Chapter 2: 1
"Silver, can you help me carry this?" said a voice. Silver put down his book and pushed up his black square glasses. He looked up at his cousin Klara. Her hazel eyes shimmered expectantly him.
"A house full of werewolves and you ask the only human for help?" he grinned. He got up from the driver's seat of his car and put the box she was carrying in the car. On the way there, he caught a glimpse of himself in Klara's mirror pressed against the window that they shoved in not-so-safely.
His smooth brown skin was still ashy along with the elbows and could be seen under his purple button-down shirt when he rolled the sleeves up. His khaki shorts revealed his long, skinny legs.
His family often joked that he was all-leg. Even though he wasn't that tall, his legs made up most of his body, making him look taller than he was. He grinned at his reflection, dimples poking through his cheeks, and turned back to Klara who handed her yet another piece of furniture to cram in the car.
It had been over ten years since Boris had rescued Silver in that 7-Eleven when he had run away. At first, when Boris revealed that he was a werewolf and was taking Silver to a mansion filled with werewolves, he started to cry all over again. But after more than a decade of compassion and love, he learned that these people-- werewolf people --were really his family.
After he finished school, he decided to stay there and help out around the packhouse. Unlike his cousin Klara.
He shoved the box into his car's trunk with a sigh "I really wish I had that super-strength ya'll have"
"Pff, why don't you get bit by a vampire then?" Klara teased
Silver made a face, "I'd rather eat glass," he giggled, "Besides, you can't make those jokes anymore. You're going to school in Virlaq, which is run by vampires. It's not PC there, remember?"
"Yeah yeah, I'm just getting the jokes about while I can," she rolled her eyes, "I'm going to be around freaking vamps 24/7 now. I guess, you guys won't want to visit me then?"
"Why do you think I'm the one driving you? Besides Boris, everyone can't stand vampires," He shrugged, "I've never even met one but I hate them"
She hummed in reply and then opened the front door, "Let's go, I've already said my goodbyes to everyone."
"Wait this is all your taking?" Silver gawked at the still half-empty backseat. Sure the trunk was now entirely full, but he expected more. Especially considering him and Boris wasted a great deal of effort stuffing her belongings into weird positions in the backseat because they figured she'd have a whole house full of possessions.
"I'll buy some stuff there and I can always come back during my breaks," She shrugged, "Virlaq is only a few hours away."
"If you insist," Silver sighed, opening the driver's door and hopping in, "Let's hit the road."
He started up the car and an awkward silence filled the air, so Klara promptly interrupted it, "So," she jumped up, "What do you think would happen if I end up falling in love?"
"At college?" Silver asked with a laugh, "That's expected, knowing you. You've had so many boyfriends in your life, why wouldn't you?"
"I mean like what if I fell in love with a vampire or something?" She giggled, "Oh my god, my dad would kill me. That'd be kind of exciting though."
"I thought you hated vampires," Silver asked, confused.
"My dad hates vampires," she corrected, "But you never know... Nah, it'd be too weird, dating one of them."
"One of them," Silver repeated with a glare, "I can't even imagine what it's like being one. I wish I was a werewolf. That way I wouldn't even have to worry about becoming one of those things."
"Ha! That's funny!" Klara shook her head, "If any of us in the pack tried to turn you into a werewolf, you know Alpha Boris would literally kill us. And he rarely ever even gets angry."
"Yeah, I don't know why though," His shoulders sunk, "Me being the only human is just another reminder every day that I'm only a fake member of the family."
"Oh, Silver, you know no one thinks that," his cousin assured him. "Boris probably just thinks that you have a false sense of werewolves, you know?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like you've literally only ever known us. You know there are bad werewolves out there, right?" She informed him, "Just like how he claims there are also good vampires,"
Silver wasn't too sure about that last part, "Have you ever met a good vampire?"
"I've never met a vampire, good or otherwise, so I couldn't tell you what's right," she shrugged, "All I know is, everyone besides Boris in the pack, including my dad, thinks those bloodsuckers are all evil and all deserve a stake through the heart,"
Silver laughed, "Yeah? Well, I agree,"
***
"Are we there yet?" Klara asked for the fifth time, twirling brown curly hair in her fingers.
"You asked me that ten minutes ago," Silver rolled his eyes, focusing on the road. They had reached a long street that he recognized. The street where his old house was, "And ten minutes ago, we weren't there"
Klara hmphed and started stroking her arm hair, "I forgot to bleach my arms,"
"What?"
"I bleach my arms in the summer and fall because waxing my arms is useless," Klara giggled, "I'm a hairy werewolf."
Silver decided playing into her random topic change would help fill the awkward silence once again, "What do the dark-skinned werewolves do? I mean dark and blonde hair would show on their skin." Silver asked
Klara shrugged, "I don't know, dude, they could probably bleach it then dye it their skin color. Or suck it up and wax every other day-- ugh being a wolf is tiring,"
"Okay, whatever," Silver rolled his eyes as they passed by the place where his house used to be. It was completely gone now, but the 7-Eleven still stood.
Boris told him a few years back that his aunt and uncle were dead. He didn't know any other information. Only that they had died, There was no funeral, and now there was no more house. It was as if Silver's biological family never even existed. Like someone erased their existence.
At this point, the only proof of his family's existence was him.
"We have... now entered Virlaq," he notified his cousin as they passed the 'Welcome to Virlaq Kingdom' sign.
"Oh thank god, I can practically smell the vamps now," she grinned, "I wonder if I'll get to fight one,"
"You'll get expelled, dude. Your dad will be pissed if all that money goes to waste," he scolded, "You better control yourself,"
"Yeah yeah yeah, just because you have Boris the cool dad, you don't have to rub it in that my dad is lame and overprotective," She huffed.
He smiled, "Yeah, Boris is the best dad in the world,"
They hadn't seen a car since they were still in Willow Kingdom, so they were pleasantly shocked to see a limousine swerve in front of them and stop at the red light.
"Woah I've never seen a limo before,"
"Me neither," Silver said.
"Well slow down before you hit them, dude, it's a red light," She chided.
"I-I'm trying but," Silver started to panic, "Klara... Klara! I can't stop the car!"
"What do you mean you can't stop the car?" Her head whipped to her cousin, "Stop the frickin' car, Silver, now!"
"Klara, I swear to god, I can't!" his voice cracked and he felt the tears sting at his eyes, "Klara, I'm scared, I'm scared I don't know what to-"
BAM
***
"Nicholas, sir, must you really give a speech in such a public place?" Prince Nick's butler asked him.
"Don, I appreciate the concern, but I doubt any assassin would try to murder a vampire prince of all princes. They should try that idiot, King Felix, in Willow," he grinned, just as the limo hit a speed bump.
Donald the butler frowned, "I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you and King Felix of Willow Kingdom were friends,"
"We are," Nick laughed, "That's how I know he's an idiot."
They were on their way to SkyView University, but his father ordered the driver to take a very sketchy shortcut to avoid traffic and paparazzi. Nicholas Schwarz, the prince of Virlaq kingdom was going there to give a speech to the faculty.
An earthquake had recently hit the school, and Nick was the head of the committee to rebuild the college. So, they asked him to give a speech and assure the students and professors that everything was okay and safe and blah blah blah.
Nick didn't really care for formalities; he was only bored and decided 'why not?'
"Nicholas, now that we're alone, I need to talk to you about something," Donald, the butler, straightened up. His little blonde fringe bounced when he sat up, amusing Nick.
"What is it, Don?" Nick's shimmering blue eyes pierced Donald, coldly. He wasn't actually glaring, he and his family always just looked menacing when they weren't smiling.
Donald, used to the harsh stares of vampires after all his years of working for them, didn't even flinch, "Your father wants you to pick a wife and soon."
"Great Merlin," Nick rolled his eyes, "Father thinks I can't be king without a queen. I'm only twenty-five, I need to live. Look at you, for example. You're only thirty-seven yet you've wasted most of your life serving me,"
Don ignored the last comment, "Every man needs a woman by his side, that's what my mother always said," Don answered with a shrug.
"Yes, I agree," the prince nodded, "But it doesn't have to be my wife," He ran a hand through his thick, black curly hair and looked up.
The ceiling of the limousine was a mirror. He grinned up at himself, "I am still young, you're right,"
He looked back at Don and they stared at each other for a good five minutes. Don raised an eyebrow and Nick just laughed.
"I think it's time to tell my father that I'm gay,"
Don choked on his own breath, causing Nick to fall into a fit of laughter. He slapped his knee, cackling at Don's shock.
"Y-you're... why have you never told anyone this?" Don demanded, dropping formalities altogether.
"I don't know, I guess just never thought about it," he shrugged, still chuckling, "I also didn't think it was that big of a deal,"
"Well, of course, it's not sir, but that doesn't change anything. Even though you decided to randomly announce, that nearly giving me a heart attack might I add," Don sighed, "A potential husband is not just going to crash into the limousine,"
BAM
***
One second Silver was crashing into an expensive limo. And another, he was being shouted at by a very angry, blonde butler.
Looking in front of him, he saw that his car had rammed itself into the limo in front of him. The butler that was knocking on his window angrily was most-likely the driver or passenger of the vehicle.
Silver looked to his right and noticed Klara was breathing heavily but still looked intact. Luckily, the only damage was a small crack in the front window. The airbag clouded most of his vision, but he was still trembling.
"Silver, you're bleeding," Klara said shakily.
He looked up into the rearview mirror to see a trail of blood coming from his eyebrow down to the side of his face. Somehow his glasses had survived the crash. He let out an uneasy breath and rolled down the window.
Off the blonde butler-man went at him:
"Do you have any idea what you could have done? On behalf of the entire kingdom of Virlaq, I could have you arrested! To think you almost killed the P-"
"Hey, idiot, why don't you hear our side of the story first?" Klara yelled in place of Silver, who was just gawking at the situation at hand.
"Your side of the story? Do you not know how to drive?" The butler raised an eyebrow and glared down at Silver, "Okay, Mister, what is this story? How on earth could you have possibly been so irresponsible that you-"
"It wouldn't stop," he said in almost a whisper.
"Excuse me?"
"The car," Silver started breathing harshly, "The car wouldn't stop, oh my god. I thought I was gonna die,"
"What do you mean it wouldn't stop?" The butler asked, now intrigued.
"I was trying to slow it down and it wouldn't slow down," He explained shakily, "Then I thought I should just hit the brakes altogether, but it wouldn't work. It wouldn't stop!" he choked out, tears finally releasing themselves from his eyes.
The butler seemed to realize he had been too harsh and lightened his tone, "It seems you're very stressed out, let's get out the car and talk about this," He cooed lightly, trying to calm Silver down, "I already called someone to clean this up, come now let's get out of the car. My name is Donald,"
With gentle words, Donald coaxed a crying Silver out of the car. Klara followed, legs shaking, but face set firmly. Donald pat Silver's back softly. "You're obviously under a lot of stress, okay? Do you know any reason why your car didn't stop?"
"No! I was just driving. It wasn't the first red light we went to and it stopped before," He sputtered, "I'm sorry, I don't cry easily... well that's a lie, but I live a very boring life so things that would make me cry don't come very often,"
"Silver, it's okay," Klara coaxed, "I'll call Alpha Boris," she said and skipped away, taking out her cell phone.
"Alpha? You lot are werewolves, huh?" Donald bit his lip.
Silver shook his head "My family is but I'm not?"
"Oh, you're mixed? Or a hybrid?" Donald asked, trying to change the subject to a lighter one, "That's very cool."
"No, I'm not a werewolf at all," he explained, "I was adopted,"
"I see, well... I just needed to see what the problem with the driver was," Donald said, looking back at the limo, "I'll just check back with the prince and be back with you in a second,"
Silver flinched, "Prince?"
"Yes, Prince Nicholas is in that limousine," he explained, "That's why I was so frantic, you see, my apologies,"
"Prince Nicholas of what?" Silver tilted his head to the side, "I've never heard of him,"
"You've never heard of Prince Nicholas? Well, you've been living with a pack of werewolves, I wouldn't be surprised," He grinned, "Prince Nicholas is the vampire prince of Virlaq."
Silver eyes widened, he was unable to answer. He knew he should probably say something polite, but honestly, he could care less about some vampire prince and more about how much trouble he could get into for this incident.
"That's... wow," Silver suddenly felt queasy, "Oh god, I almost killed the vampire king." He was suddenly very dizzy.
"Prince, you mean. And the crash didn't really hit us at all, it was just startling," Donald reasoned with him.
"Oh my god," Silver didn't seem to hear him, "They're gonna bite me. The whole royal family is going to bite me and turn me into an incubus. They'll tear me limb from limb!"
"That's not really-"
"They'll drink my blood every day 'til I'm dry!" Silver couldn't really see reason at the moment, with all the adrenaline pumping through him.
"Now honestly, those are some werewolf tales," Donald rolled his eyes, "Prince Nicholas is an understanding, wonderfully Charming man and would never do anything unreasonable,"
"Great Merlin, why don't you marry him too?" Silver muttered, "I think I'm going to be sick. Oh my god, I'm gonna die. Oh my god, I can't handle all this at once. I'm gonna vomit. This is the craziest thing I've experienced in over two decades."
"Honestly, Mister, it isn't that big of a deal. Prince Nicholas is compassionate and-"
"If you compliment that bloodsucker one more time I'm gonna pass out," He interrupted, doubling over, hands on knees, "I've lived in the forest of Willow Kingdom all my life, in a pack-house in for most of it. I went to a school where most of the school was part of the pack. I go out of my hometown for ten minutes and I nearly kill the Prince of Virlaq... oh and he's a vampire too. Perfect,"
"Sir, I think you need to calm down, for someone of your skin complexion, you look very pale," Donald said, worriedly.
"I told you, I'm gonna vomit," he shook his head, swaying on the spot, "Now that I think about it, I did hit my head pretty hard. I feel... fuzzy,"
Silver lost his footing for a second and stumbled into a tall, solid figure, whose hand gripped the sides of his shoulders softly. He yelped, moving away quickly, looking at the man who caught him in horror, all dizziness gone.
The man was much taller than him with pale white skin and dark curly hair. His eyes were an icy blue and his smirk was teasing. He wore a black suit with a gold clip with the pendant of Virlaq on his tie.
"Hello, beautiful," he smirked "You must be the one that hit my limo,"
Silver was silent for a second before his eyes widened, "You're the prince?"
The prince nodded, "Call me Nick, love."
"Call me anything but that," Silver said with a grimace, "I didn't mean to hit you, I swear,"
"It seems someone put a spell on their car or something, sir," Donald spoke up.
If Nick heard him, he paid him no mind. He kept his icy eyes trained on the man before him, "what's your name? And what business do you have in the middle of nowhere?"
"My name is Silver Chase, I was driving my cousin-" he pointed back at Klara, who was still on the phone with Boris, "to her college. She's going to SkyView. For some reason, my brake wouldn't work. I apologize on behalf of my entire family, your highness,"
"My name is Nick. Call me Nick," he repeated pointedly, "Silver, huh? You smell like a werewolf, Silver, but you don't look like a werewolf?"
"What does a werewolf look like?" Silver raised an eyebrow. He'd lived with werewolves all his life and the only distinguishable thing about them was all the hair.
"Why wouldn't your brakes work?" The prince seemed to have not heard him, "Do you have any enemies?"
"My life is way too boring for me to have acquired enemies," Silver snorted.
"What about a boyfriend?" The prince winked, "Ever had one of those?"
Silver made a face and then turned to Donald, "Is he like this with everyone?"
"I apologize on his behalf. He does know how to be serious sometimes, I promise you," He answered with a roll of his eyes.
"Oh please, you see an adorable man in tears begging for forgiveness, and you don't find that a little cute?" he laughed. He reached over and wiped away one of Silver's tears, gently with his thumb, "You look like a doll when you cry, Silver,"
"You scare me," Silver replied, too weirded out to slap his hand away. The man's fingers lingered on his cheek before they dropped back down to his side.
"I scare you? Apparently, I'm not the only one," Nick said looking at what used to be Silver's beautiful car. There were severe dents on the outside that they couldn't see before, "I want to find whoever did this. I definitely feel dark magic coming from this car, no doubt,"
"Dark magic? Nobody in my family uses dark magic," Silver said shakily.
Nick grinned "You're so cute when you're scared," he cleared his throat, "Problem is, for this to have been done, they would've had to have been here... somewhere," he looked around.
There were buildings and little shops, but half of them were empty and there weren't even cars in the street.
"I doubt it's that werewolf girl," he gestured to Klara, "Someone must've had to specifically target you, Silver... or me or your cousin. They waited until you were in front of another car to try and harm you like this,"
"Well, why would someone do that?" Silver said, feeling dizzy once again.
"You tell me, beautiful," He said, looking around with furrowed brows. He turned to Silver and visibly cringed at the man's complexion, "You really do look sick, Silver. We can drop your cousin off at the college and then you can stay at the castle for a short while. You seriously look ill,"
Silver glared, "Are you going to bite me and turn into a vampire in my sleep?"
The Prince's fangs dropped down just to show off, "Do you want me to?" he grinned.
Klara finally came trotting back. When she did, she raised an eyebrow at Prince Nick, "Vampire?"
"Prince of Virlaq, nice to meet you," he smiled sweetly.
Kara's eyes widened, but she just turned to Silver, "Anyway, Boris said he's on his way here, but we should probably find a place to stay."
"Already taken care of, little miss," Nick beamed, "We'll drop you off at your university and then after I give a speech there, Silver can spend the night at the palace,"
"What are you gonna do to him while I'm not around?" She glared.
He raised a suggestive eyebrow, "What does he want me to do to him?"
Klara rolled her eyes, "Like I'm gonna let my cousin run around in a castle filled with this vampires,"
"Oh you're one of those," Nick rolled his eyes, "'Filled' is an overstatement. The only vampires in the castle are my family,"
"That's because the rest are probably your blood-slaves," She shot back with a smirk that said she was teasing him on purpose and didn't actually believe her own words.
"If that's what you call butlers and maids in your household then sure," He shrugged, "I wouldn't expect a country werewolf like you to trust me. But somebody is clearly targeting Silver, and I don't think it wise of him to just stay in some random hotel tonight,"
"What do you care?"
"I care about the people of my kingdom," Nick glared.
"We live in Willow actually," She gave a fake smile, "I appreciate the sentiment, but he's none of your concern,"
"You don't seem to like me very much," he grinned.
"Really?" she gave him a face of fake shock, "What gave it away?"
"It's because I'm a vampire," He scoffed.
"Or," she countered, "It's because my big cousin and I were obviously targetted by someone who can do dark magic. And then you just happen to show up out of nowhere offering to take him to the castle? A vulnerable, naive human boy?"
"You seem to forget that I was also hit and could've gotten hurt in the crash," Nick glared, "I wouldn't want to hit myself with a car if I wanted to kill him,"
"Which is exactly what you want us to think," Klara shot back, clinging to her cousin.
"Uh," Donald cut in, "Well, your car doesn't seem fit to drive any longer anyway. And our limousine is still in pretty good shape. Perhaps you'll at least let us at least take you to the school,"
"Like I said, Alpha Boris is on his way so there's no need," Klara crossed her arms.
"Klara," Silver bit his lip, "I kinda feel bad. I did hit them with my car, and he is the Prince of Virlaq-- your new home. We should at least take their offer. I'll call Boris and explain it to him,"
Klara looked at Silver for a long time before rolling her eyes. "Fine! But I swear to god, I don't trust him just yet," she exclaimed, pointing at Nick as if he could hear her talking about him, "Vampire or not, this guy is up to something,"
The prince just smirked and let his eyes graze over to Silver, "I sure am,"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone