Vengeance of The Broken Lycan Prince [BL]-Chapter 429: Blood, Fire, Ashes… A Mad King’s Vengeance [1]
[ZAFFUTO]
Was the horror of monsters supposed to smile at this invader and offer tea, not to mention talk over beer about peace when twenty-five years of darkness loomed over their sanity?
Was that what the mad king was meant to lean into in times like these, and on a battlefield that was filled with dead bodies and none of which belonged to the Kawai Lycan warriors?
Oh, but it was exciting to the mad king.
He had been patient.
He had cultivated his anger the right way.
He had lingered like a man who didn’t have any cruel bone in him, and seeing his son on his knees today had definitely been the last straw for the mad king.
It had been the reminder of what the king would have done long before there was even a chance for a second invasion.
As he stood there, the king swore softly under his breath that there would never be a third invasion or a fourth hell, not even a second and a half invasion.
This was his chance to send a message to everyone who dared to dream of ruining the perfect life he was setting up for his son. Oh, he would be damned before someone tuned his son’s life again.
This was a battle for him and his son.
Well, mostly his beloved son, his Kaito.
Because that boy was everything to the mad king.
Everything.
"Nearly four decades," the mad king said, amusedly, like this was a conversation between two best friends who had missed each other so much the universe decided on being together.
It was almost hopeful how things had gotten, but even the blind could see it. They could feel the tension that was cracking over a battlefield and around the mad king and the Grealor, former alpha.
It was a kind that had been longed for in Kawai by everyone in the kingdom, and honestly, as they watched, they all had the same hope.
For the king to deliver justice for their fallen.
That the king would deliver justice for their mothers, sisters, and wives who had been snatched from them even before they could have the strength to fight for their lives.
That the king would avenge the little kids who had been torn from the wombs of their mothers for sport just because a dark alpha had decided to try and mess up the mad King’s rule, and took with him the most vulnerable of all the Lycans.
The Dark Alpha had done all that on a day when life wasn’t supposed to be played with, a place that was meant to usher in new life. He had ended hundreds of lives there instead.
The Kawai Lycans on the battlefield and even back home hoped the king would avenge the infants who had been in their cots when Ashton’s army came into Kawai and murdered every last nurse, mother, and child who had been born.
It had been the darkest day in Kawai, and the king knew it more than he knew anything else. He had felt that loss to the core. He had experienced a kind of pain that no battlefield had ever caused him.
And it was all because of the smug bastard before him right now.
This stupid wolf, who thought he would be lucky twice, not keeping in mind that Lycans were immortal and their vengeance was the kind that even the moon goddess would weep over, eventually.
It wasn’t the time for mercy, and they all understood it so damn well.
"Feels like yesterday, don’t you think?" Ashton mocked as if he hadn’t stolen life from them. As if this man hadn’t subjected them to a lifetime of grief that would never truly fade.
The king remembered it all.
The kingdom of Kawai stilled as the king circled the alpha, his eyes sharp, his posture relaxed like he wasn’t here for war. But many who had fought beside the king knew what this meant.
This was defiance.
This was doom.
This was rage, and the fact that it was also motivated by the prince who happened to get hurt on this shared battlefield spelled more than vanity. The king was not forgiving.
He never was.
Never had been.
And Ashton would learn that today.
"I never thought you’d have the guts to show your face on this battlefield, seeing as you were absent the last time I invaded Kawai... I still hear their screams. The way your Liana begged for the lives of the other women.
"Your wife was a true queen of hearts until the very end, you know," Ashton said, as if he were talking about the weather, and a Zaffuto growled slowly. He hated this, but he knew what Ashton was doing.
The man was baiting him. Trying to remind him of the pain he had gone through. The man was probably trying to lure him into that dark corner he had been stuck in for twenty-five years. The king had mourned for so long.
Twenty-five years of tears and memories that he would never get back.
Twenty-five years of darkness, not just in his chambers but in his heart too.
Twenty-five years of crying and calling out his Liana’s name.
Twenty-five years of begging for death like he couldn’t do it himself, like he couldn’t put his Liana to shame by being the coward of the century. Like he couldn’t bear to embarrass the love of his life like that.
Oh, but the king had suffered in those twenty-five years.
And if Kosta hadn’t come with Tamiko that day, if the prince hadn’t come home, no one knew what would have become of the king. Maybe he would have already died of grief.
Perhaps that was what Ashton was aiming for.
But what he was failing to understand was that this was a man who had pulled his fur out of that very darkness for his son.
This was a father now.
Not just a king.
This was a father who was determined to live for his son. A father who looked forward to dinners with his son. Breakfasts and lunches with his son. A father who looked forward to the nights his son went to drink tea in the kitchen.
This was a father who could very well be the mat on the foundation, if his son wished for it. And he was a father who understood that he had been given a second chance at life with his son.
A father who had been given what other fathers had not been given. And that made him the king he was now. A king who would fight for his people. A king who would emulate the very thing his Liana had taught him.
Justice.
No mercy for the wicked and insanity when needed.
This was a field of undoing, and Ashton was playing a dangerous game. But then it wasn’t like there was a better ending for Ashton by the time the king would be done with him.
So, the king watched and listened to the man brag, not even faltering in his steps as Ashton’s words grew harsher.
"Your precious Liana... She begged me to take her life. In exchange, I would spare the lives of everyone else. She pleaded. She cried. She was fully pregnant and already pushing her son when I walked in."
