Vengeance of The Broken Lycan Prince [BL]
Chapter 337: Country Road… Take Me Home

Chapter 337: Country Road... Take Me Home

[KAWAI]

Everything he had ever dreamed of was close; a family that wouldn’t let him go, a home that would choose him, and a life that would always never make him feel like he had to beg more than enough times for.

It was all there waiting for him, begging him to step forward and take, because that was what he had been born for. A prince with a silver spoon in his mouth Tamiko would have been the most spoiled child of the realm.

He would have had leaders at his mercy, and people who went against him would never be heard from again. It would have been the perfect life, with his protective mother and the demon he was cursed and blessed with for a father.

He would have gone up happy and content.

Maybe as time went by, he would have had siblings to waddle through life with, along with a best friend who never betrayed him.

It had always been a dream since Tamiko had found out he was the prince, but he had never thought that there would be so many stages to the mess that life had been for him.

He never once imagined that the tables would be as dry and that every mention of his mother would bring tears to the eyes of an entire kingdom. It was a life that went against everything he had dreamt of and yet he wasn’t wishing it differently this time.

Maybe he would find a way to communicate with his mother in the afterlife and make peace with the fact that Liana was turkey ever going to come back, but even that was a hard choice for him.

Perhaps that was why he found himself at the door of his father’s chambers while his Erasthai was out there fighting a war that he himself had triggered. Ife was crazy, and Tamiko had long learned that.

"Aren’t you going to come in, son?" King Zaffuto asked when over thirty minutes had passed and his son was still standing at the door, contemplating whether to knock or walk in on his own.

He wasn’t sure what mood his father was in at the moment and maybe that’s why he had been hesitant. But even then, Taiko knew by now that no matter what mood father was always in, he was always the only one who could get through to him.

The king would be happy if that was what his son wanted. He would be chirpy as the fucked-up birds that missed the food the king gave them on battlefields.

Maybe I would be a little too glad and happier if that was what it meant to be next to his son. It was logic that no one would ever understand and yet one that the mad king had worked for so long.

He reigned in it.

He lived for it and right now he wanted to see his son and listen to his son.

If that was all that he had to do for the rest of his life.

"I... I was going to knock. I just..." Tamiko trailed off. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to say this time, truly. He had just come here to talk to his father and perhaps make small talk.

With the war out there, Tamiko doubted that this was the time for all that. Then again, he wouldn’t have known what it was if he didn’t find out for himself. Right? Maybe coming here wasn’t as bad as it seems, no?

"Come in, son," Zaffuto said and Tamiko sighed knowing that there was never going to be a time for him to back out of this.

For a moment, he felt like he was about to make a wrong decision;

–Which was almost hilarious given the fact that this was his father he was approaching, not someone who would be looking at him, listening, and judging the fuck out of him with every word that came out of his mouth.

It seemed so simple, a truth that they needed to be free and that was not what Tamiko had thought of before.

"I can come by another time if you’re busy," Tamiko said, his right foot inside the door and the left, outside. He wasn’t sure about this and that was what intrigued the mad king the most. He had never thought that he would ever see his son this nervous and boy was it wrecking him.

"Sit," Zaffuto insisted, ushering his son to the table in the middle of the room which was surrounded by huge couches. Tamiko hadn’t always paid attention to his father’s chambers, because he had not been one to stay here for long.

He only ever interacted with his father in the queen’s wing, where his father had given him as a present for this mating bond with Kosta. It was not what Tamiko had once thought, but right now, the young prince was panicking, which got the king intrigued even more.

"Breathe, Kaito. Breathe. It’s just me, your father. It’s me, your papa," Zaffuto said when he realized that his son was so close to a panic attack. He had never once estimated that there would come a time when he would be the reason his son was so uncomfortable and scared of what the future held.

It was crazy, truly, as his son had just commissioned the entire army to fight the longest battles without his presence or that of the king, not to mention the Lycan Lord loved by all warriors.

"Papa..." Tamiko trailed off as the king helped him breathe.

The breathing exercises came to Zaffuto so naturally that for a moment, Tamiko wondered if that was what the Lycan Lord, Sadako, had always done for his father whenever the king thought of the greatest loss of his life.

It hurt to even imagine what the massacre had looked like if it terrified even the factions that had lived in Kawai back then.

"Talk to me, son," Zaffuto said softly.

"I didn’t mean to worry you. I just didn’t know if your schedule would be open so you could train me," Tamiko voiced after a few breathing exercises. He was struggling to come to terms with the truth about the day and the way that war had not even changed what Kawai was like.

He had thought that it would be like Grealor, where most of the time that Grealor fought with other packs. Tamiko would be out there in the open, being the one feeding them weapons while the rest of Grealor was safely hidden in their houses.

That pack had traumatized him so much that there wasn’t even a way to start talking about it without feeling the brunt of so many things at once.

It was the kind of hell that turned a young prince into a mess each time that anything from his past life happened in Kawai.

Of course, the king had always noticed, but he never wanted to prod.

He only waited, because if his son wanted to let him in then Tamiko would have long done that. It was always so simple and there wasn’t much to argue with at this point in them anyway. Perhaps this was just one of those days.

"My schedule is always free for you, son. I never even thought I had a schedule," the king chuckled softly, before staring into his son’s eyes reassuringly, "they will never get to you again, Kaito. I will protect you, always, my little angel."