"She is with Foley"

"Look closely, my son," Caesar Déasun said as he looked at the brunette woman in front of them. She was wearing a long red gown and a bored expression on her face.

Young Dominic, no older than 14 years, rose up from the comfortable chair and turned to look at the woman. "Yes, father?" He asked.

"What is the first thing that comes to your mind as you look at her?" Caesar highlighted the last word. He scoffed as he looked at the brunette, her name was Elise, and she truly was one of his best mistresses. Too bad her story was about to end. He was truly going to miss her as the warmer of his bed.

Dominic looked at her face more closely. She had plumb lips and hazel eyes. Her cheekbones were high and her eyelashes brown. She was pretty but not the prettiest one he had seen. But those weren't the thing that caught his eyes first. It was her dress.

It was clearly made from good fabric, maybe from silk, but that didn't really matter. The thing that mattered about the dress was that it was red. As red as the apples, he had eaten a few days earlier. As red as the blood running in their veins. It was the perfect color of red and that is the reason why Caesar had made her wear it. It wouldn't show the blood she was going to lose and the best part of it was that it made her look even more attracting.

Dirty thoughts took the power of Ceasar's mind making his cock move in his pants.

"Her dress," his son answered.

Caesar smiled and led him closer to her and guided his son's hand to touch the perfect fabric. "I thought you would say that."

"Red is the color of anger, hate and the desire that some people call by the word 'love'. You probably have no idea why I'm telling you this, Dominic, but what you need to know that all of those things are the same feeling."

"'Love' is its own form of torture. Once you let it crawl too deep into your skin that's when you know that you have to get rid of it and that causes anger. After that is finished off you feel hate but then you are free."

"Free of the torture that is going to be your doom." He tapped his son's back making him jump from fright. "He grabbed the hand of the woman and petted it for a couple of times before pushing her to fall to the floor with a thud. She winced from pain but didn't try to get up. "See that? She's weak," Caesar hissed into Dominic's ear. "You want to know why?" He didn't even give his son the time to answer before continuing, "But there is one other thing that the color red describes, do you know what that is, son?"

Dominic had no words. He didn't like it when his father acted like this, it made him feel a little anxious but he had no word in it. Caesar was the king for god's sake and that meant that no one could say a word against him, not even his own flesh and blood. He didn't even hesitate to raise his hand against his own son.

"No," he muttered and looked at the woman's hazel eyes. He had a strong guess what it would be but he didn't want to say it. He had seen enough of it in the years he had lived.

"Blood," he chuckled, "it's the purest thing about us and the only thing that separates us from the weak species. And the thing that separates us from her".

The woman's hazel eyes widened as she realized what was about to happen. She was going to die and not in a beautiful way she had imagined it. There would be bloodshed all around the floor she was currently laying in, and it was going to be hers.

She started to crawl away from them while the tears of fear wetted her cheeks.

Dominic looked at the scene in front of him with fear, sadness and some emotion he didn't quite recognize. His father laughed and took his shirt off of his body. That's when the boy really started to understand what was about to happen in front of him. "No!" He shrieked and grabbed his father's hand as an attempt to stop him from shifting.

Caesar didn't even notice the touch on his hand before he pushed his son away from him in a not so gentle way in which his claw scraped the skin of his son's chest. Dominic fell onto the floor with a loud thud. There was nothing he could do to stop the soon to be the slaughter that was soon to happen in front of him. The blood that had come from the wound dyed her shirt slowly red.

"Watch and learn, son. This is what happens when you let yourself fall into the circle of red." He said before shifting into his wolf.

His wolf was the perfect image of his son's wolf. Both being the perfect predators, beasts.

The beast took slow steps closer to the crying woman on the floor. She was a werewolf but too weak to fight back. And even if she would have done that she would still have ended on being the prey to the big bad wolf.

Dominic let tears fell on his cheeks. It was all he could do as he listened to the screams of the woman and the growls of the wolf. Soon the screams ended and all he could stare at was the white floor that now had a pool of blood in it.

The tears on his cheeks started to dry and that's when he made a promise to himself to never cry again. It was a sign of weakness and weak people end up like the woman in the red dress.

The so-called beast couldn't think straight. Ever since he was young he had hated the bastard that now had Maeve. How more stupid he could have been? Why on earth didn't he do something earlier?

He knew that that son of a bitch would try to do that sooner or later. He knew that he would try to get a hold on his mate but never did he think that she would end up to Foley's hands this way. And all he could do is blame himself. Blame him, his father and the beast inside of him.

The beast inside him started to make moves of awakening. Being a werewolf wasn't an easy thing for him. For some reason, unknown to him, every time he changed form it felt like he would have been thrown into hell and then kicked back to the earth in the form of a true monster.

When he first shifted he thought it was normal but later on he realized that he was different. His childhood 'friends' like his cousin Caspian, always had it on easy. When they shifted it hurt a little but then everything was fine, they could run free in their animal forms without the pain. But in his case, he always felt the same immense pain and it didn't help until he was back in his human form.

Many times had he thought of the pain. Why did he feel it so much?

Was it a cruel reminder from Fate that he was a monster and he should feel the pain he made others feel? It seemed like a reasonable thing, but the other idea that he believed more in was that the beast in him was too strong to be controlled in the body of a mortal.

"What are you going to do?" The witch asked, but Dominic ignored her. She was a wicked thing that the Devil himself had created from the ashes of hell.

The red-haired woman never thought about anyone else than herself. Every deal she made, she made sure there was something she could take advantage of. In this case, it had something to do with the human. Dominic hadn't still figured out what it was what she truly desired, but he decided to give that thought rest and concentrate on finding his mate.

"Dom--" Pandora didn't have the chance to finish her words when the alpha male grabbed her from her throat and send her flying towards the wall.

She shrieked from pain but didn't let it show from her perfect face. The little amount of blood that had started to come from her nose didn't change her appearance from gorgeous. She didn't allow herself to be anything but perfect.

She was strong, not only by her appearance or by her perseverance but by her powers. No one could live as long life as her without figuring out some special tricks. But now was not the time for them.

She still wanted to see the human girl with her eyes open when she wasn't in a hallucination with her.

Pandora looked at the king as he walked out of the room and slammed the door out of its joints.

"Great," she murmured but didn't even lift her finger to stop him. She knew better than to go between the powerful and equally angry king of the wolves. It would end up her being six-feet underground if she was lucky.

As Dominic started to make his way towards the cottage where he knew his mate was being held in he couldn't stop his mind from making things even worse than they already were. After all, like said earlier, your own mind is the most powerful weapon against you.

He knew Foley and knew that he wouldn't even dare to snap a hair out of Maeve's head but that didn't stop from his heart beating faster than for a long time. He knew she would be fine and so would be the baby, Foley knew better than to mess with something his.

She had to be fine.

His mind knew it, but his heart didn't want to listen to the voice of reason.

While he was marching through the village close to the castle, he could feel many pairs of eyes on him. Rarely did any of the townies actually see him. Dominic hated to go to the public and act like he was some kind of a rare object. No one ever dared to disrespect him and they kept their mouths as shut as they should be. But no one ever controlled their eyes.

The unmated she-wolves hoped to catch his attention and get the better life they always had dreamed about. The one where the handsome prince fell in love with the poor hopeless girl with big dreams. After that, they would ride to the sunset and live they would live happily ever after with hundreds of children and stupid fields filled with flowers.

Bullshit, would Dominic say to every single one of those blue-eyed dreamers.

The harsh truth was that there was no happily ever after. There was only darkness and hell to those who deserved to be punished for their actions.

There were no poor humble girls with an evil stepmother that would become a princess or a queen for god's sake. There were only the persons who decided to hunt than be hunted. Fairytales are only the lie that their parents told them to save them from the real world.

And Dominic decided to be the one who would hunt until his days would be counted. His sight turned to red before his bones started to break and the human in him was gone. Now there was only a large wolf who wanted to shed blood of his enemy.

Usually, he fought back and didn't let the beast take full control of his senses. Once he let that happen no good things happened then. His moron of a cousin never forgot those actions but now he was with his parents and no hard blood was between them anymore.

Branches scratched his skin under all the dark fur as he had run a long time. His feet were getting more tired every step, but he knew what would happen if he would stop to rest.

And that is something he would never forgive to himself- or more likely the beast wouldn't forgive him. But that thing was a part of him, no matter how much he would want to bury that part of himself along with his enemies.

That's when his nostrils smelled a familiar odor.

His heart skipped a beat as he made his way towards the aroma. Dominic's brain was yelling at him that there was no way possible she could be so close to him. And that was also the cold truth. Maeve was currently in a cabin filled different supernatural species crying her guts out and her mate was somewhat closer to the piece of clothing that she dropped to the ground in her journey.

The wolf growled,

In front of him was the worn out corset that once had been as white as a pearl. Now it looked more like a piece of fabric that had been pushed down the cliff to a mud pond and then put into a butcher's shop.

But that wasn't what actually caught his attention.

There was another person's smell in that ragged cloth and that odor did not belong to a woman. His mind stobbed from raging for a second.

He took a deep sniff from it before the color red covered his sight. The color of red usually meant anger, in a situation like this, but it didn't feel like anger.

It was a pure rage with a hint of jealousy in it.

Not that Dominic really realized that because in a long time he had not really felt anything. Not anger, happiness or even sadness. He just lived day after another like a muscular shell and a handsome face with only a beating heart inside of him. Because that is what everyone expects a man to be.

A cold gust of wind made him realize where he truly was.

He was all alone in those woods. If there really would be another beating heart close to him, he could have heard it. Loneliness filled his heart again but he didn't let it bother him as he continued his journey towards the old cabin.

***