Voices Inside My Head.

The voices inside Severo's head are so loud that he cannot sleep. It shatters the tranquility of the night. No matter how hard he sinks his head into the pillow, the voices won't stop. It kept chanting, whispering, and screaming. 

A sigh slips through his parted lips and evaporates into thin air. He can feel his body temperature increase as time ticks by. And he takes it as a warning sign. 

Having a curse wouldn't be so bad if you will be the only one suffering, but when you drag down others in this? It will kill you inside. 

Severo is a monster in everyone's eyes now. He kills people for pleasure and relief, that's what they say. He does remember a time his mother gave him special care because she knows he is different and not because she was raising a monster. He misses those days when he was young and cherished and moreover everything he misses NOT being the man everyone stays away from now. 

A gust of wind slithers through the gap between the curtains. A gentle soothing for the price's rising heat. 

The bed beneath him sinks as he sits up, his fingers pressing on the silk sheets. The prince's mind wanders to the first person he would go to if he couldn't sleep or the voices are just so hard to fight. 

The curve of her smile cords his memories. And it's all just a memory. It could never be anything more than that. 

The bright specks of moonlight illuminate the deserted hallway as Severo's legs lead him to the chamber in the far corner. 

The voices are overpowering him and clouding his senses so he rushes to the door and prays to God he won't faint here. Not here in the hallway. 

He pushes the door open and the darkness sucks him in instantly. As he widens his eyes enough, he sees the faint shape of his father in the bed. 

Severo walks close and undoes the curtains slowly, letting the moonlight slither in. Now he can see his father's face almost clearly. The lines on the king's face quite smoothened in the dim light as he lay under the sheets. 

As Severo is about to sit beside him, he hears a quiet sigh. His eyes ride up to his father's glowing golden ones. "Can't sleep?" He asks, his voice is hoarse as he shifts in the bed to make room for his son.

The prince quietly slips inside the covers, the smell of lilac invades his nose and wraps him up in a warm embrace instantly. He feels a nostalgic twist in his gut as he lies beside his father and breathes in his soothing scent, a fog of memories hazing the prince's mind. 

Back then, his father always had a touch of honeysuckle in his scent. A touch of his mate's scent. His father was happier then.

"The voices again?" The king's fingers tiredly run through Severo's silky hair strands in a very soothing way that made his eyes fall shut, his father's touch executes all the voices that wreck his sanity. 

"Mh-hm." The prince buries his face in his father's shoulder and when he wraps one of his strong arms around him, Severo is a child once again. If it wasn't for his father he never would have survived. 

"You are burning up. The rut..." His words are faded by the tinge of anxiety and pity for his son. Now every breath the prince blows out has a tremor in it. 

"Sometimes I wish I was dead." 

The king's hands tighten around Severo, "Do not say such things! What would I do if you were gone?" 

"You have a wife and a son. You will cope up." The words escape him even before he can try stopping them and he felt his father go stiff. His hands retreat from the prince promptly as if it burns him. 

"What?—No. I would not. No one can compare to you, Sev. The said wife and I barely see each other anymore even though we are living under the same roof. So is the son." His voice is merely above a whisper. Yet the ache in his words did not fail to jab at Severo's heart. 

"But they are still yours." The words leave a bitter taste in the prince's mouth. The pictures of their wedding that he tries hard to erase surfaces from the corner of his mind. Years passed yet the memory hasn't even faded.

 Severo was only Eleven back then. And for that 11-year-old boy, seeing his father marry another woman was a jab in his heart when he tried to cope with the loss of his mother. He hated his father for it. Because he has seen the way his father looked at his mother. He has seen how his voice softens when he talks to her or talks about her. He has seen how he cried when she was no more. And how could he marry another woman when it's barely a year after her demise? 

The older Severo gets, the more he realizes the rules of the kingdom—How a single Alpha cannot rule a kingdom. His father was Powerless with all power weighing down on his shoulders. 

To mend his father's broken heart came the queen. If only she mend it instead of stepping on the shattered pieces. If only she let him have the taste of peace instead of striking that word away from his dictionary. 

"They are still mine?" He scoffs. "Not as much as you're mine." Even though the king's words are like rain in his desert-like heart, he did not let it show. Severo gulps down the emotions and says. "Still they count."

"Why are you saying all this to me now? In the middle of the night?" His father's voice isn't hoarse anymore. He isn't whispering either. The words have a sharper shape now, letting Severo know that the sleep clutches on his father's lashes are long gone and he's functioning his words as well. 

"Because my rut starts tomorrow." 

The silence invades the space between them. 

"I know…" The king whispers.

"And I want to spend it…Alone." Severo breathes. 

"You cannot." His voice slashes through the air and pierces inside the prince's heart. 

"You would not get to choose it anymore." Severo snaps. His eyes find his father's golden ones flickering in the dark, watching him, "I don't want to spend it with anyone. I would not bear the horror of another kill." 

The king shuts his eyes, sucks in a long breath, and stares at his son again, "You won't survive if you refuse to spend it with anyone. You know that." 

"I'd rather die than let the guilt consume me every single day—I would rather die than take others' lives to survive. How do we pay for all these sins?" Neither Severo's words crack nor his voice shakes. He is done with this. He has already taken 6 innocent lives. And he would not let it be 9. Even if he had to pay his life for it.

"But I'm selfish." The king whispers, the agony in his voice making it hard for Severo to breathe. "Your mother would have been too. I won't let you die, Son. And I'm ready to pay for all my sins if that means I can keep you by my side."