Prologue
Once upon a time, there was a boy called...
Xavier – (17 years)
I was startled awake as my bedroom door slammed open. About to reach for the bedside light, heavy footsteps pounded the laminate flooring a second before hard hands grabbed my legs, yanking me off the bed.
“What the hell!” My back hit the floor with a sharp groan bursting through my lips, stealing my sleep.
My breath stalled for just a beat then adrenaline jolted me into kicking and punching my unknown assailants. Against the pitch blackness, my vision scaled shapes and sizes, nothing more. Still, I didn’t back down.
“Father!” I shouted, my elbow connecting with some body part while my foot sank into something soft. A fucking face, I hoped.
An audible grunt followed my fist, ramming into another body part. “Get the fuck off me!” My other fist slammed into something harder, a muscular arm perhaps. Reacting on gut instinct, I threw wild punches. My gym workouts weren’t in vain.
However, my joy of defeating these wankers was short-lived. Two seconds later, several hands latched onto my flailing hands and legs, flipping me onto my stomach.
“Who are you?” A hand to my head, pressing my face down, muffled my words.
Still, I bucked against their hold, hoping for one of them to relax their grip. It didn’t come. Someone jerked my hands behind my back before hard plastic bit into my skin, taking my hope and melting all resistance from my body. Another moment later, my vision was also stolen by a dark hood shoved down my head.
Thick fingers grasped my arms and jerked me to my feet. With no sense of direction, I let them lead me away, silently cursing for allowing myself to be captured by God knew who.
Steadying my breathing despite the cloaked thickness of the hood, I listened for the rest of my family. As the second son, several siblings came after me, and I prayed like hell these bastards hadn’t done the same thing to them. Besides my captor’s clomping footsteps over the tiled floors, I heard nothing else.
Then I remembered Mother was traveling, which meant she was safe. Where was my father? Surely, he would’ve heard the commotion and come looking for me. We might live in a castle, but sound carried through the hallways, echoing against the ancient stone and giving rise to Mother’s constant warnings to behave, to be quiet.
I didn’t know how long we’d walked before the scrape of a wooden door over the floor alerted my ears to the sound. My sense of smell pricked to life.
Frankincense!
I knew that scent well. How many times had Father coaxed me into joining him in the chapel? I refused every time I stepped up to the door. My father and grandfather had drilled the Sinclair history into me for as long as I could remember. I wasn’t interested in this so-called curse they kept harping on. At the age of fifteen, each Sinclair boy had to ascend into the Winthrop Brotherhood by taking part in some sick ritual that involved the boys fucking virgins.
Had I just been hoodwinked by my father?
“Kneel, boy,” Father yelled on cue as two hands pressed on my shoulders, forcing me down to my knees.
