Prologue: Eighteen Years Previously

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“Victoria, how are you this fine evening?”

“I am fine, thank you, Prince Gabriel, but I must be going, so please excuse me,” Victoria asked, the desperation clear in her voice.

“You are excused.”  Victoria scurried away from the incriminating room before he had even finished his sentence.

The prince entered his son’s room without any preliminaries, knowing he would have heard his little discussion with Victoria.  The future-Prince Lucian lay shirtless on his king-sized four-poster bed, his midnight-black hair perfectly complimenting his crimson sheets.  His duvet and pillows lay in disarray and half of Victoria’s lingerie set lay half hidden by the comforter that had been callously thrown to the floor.

“When will you stop this childish behaviour?”  Prince Gabriel demanded.  “There are still many years before the turn of the century; your future bride could arrive any day now.  How do you think she would feel finding you fraternizing with other women?  Things will be hard enough trying to integrate a human into our society.”

“Father, we have been waiting for this human at the end of every century since the prophecy was made 5 millennia ago and every century we are disappointed.  Don’t you think it’s time to let it go?”  Lucian asked exasperated.

“Of course not!”  His father cried as if the very idea was absurd.  “This girl is going to help save our race and the prophecy about her was very clear: she will arrive in the last decade of a century, she will marry the future prince and she will become one of us.  We must be prepared for her and that means you not fooling around with other women!”

At that very moment there was a shift in the universe that no one outside their race would have felt.  Both men raised their eyes to the ceiling, as if they could see the sky beyond it.

“This is the time we’ve been waiting for, Lucian, I can feel it.  She will be here soon.”  With that, the Prince disappeared from his son’s bedroom.

Lucian let his head fall back on his pillow.  Ever since he was born all those millennia ago, he had been expected to wait for his supposed future bride at the end of every century and it was becoming tedious; his father’s obsession with the prophecy even more so.  He just wanted to live his life; instead, he permanently had to curb his lifestyle so as not to upset the woman he would one day marry – never mind the fact they had never even met yet.

He sighed deeply and looked back up at the ceiling.  In the back of his mind, he couldn’t help thinking that his father had overlooked something: she would be coming soon, that shift couldn’t have been a coincidence, but he had a feeling that if this human girl was indeed coming soon, she wouldn’t be expected.  He also had a sneaking suspicion that, when she did finally arrive, his infidelity would be the least of their worries; he had a feeling that if the prophecy ever came true, they would be biting off a lot more than they can chew.

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