We were afraid. All of us. Could beat up the little boy with our pinky finger and yet, there was always that knowledge in the back of our head. It's why we stopped talking to him. It's why we never opened the door when he came knocking. It's why I would hear him in the room next to mine, crying himself to sleep. I blame myself for everything that became of him. For the man that he came to be.

We were Victor Frankenstein…and he was our isolated monster. Our feared, dangerous, and powerful creation.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Part One: The Bastard

My name is Linus, the twelfth Prince of the Southern Isles. Though Hans was the closest brother I felt a connection with, there will always be a hint of resentment that no one outside the family will ever willingly talk about. I was my mother's last intended child with a desperate desire for a daughter – a princess. Her name was to be Lynn.

My mother did not get her wish.

Granted, she was not a vengeful woman. She loved me with every fiber in her being and I even drew some of the attention away from the tenth and eleventh princes, Joshua and James – the only twins they'd ever have the privilege to bear. Even with twelve sons running about the house, my mother and father were completely content with their life and their kingdom. However, they jokingly made a promise between one another that I would be their last child.

In a terrible matter of speaking, I was their last child. Together. You see, my father was a man tempted by all that is around him. My mother was sick. In no position to provide him counsel or company, he began to talk with the serving girl who had been attending to her. I caught them talking on several occasions. I caught them kissing on several occasions. I never spoke of this to my mother, not once. Her heart was already so frail that I didn't wish to break it further. She loved her husband with all her heart; therefore, for her and the good of the kingdom, I told no one, as I promised my father I wouldn't. Not even my brothers had the slightest inkling of their role model's betrayal.

It didn't stay that way for long, of course. My mother recovered after a few months. Though the doctor clarified that she would not live a long life, she lived long enough to have her heart broken. Nine months later, a new child was introduced to the castle. A child that my mother never bore. I could hear their argument echo throughout the walls of the castle, through the deep stone that surrounded my bedroom and even from the garden on the polar opposite side.

Granted, I was still a small child. I didn't have the emotional tendency to bear comfort to my distraught mother or to scold my ill-acted father and instead focused on the house studies I was made to perform. While my father rocked his bastard son to sleep, I would watch him from afar, working on my essay on kingdom alignment or practicing my footwork for the next Brothers Brawl tournament that we held every year. I never said a word to my father. Only in my head and written down did I express my disgust for him.

The serving girl was banished from the lands of the kingdom and I heard my father swear time and time again that he had simply been lonely and that the baby he held in his hands was only a product of his depression in the idea of losing his wife. He loved her very much, I knew that. It is true. And it took a lot of convincing and a lot of diamond rings to reestablish her trust in him, but damn it, it worked. Their marriage was restored and the son was welcomed into the hearts of their family.

It was ironic. No one in the family had red hair, not one, but the people of the Isles never questioned it. They treated him as their beloved Prince who had just as much the right to rule as their first-born, George, and everyone in the family loved him, including me.

Especially me.

I always wanted a younger sibling. Had always been doomed to believe that I was to remain the brunt of my brother's jokes and pranks forever. Together, we would stand. Together, we would prove ourselves to be the best of the Southern Isle princes, even though our right to rule would never be established. That we would be inhabitants of the army for the rest of our lives and nothing more. It was a realization I was content with. With Hans, it was a different story.

We grew up happy.

As my younger brother learned to walk and talk, he would always knock on my bedroom door first. Every morning. Every day.

"Do you wanna go exploring?" he'd always ask.

Adventure was our passion. Exploring the grounds and extensions of our land was something that drove both of us. While our brothers and parents were off making more important decisions, Hans and I would sneak past the guards of the castle, swim through the moat that surrounded it, and wander around the forest. We built maps and marked our favorite spots where we discovered something amazing, where we had built a small clubhouse, etc.

It's what brothers were there for.

At least for a while.

As you might have already guessed, I'm significantly older than Hans. At the time he was born, I'd say I was around six or seven at the time. Granted, seven years doesn't seem that much but when you compare our family, it is quite a difference. Most of my brothers differ in age by only a few years, three at the most. In fact, I was born exactly nine months after the twins due to my mother's desperation for some sort of feminine presence in her family (again, sorry about that, mom).

Now, Hans didn't begin to notice these differences for quite some time. It was that childhood ignorance that kept him safe for a small amount of time and it wasn't till he started asking questions that it began to eat him up inside. It's what drove him to be the person he is today.

"Am I an accident?" he asked my father one day. He was five years old. I was almost thirteen.

I was there. I remember the red that shot through my father's cheeks. It wasn't because of the adorable question his son may have happened upon. It was of shame. Shame for what he had done and the shame of knowing that one day his son would ask this question and he would have to answer for the crimes he committed. He'd have the knowledge of knowing he'd doomed that poor boy from the start.

Hans was such a good kid.

I folded my arms and leaned up against the wall as I waited for my father's answer to the question I'd known he'd always been dreading. He, too, knew how great Hans was. How he was something special. So very special.

"You were a happy surprise." He forced out a smile and lightly tufted the boy's red, misplaced hair. Hans smiled. No further questions. Of course.

When Hans left the room, I confronted my father. It was the first time I had ever raised my voice to him. It was also the last.

"You dare lie to your own son?" I scoffed. "You dare continue his life as a mockery to hide your shame?"

"A mockery?!" he yelled back. "So young and you understand so little."

"I understand enough. He's a smart lad – possibly the smartest son in this bloodline. One day, he'll realize why he's alone in his facial features. Why he has red hair and is seven years apart from his closest brother of twelve! If you don't tell him, I will."

I've never seen my father look more serious in the three seconds that proceeded this moment than any other moment in my entire life. It might've been the first time that I realized how my father did actually care for that boy. How he feared for him.

"Lower your tone, fool," he hissed. He had never called me an insult in his entire life. I felt like a disappointment, really. "You're right. He will find out one day…and it will be the worst day of his life. But today…is not that day. Understand me?"

I gulped. My eyes inherently wept as I thought of this boy. As I thought of that day.

"Yes, sir."