can start small, like here in the castle, and then work our way out. I know you need blood so we can figure out how to get that still, but humans shouldn't be your slaves," she said, trying to get her mate to sympathize with her.

"Are you aware of why I treat humans the way I do? For centuries vampires were hunted down by humans and killed. Peaceful vampires who had done nothing wrong. They hated us because we were different and they did everything in their power to execute as many of us as they could. When it became my turn to lead, I was done with having to hide away during the day out of fear of human interaction. My kind didn't deserve to live that way. So I tore down the hierarchy of power. I gave us power," Ulric stated.

"I know, I know that's why you did it. And I'm sorry that humans were so unaccepting, but that was then. Times are different now. We can learn to coexist with each other."

"There is no coexistence between our species. We will always be in an eternal battle with each other, Amaryllis."

"You and I coexist! Yes, there will be difficulties, but I think it will work. Why is it so hard for you to imagine a place where everyone can!"

"You and I coexist because we are mates, Amaryllis. A random human and a random vampire don't have what we do!"

"Ulric, please," she said, feeling her argument losing speed quickly.

"I listened to your ludicrous ideas, Amaryllis, and they aren't going to be effective," he said dismissively, picking his pen up and going back to filling out papers.

Amaryllis clenched her jaw and stood up. She stared at him when she stood, hoping he would say that she was right and they should find a solution. He did not. She turned on her heel and opened the door, letting it close behind her as she walked out of his office.

They spent the next day in awkward, aggressive silence. They barely spoke to each other and the only physical contact they had was when they fell asleep together the night before.

Amaryllis wasn't looking forward to the day ahead of them. They were supposed to pick out a new site for the daycare. Binta and Amaryllis had come up with an idea to design two new daycares. One in the castle and one in town so people had options depending on where they lived within the kingdom.

People were excited about this walk down to town because it would be the first time the townspeople will have seen Ulric and Amaryllis together as King and Queen.

The car stopped at the entrance of the town and the driver walked over to Ulric's door. He stepped out and leaned in to grab Amaryllis's hand. She begrudgingly slid her hand into his, ignoring the tingles that coursed through her veins at his touch.

The location of the new daycare will be somewhere in the middle of town. Amaryllis just had to pick where. People lined the streets, excited to see the new King and Queen together. She slid a faux smile on her face, pretending to be happy with Ulric for the time being.

Amaryllis picked the location pretty easily. She wanted there to be a large backyard so the kids could go play outside. She didn't want it to be too crowded by other buildings so it is farther off from the main road through town. She was super excited about the location and couldn't wait to get building. Binta was taking care of the daycare inside of the castle, whereas Amaryllis was more focused on the one in town.

Just as Amaryllis and Ulric were about to walk back to the car waiting for them, Ulric stopped and turned his head. "What?" She asked.

"I hear something." He listened for a few seconds longer before dropping her hand. "Wait here."

He then took off in the direction he heard the noise coming from. Amaryllis grumbled, not listening to him as she started to run in the direction he took off in. There weren't many people on that side of town since they were all waiting for them at the entrance of town.

The further she walked down the road, the louder a grunting sound got until she heard Ulric's voice. She rounded the corner and saw her mate pinning some scrawny looking vampire against a wall. In front of them stood a little human child. His arms and legs were bleeding and there appeared to be handprints on his face. Amaryllis ran to him and scooped him up in her arms.

"What happened to you," she cooed, fixing his hair that was all disheveled. Big crocodile tears rolled down the little boy's face as he pointed to the man Ulric was yelling at.

Amaryllis turned her body and shielded him from the sight in front of him. He didn't need to see what Ulric was doing to the man.

"He hurt you?" She asked as she looked over his exposed skin at the injuries.