BENEATH HER DARKNESS: The Alpha's Little Demon by Cassandra M

071 – Future Ruler of Kalmerus

LUCIUS.

I transported us to Lucija’s chamber, and I helped her put Stone in her bed. I knew she had many

questions, but at the moment, she wasn’t asking any. She was busy attending to her mate and it was to

my advantage. I didn’t want to tell her

anything more at the moment than what

she needed to know.

“I have to go now. I have other things to do,” I told her after a while of watching her clean up Stone’s

body.

He looked like he was fucking dead to me, but his chest was moving, which meant he was still alive.

“But… what if I need you?” Lucija stood up from the bed and faced me.

“Then reach out to me. I won’t block my

mind.”

“Do you think Lucien will come back

soon?”

“I don’t think so. He wants to find the witch, so I’m sure he will search the whole North for her.”

“Will you let me know if he returns?”

“Of course. But what are your plans? Will

you return Stone to his cell?”

“No. Definitely not. I just want to be prepared when he comes back because

I’m sure he will raise hell if he finds out I took him out of the dungeons.”

“Raise hell? You’re already in hell.” I chuckled before I let out a deep sigh, and my expression turned

serious. “Lucija, you need to control your fire. If you snap and your fire comes out, you can burn the

whole place. And it won’t kill Lucien, me, or any other demons, but I am sure it will affect the man there,

and it will backfire

on you.”

She nodded her head, but I wanted to make sure she understood the severity of letting out fire

uncontrolled.

“If I’m not around to remind you, you need to remind yourself to calm down. You have a wolf, right?”

She nodded her head.

“Make her useful. Tell her to remind you so she has some use here and not just resting there in your

head.”

Lucija’s mouth twitched as her eyes dilated, but it was just for a few seconds. Her wolf was trying to

surface, which impressed me because, despite the enchantment around the tower, she was able to show

me a glimpse of her through

Lucija’s eyes.

I chuckled as I pointed at her. “I made

your wolf angry. Remind me to stay away once you can shift.”

“My wolf is not useless.” She glared at me.

“Whatever,” I said before turning around and disappearing from her room without saying anything else.

I transported my body on the stairs going up to my room. I could have gone directly inside my chamber,

but I wanted time to think, and walking helped.

My mind had been racing for the past few days. I literally had no idea what my next

move would be. There were many

speculations in my head, and I didn’t

know what to believe anymore.

But one thing I knew for sure: I needed

Lucija on my side.

I might be older than her, but I knew she had a power far greater than mine. How did I find out? I wasn’t

born yesterday. If you’d been living around my father,

Lucien, for decades, you would get to know him inside and out.

He had never behaved strangely until Lucija moved in with us.

I had always known that by the time he retired as the ruler of Kalmerus,

Guillermo was most likely to take over. Guillermo was three centuries older than

me, and Lucien had always favored him over everyone else, including me.

Of course, why would he choose me? I

was nothing. My mother was a she- demon slave. She left me at the gates of the tower on the very same

day that I was

born and never came back. I didn’t even

know her name. Lucien was responsible

enough to take me in but other than that, I didn’t receive any personal attention.

from him.

He probably didn’t know how to raise his

own son.

Almost all my brothers were brought up

by their mothers and were only

Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt

summoned by Lucien the moment they

turned fifteen. Some of them stayed in

the tower with us, but the moment they came of age at eighteen, they moved away

and made a life of their own.

I also moved out and had my own place,

but I came back here most of the time.

And like me, some of my brothers had come back and made their intentions.

clear

they wanted our father’s crown. Not that it bothered Father at all. We all knew he had his eyes set on

Guillermo.

But it did not stop us from still wanting it.

Guillermo was already a tough

competitor to beat. I didn’t need more. So

I eliminated some of them as many as

I could.

If you asked me how many of my brothers.

died in my hands, I couldn’t count anymore. I couldn’t even remember their

names.

And no. I didn’t regret any of the killings. They’re weak, otherwise, I would not be

able to kill them. The only one I couldn’t

touch was Guillermo because I knew my

father had his eyes on him. But I waited patiently until it dawned on me that he

was no longer the apple of his eye.

It was the moment that Lucien found out

that he had a daughter. I thought his

fascination with her bordered on the fact

that she was his only rose among throngs of thorns. But as the years went by, I felt

there was something more than the fascination of having a daughter.

Although my father was never hands-on with me or cared about my existence, he did provide me with

everything I needed

to be stronger. Something he never gave

to Lucija. Lucija was trained on the basics, but never on how to discover other powers within her. She

was never taught to explore many more possibilities.

And no matter how many times Gargon,

Lucija’s fire master, requested to upgrade her training, my father kept refusing. He didn’t want her to

move forward. He

didn’t want her to be stronger.

Something was going on, and Father wasn’t telling anyone. So I made my own move and tried to find the

answer. Until it

fell on me.

I met Cordelia, the right hand of Orpheus.

Orpheus was the immortal seer of the

underworld. She could see the future, but

she couldn’t remember it afterward,

she needed someone to be with her

whenever she had her readings.

So Cordelia knew everything.

SO

Since I was the Prince of Lust, I never had any problem making her fall for my

allure. I succeeded when no one had.

Because the next thing I knew, I was

already fucking her and extracting

information from her.

She told me the next ruler of Kalmerus

was not yet determined, whether a male or a female, but the ruler would be stronger than my father. And

killing him or her would also end my father’s life.

But it was only one way. If Father died, the prophesied ruler would still survive.

At that time, I thought it would be easier

to kill Lucien’s heir than him.

So I only had two targets in mind.

Guillermo and Lucija.

But then I began noticing Guillermo’s absence in his life. In fact, I haven’t seen him in the last decade.

He had probably visited the tower once or twice, but never as often as in previous decades when Father

would always summon him to come to him.

Father’s attention had shifted elsewhere.

It was then that I realized the heir was not one of the sons, but his only daughter.

Killing Lucija would have been an easy act. She was only eleven at that time and knew nothing about

power or the demon

world.

She could never fight back. She was

supposed to be an easy kill, but one

encounter changed everything.

***FLASHBACK***

Lucija – 11 years old 3

Father had left me in the big hall to fuck a female he brought home while I downed the remaining whisky

in my glass. Some of my brothers had left and gone their own ways, so I had no companion for

tonight.

I had no one to fuck as well. Lust might be in my blood, but sometimes I get lazy.

And unlike Father, I never forced any

female to have sex with me.

I took pleasure in being treated like a god in bed, so I would definitely go for

females who were lusting over me.

Besides, I never ran out of them, so I had

no fucking clue why Father took pleasure in taking females who refused to fuck

him.

But tonight was one of those nights that I would rather be alone in my chambers,

working on my next move to secure the

crown.

“Hello…” A small, but clear girl’s voice.

reached my ears, and I knew who it was.

Lucija.

I turned around and flashed her a wide

smile. Just the girl I was hoping to

encounter. She was pressing herself

against the entryway pillar as if she wanted to get lost in it.

“Hello, little one. My name is Lucius.” I

motioned with my hand and asked her to

come forward, which she did, but she sat

on the Victorian couch adjacent to where I was standing.

I’d seen her on many occasions, and Father had introduced her to us, but we never really spoke to each

other.

“My name is Lucy,” she stated as she sat

up straight, her eyes looking directly at

mine.

“You mean Lucija?”

“You know who I am?”

I nodded my head as I sipped my drink without taking my eyes off her.

“Do you know a way I can get out of here?

11

“You think if I know, I will tell you?” I chuckled in surprise at her question.

She nodded her head.

“What made you think that?”

than the others. They

never smiled at me.”

“Maybe because you never smiled at

them.”

“I didn’t smile at you too… But you smiled at me,” she replied in a very polite.

manner.

If she only knew what I gave her was a

devil’s smile.

“Maybe you’re different from them. So

maybe you will be kind enough to help me.

She was trying to play with my emotions, but I was not born for sappy things.

“Why don’t you want to stay here? You can have everything you want, just let

Father know.”

“He never really gives me what I want.”

“What did you ask him?”

“I want to go back to my house in the

human realm.”

“Hmmm… That’s impossible.”

“How old are you?” She asked, ignoring

my last statement.

Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm

“I don’t know. I stopped counting… and

you?”

“Eleven. Are you going to be the King of

Kalmerus once our father dies?”

“Do you want him dead?”

She didn’t answer and just bit her bottom

lip.

“Why did you ask if I would be the next king here?”

“I want to ask if you will let me go back to the human world if you’re the King

already.”

I walked toward her and crouched down

in front of her. I was trying to read her to see if she was taunting me. For all I knew, she-demons were

cunning even at a

young age, but all I saw was sadness in her eyes.

“Will it make you happy to go back there?

“I

She nodded her head. “Please, let me go

back there. I don’t want to be here.”

How could I let her go back when I had already planned how I would kill her?

“Yes, I will let you go back there if I become the King of Kalmerus,” I told her, but it held no meaning. I

was so used to making false promises.

But then she smiled, something I had

never seen on her since she arrived here. I

saw hope in her young face.

She slowly raised her hand and stuck out her little finger, her eyes beaming with happiness. “Pinky

swear?”

“What?” I asked, my forehead creasing.

“Pinky swear? It’s a promise. And when we lock our pinkies together, it means we need to honor the

promise. I take pinky promises very seriously, Lucius.” She was nodding her head as if she were

negotiating something big.

“Oh…”

“Pinky swear?” She asked again. Her

brows were raised, but her lips were still

curled into a wide grin.

“Fine. Pinky swear,” I chuckled as I

entangled my little finger with her.

And I thought that was it, but then she withdrew her finger from mine and flung er arms around me as

she hugged me

tightly. I almost lost my balance, but I was able to hold us both steady as I held

her in my arms.

I had never hugged someone. Although I was not supposed to feel like this because a demon never feels

this kind of emotion, I must admit it felt good.

“Thank you! I will be forever grateful to you.” She murmured against my neck, and for some reason, her

words made goosebumps appear on my skin. “I will pray to Selene to make you the next King of

Kalmerus, so you can save me.”

How could I plan on killing her when she was holding on to me as if I were her saving grace?

***END OF FLASHBACK.***

So instead of killing little Lucija, I watched her every move because I wanted

rove to myself that she was not the

one in the Orpheus prophecy and that I didn’t need to eliminate her. But

everything was pointing her way, and yet I didn’t have the heart to kill her.

I didn’t even know I had a heart. Maybe because every time she would see me, she would look at me as

if we had our own little secret and that she was counting on

1.

This went on for years until she was sixteen. Perhaps she had grown tired of my promise by that point. I

just realized, Lucija never looked me in the eyes anymore. I knew then that I had failed

her.

But it didn’t mean I stopped trying to become the next king because up until this moment, I was still

aiming for it. And I still had no intention of killing the only sibling who had grown on me. But the

had changed- I wanted her to take

down our father and give me the crown.

And even if they kept saying she and Stone were bound together, I didn’t want

to take a risk.

Lucija was special. I didn’t think killing Stone would kill her, the same way killing my father would not kill

her.

That was why I was hell-bent on

protecting Stone with my life because he was my only guarantee that, as long as he existed, Lucija

would never consider ruling Kalmerus.