"Jesus!"

The Crowned Prince had no idea what to expect when he turned down the drive of the Swan Estate, but slamming on the breaks and cutting the wheel to avoid hitting a guard that came out of nowhere wasn't on the list. He wasn't going that fast, but it was November, ice was a thing, and it seemed as though no one had recently tended the drive after the storm the night before. It was still early enough in the day to not be totally surprised by it, but it was certainly an annoyance.

Demetri's car came to sliding stop sideways six inches from the shellshocked Royal Guard that darted out in front of him. A glare on his face, he threw his car in park, opening the door without cutting the engine before getting out. Slamming the door behind him, he looked at the asshole with a death wish. It was as he was opening his mouth to question what the fuck he was doing, when from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a swarm of others that wore the uniform all over the property, stilling his notoriously sharp tongue.

Eyes crinkling in the corners, they slowly slid along the front yard, counting heads. There was easily five times as many bodies as there should have been for something as simple as securing the place before his arrival, and the way the guards were acting set a rock in his stomach.

"This... doesn't look good."

Moving around his car, leaving it where it was, and still running, he walked through four inches of snow, his head turning back and forth, watching as the guards took up defensive protocol, stationing themselves only so far apart. The more he watched the happenings, the less he liked what he was seeing, and by the time he reached the house itself, his teeth were on edge.

Shoving a guard out of his way that attempted to deny him entry into a house that was clearly unsafe and not yet secure, Demetri paused three steps past the broken door. Eyes widening and jaw going lax at the destruction that was everywhere he looked, there was a choked noise in the back of his throat. Furniture wasn't just knocked over, some of it broken into pieces. There was broken glass all over the fucking place, Demetri even needing to catch himself once when he slipped on some that was slick with blood as he followed the sounds of frantic voices to a room he couldn't tell the use of.

"What... the fuck?"

Every set of eyes on the room turned to the prince, who stood frozen in the entry as his eyes moved about the room, drinking in the destruction before turning those blue orbs to the young lady that was letting out low whines and whimpers as she was being checked over by one of Demetri's guards that had been sent to the estate ahead of him.

Alec, who had been reassigned from Demetri to the impending princess, shook his head as he held a damp towel to his new charge's forehead with one hand while the other held her head still by the base of her skull. "We don't know yet, but our assumption is someone found out while others seem to think it was a robbery gone wrong. Felix and I got here about fifteen minutes ago, but when we knocked, there wasn't an answer. Seeing as how she knew to expect someone to collect her this morning, and didn't come come to the door, Felix... uh... gained entry to the house, and..." Rubbing his thumb against the side of Isabella's neck when she whined again, he shook his head and looked at his boss. "Well, you saw what we did. Because we knew you were on your way and we don't know what happened, we called for reinforcements."

Clicking his tongue, Demetri glanced back over his shoulder, looking out the front window at the literal army that showed up, then tsked. "I see that." Shaking his own head, and though he moved closer, he stayed out of the way as he watched the woman he had spent the last seventeen years betrothed to, and was set to marry in a mere handful of hours, be tended to by his personal bodyguard and best friend. Standing behind his shoulder, he winced in sympathy as she cried out when he pressed against her belly. "Felix?"

Glancing back, Felix clicked his tongue as he turned back. "The ambulance is on its way, and it's about as bad as it looks, Man. She's got a broken arm and at least three busted ribs. The belly is soft, which suggests no internal bleeding or damage to the organs but it's tender, which suggests internal bruising which pain wise isn't any better. Under that towel is a gash that's deep enough to see her skull and she has a serious fucking concussion." Then, there was snort that held no amusement. "If she knows her own damn name right now it would be a miracle."

Once again looking away, taking in what he could see of the chaos that surrounded them, Demetri hummed. From where he was standing, the fact she was alive at all seemed to be just this side of a fucking miracle. Looking back down, his lips pressed together. This was the exact reason no one knew who the hell the girl was; why she herself didn't even know. He was positive she knew the details, just not the person. Only three people knew she had spent her life engaged to the Crowned Prince, and that was him, though he had only ever met her face to face once when he was five, his father, and her father. It was for literally no reason other than a safety measure to prevent this kind of shit from happening.

Sighing quietly through his nose, Demetri moved to his betrothed side and crouched down, draping his arms over his thighs, his hands hanging down between his legs. Starting from her hair and sliding his eyes along her form, he cataloged what he could see of her injuries. There was where Felix said she had a gash on her forehead, though he hadn't seen it with his own eyes yet. She had a black eye, a busted lip, and he could see a surfacing bruise on her cheek, though it wasn't dark enough yet to know if it was from an open hand or a fist. Her skin was littered in cuts, likely from the broken glass that was all over the damn place. What held his attention longer than any of those, however, was the marking he could see around her neck. It had always been his understanding that trying strangle someone was considered a very personal attack, and something that was rarely done by a complete stranger.

The scene clearly suggested something to the effect of a break in, but Demetri was beginning to have his doubts in the obvious, and while slightly more inclined to agree with Alec than he was in the moments prior, it still didn't feel right. While his and Felix's assumption she had been discovered wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility, it was extraordinarily unlikely. There just weren't enough people that knew who his betrothal was to for it to have gotten out.

Trying to take a step back and look at the situation from a different angle was proving more difficult that he thought it should have been. He had only met the woman once, and he doubted she even remembered it being scarcely three at the time. Hell, he could barely remember it himself it had been so long, and due to how long ago it was, he couldn't even be certain the flashes of the memory he had were completely accurate.

The one part of it he knew actually happened was when he made the childish mistake of telling his father he was going to marry her one day, because that's the whole reason they were betrothed in the first damn place. He certainly didn't have any malicious intentions because he didn't understand what that truly meant when he said it. He was a child, it was an innocent statement, and only his father would put that much stock in what a five year old said. Truth be told, he couldn't even remember what happened to make him declare such a thing, but two months after it was said, their future was set in stone.

It shouldn't have really affected their lives at all, at least not until recently. There were no hard and fast rules as far as what he was allowed to do and what he wasn't when it came to having other relationships prior to the wedding, nor were there any for her. Both of them were more or less allowed to live whatever life they chose to, doing what they wanted, and with who. There were certainly things that were frowned upon, like either of them having an actual significant other that could jeopardize their future marriage, which was why both of them had to end whatever it was they had going on with anyone else six months ago. At that point, there was a pledge of faithfulness to the other.

The prince didn't know about her, and though he certainly couldn't claim to be a virgin any longer, he at no point allowed himself to get overly attached to anyone. His longest stent with the same girl lasted about eight months when he was seventeen. He had enjoyed her company and certainly had a fondness for her, but it was shocking how easy it was to walk away the moment she demanded he tell her why he wouldn't return her 'I love you'. She hadn't cared for his response of 'because I don't', and after a migraine inducing series of stalker like events, it ended with a restraining order and a threat of imprisonment after she had screamed to the Heavens themselves she deserved to be Demetri's intended wife. That was just shy of four years ago, and he hadn't had long term dealings with a female since then. There was absolutely nothing that would have made it worth it.

While he couldn't speak for his intended, the betrothal never really bothered him. He understood, as far as he was concerned anyway, it was going to happen regardless because no Crowned Prince got to pick their bride, though the decision wasn't usually made with them so young. They could pick their second wife without interference should they lose their first, as what happened when his mother died, but not the woman that would one day hold the title of Queen; something the second wife would never hold, and that was something his step-mother loathed with every fiber of her being... which Demetri thought was absolutely fucking hysterical.

He didn't hate the woman, he really didn't, but there was certainly no love between them either. Honestly, he didn't really have an opinion on her one way or the other. She was his father's wife, and came into Demetri's life far too late for him to really give a damn about what she had to say. Up until this point in his life he had never been out-right disrespectful to her, his mother had raised him far better than that, but he was seventeen when she married his father, and Demetri barely listened to him at that point so he certainly wasn't going to bow down and kiss her ass.

Pulling off his gloves before reaching a hand out, he hooked two fingers in Isabella's palm, giving her something to squeeze as Felix continued his inspection to look for any other injuries. Looking back to her face when he felt her grip tighten slightly, he took in the pain of her expression, a frown coming to his lips. Dipping his head, Demetri lowered his voice as he spoke in her ear. "Share your pain, My Darling. You won't hurt me."

Her response was nearly instant, and it took quite a lot of effort on Demetri's part not to yelp at the unexpected amount of strength the girl actually had when she popped his knuckles. Swallowing the grunt, he returned to his crouched position and looked back at Felix, who had finished what he was doing. "Well?"

Shaking his head as he rubbed his palms together, Felix sighed hard. "I mean, I can't tell for sure without actually being able to see under the skin, but I don't think there's anything other than what I've already said. Hips are in their sockets, there's reflexes in the knees and ankles, and she damn near succeeded in breaking your fingers when I pressed on her toenail, so sensation is there. Other than some cuts, it seems that her upper body took the brunt of the assault." Then, he looked at his friend. "All of that said, I don't think this wedding is happening today, Demetri."

Closing his eyes and scratched between them, his voice was colored in every ounce of annoyance he felt over the words that came out of his mouth. "You know as well as I do postponement is not an option. If it were..." opening his eyes and cutting them to Felix, "...I believe this would certainly be grounds for it."

There was a very distasteful gleam in Felix's eyes when he grunted. "Your father can't give an inch, can he?"

The look on Demetri's face mirrored the one on Felix's. "And he never could, the stubborn old bastard."

It was then Alec chimed in, lifting the towel to fold it over to cleaner part, giving Demetri an eye full of the torn and jagged gash that was several inches long and as deep as Felix had said, before pressing the towel back to the injury. "So what are you going to do? Someone beat the dog shit out of this girl, we have no idea who it was, or really even how to go about finding that out. Is it really a good idea to go through with this until we know who's responsible?"

Rubbing his thumb across the back of Isabella's fingers as she once again tightened her grip on his, he turned to look at Alec. "To your questions, I have no idea and there is no choice, respectively. However, to the statements, I do have an idea who's responsible for this." Looking back to Felix, "where is her father?"

Blinking at the somewhat simple, yet completely overlooked questioning of the missing person, Felix shook his head. "I don't know. No one's told me anything about finding anyone else in the house, and there is no reason it shouldn't have been fully cleared by now; not with how many bodies as are here."

Eyes narrowing, Demetri hummed in the back of his throat. "Is that so?" Cocking his head to the side, he clicked his tongue as he returned his eyes to his intended, curiosity in his voice. "Tell me, Gentleman; it's the day of your daughter's longly anticipated wedding. Where are you?"

Felix and Alec looked at each other for a moment before looking back at the prince, Alec being the one to say it. "Someone actually made a valiant attempt to kill her, Dem. You don't really think it was him, do you?"

Catching a chorus of slamming car doors, and only able to guess as to what it was, Demetri licked his lips. "I'm not willing to overlook any possibility and think he is as likely a suspect as anyone else. So, until his rotting corpse is discovered and proves otherwise, he will remain one." Hearing the sound of glass crunching beneath feet, Demetri's lip curled. "I'm curious, Father..." looking over his shoulder, locking his eyes on Aro's, he then cocked a brow. "How is it you think your wife will make this about her?"

Overly stressed out and high strung, simply due to the situation itself, Aro didn't make the attempt to humor his son. "Uncalled for, Demetrius." When he heard his son sniff at him before turning away, he rolled his eyes. Engaging someone that was already pissed off and clearly looking for a fight was literally not even on his list of things he was willing to do at the moment. Besides, uncalled for not under the current circumstance, it wasn't something he could claim to have come out of left field, because it would not be the first time his wife had attempted to make herself far more important than his son considered her to be when it came to his impending wedding.

The fact the bride was barely conscious and clearly in no shape to attend the ceremony that was set to start in just over three hours certainly did not bode well for any upcoming interactions between Demetri and his step-mother.

On the drive to the estate, Aro had been apprised of the situation involving his future daughter in-law, however words rarely did visuals justice, so he was not fully prepared for what he walked into when he arrived. He was told the house was a wreck and Isabella had been injured, but not once during that particular conversation had anyone told him she was barely fucking alive, and something he felt to be relatively pertinent information.

However, after seeing the magnitudinal scope of the situation and the state of the young lady, he could perfectly well understand the extreme turn Demetri's mood took in comparison to the somewhat upbeat, if not something that resembled excitement, when he left the reception venue to go pick up his intended to take her to breakfast. While the forty five minutes they would have had together certainly wouldn't have amounted to a foundation for a lifetime, it would have derailed either of them saying 'I do' to a literal stranger depending on how they decided to use it.

Even still, he did find it heartening to see that, despite the chaos that continued to wage around him, Demetri's sole focus was on her as he handled her like if she was made of glass, when he could have just as easily stood off the to side with complete disinterest while others dealt with her instead. The fact his son clearly cared a great deal about the state of affairs did give Aro a margin of hope for the future, though he was also careful not to get too far ahead of himself in that respect as well.

Demetri, now completely ignoring his father's presence in its entirety, gently set his free hand on Isabella's head in an attempt to catch whatever attention she had to give. She did slant open her eyes, but they were glossy and unfocused, leading him to agree with Felix's assessment about her likely not even knowing her name. Hell, she was so out of it, if she knew what planet she was on he would be surprised.

When she closed her eyes again, he lightly ran his thumb across her hairline, keeping his voice low because he was positive she had never had a headache like the one she currently had. "Open your eyes, Dearest. Help is on the way, and I know it's difficult, but you must stay awake until they get here."

He heard her whimper, and saw her body shift slightly, but she did open her eyes, though she was looking somewhere over his shoulder opposed to his face. Her voice was nothing but a high pitched whine. "It hurts."

Face completely smoothing out and taking on a tender look, he let out a quiet breath. "I know, My Darling." Tightening his grip slightly on her hand, his head tilted ever so slightly. "Keep your grip on my fingers." A small smile pulled at the corners of his lips when he felt her do as told. "There's a good girl. Alec, be a gent and," flicking his eyes to the mentioned guard's, "go find out what is keeping that fucking ambulance."

Nodding, Alec waited for Felix to move from Isabella's legs to her head, taking over holding pressure against the gash on her head before standing, bowing to the king before leaving the room and pulling out his phone to get a, hopeful, ETA on when the paramedics would finally arrive.

Glancing over at Demetri's father and seeing his attention otherwise occupied by another guard, Felix, keeping his voice hopefully too low for Aro to hear him, spoke. "Do you really think her father had something to do with this and it's not to do with her relationship with you?"

Lips pressing together in a hard line as his eyes once again ignited when he looked at Felix, Demetri continued to gently stroke his Intended's forehead as he figured out exactly how to word his response. It took him a moment, but he spoke as quietly as Felix did when he answered. "We don't have one right now, and that would be the point. Unless he ran his mouth, no one else knew her connection to me. You didn't even know her name until an hour ago, and we've been friends as long as the betrothal has been in place. Nothing about this makes any sense, Felix, think about it. There are only two ways to gain entry into a house; a door or a window. It's freezing outside and it's not that cold in here, so there could not have been an open window for an extended period of time without the temperature dropping and you yourself kicked in the door. How did a burglar get in? How would they have gotten out without leaving something open, broken, or unlocked? I think, at the very least, her father certainly has some fucking questions to answer, not the least of which being, where the hell was he when this happened? Did he do it himself? That I don't know, but if he didn't, you will have a very hard time convincing me he doesn't know who did."

It was then Alec returned, the paramedics behind him, so after gently extracting his fingers from Isabella's grip, Demetri backed out of the way to let the medical personnel do their jobs. Standing between Alec and Felix, he crossed his arms as he watched as the two men quickly got her hooked up to a portable monitor, oxygen, and an IV inserted before placing her broken forearm in a cardboard transport splint and exchanging the blood soaked towel on her forehead for a better bandage, all the while trying to engage her to assess her mental capabilities.

It was as she was being moved from the floor to a backboard Demetri spoke. "Alec." Hearing the questioning 'Sire?', he clicked his tongue. "Go with her." Slanting his eyes to the guard, he was dead serious. "She doesn't leave your sight for any reason until I get there."

Nodding to the expected orders, Alec licked his lips as he pulled his gun from the holster under his jacket, popping the round from the chamber so no one had a shit-fit over semantics. "You're the boss." Putting his still loaded but secured firearm away and dropping the bullet from the chamber into Felix's hand, he followed the paramedics as they rushed his charge from the house and out into the cold.

Remaining where he was for a moment longer, his mind still running its most recent trail, Demetri hummed before moving with purpose to his father, Felix on his heel, and interrupted the conversation going on between his father and a Royal Guard. "I want this place searched again."

The guard, looking from the king to the prince, didn't bother hiding his confusion. "I assure you, Your Majesty, it's been cleared."

Leveling the man with a look, Demetri kept his arms crossed as he stared the man down. "Matteo, your comprehension skills are as astounding as always. However, I don't believe I asked if it was cleared, but if that's your claim, I have questions. My Lady's injuries are very recent, so someone was here within moments of my guards' arrival. That's fresh snow outside, so where are the tracks of someone's comings and goings? Where did they come in, but more importantly, how did they leave? This place is a mess and there is broken glass all over the fucking place. My Lady's nails are broken, so clearly she fought back as well. There is no way the one that did this didn't sustain a single injury of their own, so where is the red blood on the white snow if this house is cleared?"

Waiting a moment for any form of answer, and not even slightly surprised when there was no attempt on the guard's part to do so, Demetri's eyes narrowed. "I will not repeat myself a third time. I want this place searched again, from rafters to foundation. Tear it down to rubble if you must, I truly do not care. Someone is here, and you will find them, or you will deal with me. Considering the fact I am in an exceptionally bad mood, ask yourself how far you really want to push me right now."

Matteo looked away from the prince to his actual boss, who was looking right back at him with an expectant look, prompting him to nod to Demetri. "As His Majesty wishes."

One brow popped up and dropped back down, Demetri then turned away and began to head for the front door. He had a handful of things to take care of before he could go to the hospital, but stopped before leaving the house completely. Turning his head toward an overturned chair when something caught his eye, he hummed before going that way first. Kneeling, he lifted the chair with one hand and pulled the small gym bag out from under it with the other. Releasing the chair and letting it fall where it would, he unzipped the bag and opened it, glancing inside and nodding to himself before closing it up. It was nothing but Isabella's clothes, so standing with it in his hand to take with him, he didn't make it three steps before something else caught his attention.

Handing the bag off to Felix, he swiped his foot across the glass before once again crouching down, picking up the necklace by the charm that hung from a broken chain. Lowering the white gold chain into the palm of his other hand, he ran the pad of his thumb over the solid white gold, pink diamond studded charm that boasted two dolphins resting against his fingers. Tilting his head as he looked at the only present he had ever sent her, Demetri clicked his tongue a couple of times before he gathered the necklace in one hand, closed his fist, and stood.

Stepping closer to Felix, speaking under his breath, he kept his eyes on his father as he spoke. "This was no burglary." Opening his hand, showing his bodyguard what he found, he scoffed. "Do you have any idea how much I paid for this?"

Cutting in without really thinking about it, Felix snorted. "Do you have any idea what Aro is going to do to you if he finds out?"

Locking his eyes on Felix's, "Is he going to?" When Demetri saw him roll his eyes, he licked his lips. "I sent it six months ago when the fidelity clause kicked in. I used a dummy account, didn't sign anything by name, and I wasn't the one that gave it to the courier. It was delivered straight from the jeweler, but that is not the point. The point is, if this was a robbery gone wrong as they are so convinced, and by some miracle said robber was able to get out of the house without a trace as they say, this is small and worth hundreds. It would have fit in their pocket. They tore it from her neck before..." trailing off and clearing his throat, "I simply cannot imagine a burglar, whose only purpose of entering someone else's home is to steal their shit, would go through so much trouble just to leave it behind."

Pursing his lips, Felix let his roam around him, taking one last glance at the total destruction in the room. Looking at it from a completely different perspective, he also caught sight of other things littered about the space that could have also easily been taken, but were instead broken. Nodding slow and shallow, Felix looked back at Demetri. "So whoever it was, was here for her specifically."

Closing his fingers back around the necklace, Demetri tucked it away in his inner jacket pocket. "I haven't seen a single detail that says otherwise."

Following after the prince as he made to leave the house again, Felix flung Isabella's bag over his shoulder, still keeping his voice down. "And you still don't think this has anything to do you?"

Pausing at the top of the steps that led to the driveway, Demetri pulled the collar of his coat up against gust of cold wind, and didn't bother to whisper any longer. "The only way to know that, either way, is to find Charles Swan."