Help! Five Beast Alphas Want To Breed Me!!(BL)-Chapter 238: Flash Back 1

Song For This Chapter: Through The Eyes Of A Child by AURORA

King Wilhelm;

Staring into space. It’s all I can bring myself to do.

For some reason, I’ve found it difficult to cry.

I wish I could. I wish I could let all these emotions out. I wish I could break down, break things. Cry till I feel lightheaded and light inside.

...But when you close your heart up for too long... When you force your emotions onto a regulated path for too long, you lose your ability to feel the things you naturally ought to. No... Not feel them. You lose the ability to express and process them.

I drag another shaky breath that feels sandpapery as my fingers curl tighter around my goblet.

I take another sip. Suffer another burn, and hold my breath as I feel the warmth travel down my throat and die somewhere in my chest, unable to thaw anything inside me.

I breathe out slowly, letting the echo fill the empty room, and my gaze shifts.

I stare at the artwork on the floor. Moonlight scattered across the ground through the stained glass windows. Light that paints fractured colours across the stone floor... blues and reds and golds. Colours I currently wish my life had.

The more I drink, the more the shadows almost look alive, like gentle ghosts trying to waltz.

Memories bleed into my mind, and the tears I thought I had lost find me.

Silent, choking, broken tears.

I have spent years trying to bury these memories. God, I fought with everything in me to drown them, and tonight... After seeing her... after everything, they rise without mercy. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

I am weak to weak to fight this. Too weak to swim against these tides of agony and pain. No... I’ve swam away from them for way too long.

Let them drown me. Bury me. Fill my lungs.

I deserve it. I deserve all of it.

Happiness isn’t something I was destined to enjoy. Even if I got it, I wasn’t destined to have it for long. That has always been the pattern.

I rest my head against the throne... the place where a king should never show vulnerability, and yet the weight of that expected strength feels the most suffocating tonight.

A chuckle escapes me as I try to grasp my hopelessness. The underlying truth of my pathetic existence...

Of the power, freedom, and second chance I thought I had gotten.

It’s all the same. I always lose. Always.

It’s sad... sad how a single memory can break a man more than a battlefield ever could.

I take another swig from my goblet, and I feel my past wrap its dark, itchy arms around me. Pulling me down. Yanking me back to all those years ago. A time I wish I could forget, but would forever haunt me.

Flashback Years Ago

The council chamber had smelled like paper, warm candles, and ink... mostly ink. The proud afternoon sun flooded the hall through the high windows, casting its elegant glow over the long table where there were scattered scrolls, and two men furiously rubbing minds together.

Gorlois sat across from me with one leg crossed comfortably over the other. His chocolate skin gleamed under the sun, as his purple eyes stayed fixed on the scrolls open before him.

His expression was that one of effortless confidence he always wore. A look that always announced before he spoke that he was a man of deep intelligence, and always knew exactly what he was doing.

His jaw was sharp, lips full, with beautifully detailed purple eyes which stood out strikingly against his complexion.

He looked like something carved by gods... A thought I could never bring myself to voice at the time.

"Your tax proposal for the western farms is too heavy," he finally broke the silence, tapping one calloused finger against the scroll before him.

I raised an eyebrow, caught off guard by his fluid voice breaking my thoughts, and by the observation he just made.

"They recovered well after the drought," I noted, and he leaned forward, staring at the scroll as if intending to burn holes through it with his eyes.

"Recovered is not the same as thriving. They’ll break under this." He replied, and I huffed a breath.

"And if I reduce their burden, the southern merchants will storm this castle with pitchforks," I noted, and he waved a hand dismissively.

"Shift the tariffs from the farms to the caravan traders. You strengthened the Elkhorn route last season. They can afford it." He suggested as he finally looked up at me, and as those eyes met mine, my heart skipped a beat.

I stared at him in silence, and he raised a brow.

Sometimes it irritated me... how easily solutions came to him.

How effortlessly his mind worked.

"How are you this calm?" I muttered in awe, wondering why the kingdom’s financial burden didn’t seem to sway him.

He simply smirked and leaned forward as he placed his elbows on the table.

"I’m calm because you panic enough for both of us." He replied, and I opened my mouth to argue... But no words came.

"You know I’m not lying, Wilhelm. You take too much onto yourself," he said softly.

"Always have." He added as he looked back at the scrolls, and my chest tightened.

He was the second person who ever dared say that out loud.

"Because it’s my job," I muttered stubbornly, and he arched a brow as he looked up at me.

"And mine. I’m your Aide," he replied, and silence followed as he looked away.

The silence stretched... but it was not the tense kind of quiet. No, this was warm.

Like a space for me to breathe.

"I... I just want to do things right." I whispered under my breath, but he heard me... he always did.

He looked up at me, and a small smile split his face. The moment lingered until he stood up and walked over to me.

He stopped beside my chair, and I looked up at him in confusion.