the prince versus the tenth general

Kiera and Sam headed back to the capital after they brought Simon to one of Sam's people located in one of the passing villages.

"Bring him to Madam Riley. Take precaution to only make it known to Madam Riley that this child will be receiving support from me from now on." The prince smiled down at the boy, who upon hearing his words, widened his small round eyes.

"Support? Sir, are you a nobleman?"

Instead of answering, Sam only winked a green eye at the boy.

Kiera watched with a small smile as the boy waved ecstatically at them as Sam started to walk back to where she leaned up against the carriage door. She took note of the warm smile the prince had while walking back to the carriage, and she wondered how such a human could present so many facets of themselves. Even when Kiera thought she knew who the prince was, she would be surprised by an action of his all over again.

'If only we had been born into different roles,' she thought as she stared at the approaching prince, 'maybe we would have been able to...'

She let her thoughts trail off, not letting the sentence finish even within the privacy of her mind.

There was no point in thinking about what could have been or what could be, there is only what is possible and impossible, and a union between the Beast General and the Third Solomon Prince was one of those impossibilities. Her patriotism towards her homeland is too great, even if she believed there was a good chance of her falling deeply in love with the prince.

"Should we head back to the palace?" Sam asked her, his green eyes facing in the direction of the sun, catching its rays and reflecting a warmth to the Beast General.

"Where else would we go?"

"Anywhere you wish."

Kiera was left to wonder what would have happened if she had taken the prince up on his offer.

They returned to the capital before sunset. They only needed to bring their horses back to the stables and they would have parted ways, but they came face-to-face with people she would have never thought they would run into.

"What do we have here?" Gaspar's voice crept up from behind her, so fast that Kiera did not even have time to react to their approaching smells. She and the prince both turned around as both pairs of eyes watched them curiously while they left the stables. The ninth and tenth Beast Generals appeared to have recently come from the training grounds, dressed in their gear, they both looked sweaty from doing exercises and from being under the sun.

"His majesty and his pet Beast. What could they possibly be up to?" He mocked them.

Kiera emitted a low growl, a warning for the Leopard Beast. Gaspar smirked, not caring about the foreign royalty's presence. Standing beside Gaspar, Helios let out a deep sigh. If their King had heard the tenth General's disrespectful comment who knows what he would have done to him?

Sam smiled and greeted the ninth and tenth Beast Generals, completely ignoring the rudeness of the latter. It was an action that seemed to visibly irritate the tenth Beast General even further.

Gaspar frowned.

"Did you hear me Human?" Gaspar stepped in front of the prince. He stood taller than him, but the prince did not seem fazed in the slightest.

"What are you two doing here, and together?"

"I fail to see how what Kiera and I do is any of your business, Beast General Gaspar was it?" Kiera did not fail to notice the dangerous glint within the prince's eyes as he peered at Gaspar. She had not seen him like this before and she wondered if this was a chance to see a different side of him.

"Gaspar, step back from the prince." Kiera heard Helios advise the other General.

Gaspar did not respond and kept his dark irises trained on the blond prince. His upper lip twisted up into an almost snarl.

"Kiera is one of ours so of course it's my business little prince." He put emphasis on the word prince.

At his words, the prince laughed.

"Just because you have your eye on her does not make her yours." Sam had lowered his voice but Kiera still heard him tell the tenth Beast General. Kiera initially thought she had heard wrong. What on earth gave the prince the impression that Gaspar was aiming to make Kiera his? She chose to deliberately gloss over the prince's misunderstanding.

With the flash of Gaspar's teeth, Kiera jumped in between the two men. She remembered the wound the prince had just received. Even if he did have a slim chance of winning against Gaspar, those chances were dashed as long as he was wounded.

"Enough Gaspar." She said sternly, her eyes on the angry tenth Beast General. She stood by the prince. "Leave now."

Gaspar scoffed at her, "You would side with the Human?"

"I have picked no side. I am merely following my King's orders. If you touch a single hair on the prince's head I'll have no choice but to fight you." Her words only enraged him more. Gaspar snarled at her before stalking away.

"Fine, keep protecting the little prince. It won't be much longer until we leave this place anyway." She couldn't understand the threatening message underneath his words, but the prince seemed to catch on to what the tenth General meant.

"I will take my leave as well." Helios wanted to slink away, but with a single motion of her hand, he stopped in his tracks.

"Not so fast Helios, I need to speak with you."

The Beast General nodded after eyeing Kiera with his eyes. Kiera kept no delusions that the Beast General stopped in his tracks because of her authority. He stayed simply because he was curious as to what Kiera wanted to speak with him about.

"Then I shall be going." Kiera turned back to Sam. The prince bowed his head to her and the ninth Beast General then left, but not before giving her a warm and gentle smile.

"I can see how he has managed to capture you Kiera." Helios noted as he watched the prince's disappearing figure, crossing his arms over his chest. "Every time he speaks I feel like he is thinking ten steps ahead."

"You are right, he is rather interesting." Helios raised an eyebrow at her admission, but Kiera quickly covered up her words. "Don't misunderstand me. I say it as a compliment. The prince is more intelligent than what has been said about him. Even you would find him interesting."

She didn't know if she had managed to cover up her blunder, for Helios only nodded.

"Anyway," she changed the subject, "I have a question for you Helios. It's about Gaspar."

"Ah... If you are wondering if the prince's previous words held any truth, then yes, yes they did. Gaspar does hold romantic inclinations towards you." Helios's words hit Kiera straight in the gut. She looked incredulously at the icy blue eyes of the ninth General.

"How can that be? Gaspar only enjoys picking fights with me." She remembered all their fights, explosive and fueled by the tenth Beast General's fiery personality. She could not conceive a single time Gaspar looked at her with a gentle and loving gaze.

"It's true. He has told me countless times how he would consider becoming your Mate if you did not find anyone soon." He did not hesitate to reveal the thoughts of his longtime friend. "Confront him yourself if you are so inclined. I don't have a habit of lying." He said rather nonchalantly.

No matter how hard she tried, Kiera could not picture them sharing a tender kiss or in each other's embraces. The thought of such touches with the tenth Beast General left her feeling rather perturbed. She had never imagined herself sharing those kinds of touches with any person before. The only person she had kissed was the Third Prince, but the prince was a special case. Her body always acted beyond her control whenever she was in the same vicinity of him.

"By the look of your face, you have never thought of Gaspar in the same way," Helios said with a rather amused look on his face. "Poor bastard."

"It isn't that I dislike him," she began to say but right away knew she was lying to him. "No, actually, I do dislike him." His personality did not play well with hers. That was why they clashed with each other so many times.

Helios nodded his head as if he understood.

"I told him he should have been straightforward, and a little less mean to you. Not that it would have done much in terms of his personality. Now, I know what type of man you'd prefer."

Kiera coughed into her hand, refusing to blush as he referred to the prince.

"The reason the prince and I were together is because we have been working jointly on the investigation."

"Did you really need help from a human?" Helios looked at her in a way that seemed to belittle the usefulness of a human when hunting down a Beast.

Kiera nodded, "He knows Solomon and the people. And he is a prince so he is familiar with the layout of the main palace. He has been a great asset to the investigation this far."

"Interesting. Have you found anything yet?"

"Yes. I'm off to make a report to King William."

She steadied her eyes on him. She hoped her face stayed neutral as she told him.

"I think we killed the suspect responsible for the attack on the palace the night of the ball."