Prologue

With great power comes great responsibility. I always thought it was one of those things my father just said until I read that Voltaire said it first. In the beginning, it confused me. What great power? My life was semi-normal, if you took into account that I was the crown prince of Scotland and my father was the king.

I was enrolled in a normal high school. During the week I stayed at the boarding house and went home on weekends. Nobody in school knew who I really was though, because royal lines in our society were not acknowledged by humans.

I was a regular sixteen-year-old and I got into trouble occasionally, just like my father and his father did. I tried not to get involved in fights because I started training at the age of six and I shifted for the first time when I was ten, which was unheard of.

I was cursed and blessed at the same time. The curses started early in my life as I faced expulsion and my father’s look of disapproval as we stood in the principal’s office was enough to scare me a little. I had been caught in the girls boarding house, more accurately, in Shawna’s room with her, naked. Shawna’s parents took her out of school and I didn’t see her again.

Five weeks later, I got a text from her telling me that she was pregnant. I was cursed with the sins of my forefathers or maybe stupidity at repeating their mistakes. Shawna was human and it was forbidden for us to have any sort of relations with them.

I met up with Shawna at Kai’s insistence, and I had to convince her to get rid of that baby or she would die. I have always been somewhat arrogant, because my whole life I had been sheltered and spoiled. I didn’t really have to work for anything I wanted. I got good grades because of my photographic memory and I was a natural athlete. Training was the only thing I ever worked hard at.

So when I met up with Shawna at the park, I was mean and rude and I told her I had no interest in her or the baby. I told her she was just a conquest, another notch on my belt. I shoved some money into her hand and told her to get an abortion. It killed me on the inside to treat her that way. She was the first girl I ever loved and now she hated me.

A week later, Shawna sent me a text, telling me she had an abortion and I sighed in relief knowing that she would live. Kai was still not impressed with me, but I would survive this mistake just like I survived all the others. As the oldest, I was supposed to be the example for Gabriel and Adira, my younger siblings.

I got into my fair share of fights at school because the one thing that I truly hated was bullies. I quickly built up a reputation of standing up for those that couldn’t. The older boys at school became wary of me because I could fight and I did.

I can’t even remember the amount of times Kai had to come to school because of a black eye, bloody nose or broken arms. He donated a lot of money to the school which kept me from being expelled but my last stunt might just be my last act of defiance in that school.

Kai had spoken to the principal and I was given one last chance to change my ways or I would definitely be expelled, no matter how much money Kai gave the school. I had promised to be better and to stop my bullshit. I did mean it when I made that promise, but the promise was soon forgotten as the sports finals arrived and we left the district to compete against other schools.

Blaise is my wolf and he lives through me. He is me. We share a soul and two bodies, one human and one wolf. In our human form, I’m in control and in our wolf form, he’s in control. We speak to each other and in my mind I can see him. He’s magnificent and strong, powerful and he has a somewhat twisted sense of humor, especially when it’s directed at me.

Through my own choices though, I altered my own fate and changed the outcome of my future or so I thought. The joke’s on me though, my destiny was always where my life was leading me and I had no choice in the matter. No matter what choices I made, I would end up exactly where I was now.

Don’t get me wrong, life is a series of adventures, but it’s a life I didn’t want at that time. Do I regret my decisions or my actions? Some of them I do, but not all of them. Even though terrible things happened, I can’t bring myself to regret all of them.

I didn’t want to feel this way. I didn’t want to hurt so much, I didn't want to dream of the dead I was responsible for and I certainly never wanted my father to look at me in that way. Be careful what you wish for, because I wished for a different life, one where I wasn’t the crown prince of Scotland.

The future I had planned for myself was not the life I would lead. There would be many obstacles in my way and the mistakes in my future were on me. My choices, my mistakes, my pain, it was all on me. The people that died because of my choices still haunted me and I would never forget what I did to them.

Blaise kept telling me that the mysteries of my life would be revealed when I was ready and I think he’s going senile or he’s just an idiot, because in all honesty, I was a failure, a disappointment and knowing that’s what my father thinks of me, hurts more than I care to explain.

My father is my rock, my inspiration and there are few people in my life that I trust and respect with everything I have and I broke that trust. I never thought I could lose it all, but I did, in the blink of an eye, my future was taken from me.

Responsibilities and choices that were never mine to make but thrust upon me and I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready but I had to be even though I didn’t want any of it. I was convinced that I just needed to figure out how to end my curse but like I said, the joke was on me. I had no choice but to be what I became.