The Prince and the Shadow
2285 Words
THALINA’S POV
And why is he looking at me like that?
Why is he staring at me as if I am some kind of a fragile object that he wants to take care forever?
And why is my heart beating uncontrollably inside my chest?
“Greg…”
He froze smashing the thread of magic that enthralled us.
Suddenly, his hand fell away. He shot and straightened his back, jaw tight.
“Aren’t you going to say anything to me?”
He chuckled, acting clueless about what I mean. “Why? What do you want to hear from me?”
That you are leaving? Where are you going and if I can see you again if I survive the mission?
But nothing of that was I able to speak aloud.
He rose quickly, turning away for sudden reason.
“If I let myself want you now, I’ll chain you here forever,” he murmured before leaving me and joining back into the fray of rogues.
Sleep has been absent for me that night. I was tossing on the cold ground gritting my teeth until I got up when I heard a rustle outside.
“Greg!” I shrieked when I found him outside my tent, a pack of bag slung on his shoulder. “Where are you going?”
He shrugged, a feral growl coming from him when his eyes traveled down into my semi-exposed clothing.
“Anywhere. This is the life of a rogue wolf, Thalina. I can wander the world, set out on an adventure, be whoever I wanted to be.”
He softly invaded my personal space and carefully zipped up my jacket.
“Aren’t you going to see me tomorrow?” My voice sounded like begging more than asking.
“I won’t have the time, Thalina.”
I lowered my head to hide my tears until I felt his gentle tap on my shoulder.
“Bye.”
My wolf scratched me, whining for me to stop him but even when his shadow disappeared into the forest, I remained in my position wondering why my tears are falling.
The day I dreaded came. It was time for me to depart from the forest and enter the noble academy. The captain walked beside me as we enter the tall gate of the academy, his hand resting lightly on my shoulder in the guise of a father escorting his daughter.
A dull ache settling in my chest as my eyes searched for a person that would never come.
“Don’t look back!” he snarled.
Despite the horns blaring in my head, I rebelliously turned around and sighed in happiness when I see Greg far down the road staring at me.
He was watching from afar with fists clenched, every muscle straining as though it took all his strength not to run after me, his eyes burning with the same unspoken expression he wore from that night.
“I want to see you again when I’m free,” I whispered in my head as the gates creaked shut, cutting him off completely from my sight.
“Remember our deal. Your freedom in exchange of the lycan king’s head. If you fail, then you will not leave this place alive. Do you understand?” Felix bit out his words while we’re walking inside the glass hall of the academy, wealth and finesse all screaming at my ignorant self.
“I will kill him. I will kill the lycan king’s son,” I assured him over and over again.
I was admitted to a dormitory instantly that day, the lavish and most comfortable room that I am in the entirety of my life.
Everything happened a bit too fast. With the rogue captain posing as my wealthy noble father, we were able to fake our credentials and before I knew it, a professor was guiding me into my room.
“Good morning, class. We have a late enrollee from the far land of Folkshire.”
He turned to me politely. “Please, introduce yourself.”
The pairs of eyes of some of the meanest, control freak, and wealthiest heirs of noble packs looked at me.
“Good morning, everyone,” I began with a shaking voice and clenched hands.
My eyes immediately darted to a young man in a white button shirt and expensive gold watch smoking w**d surrounded by his own minion wolves.
That’s my target, the son of the lycan king!
“I’m Thalina Spencer…”
And I am going to kill you, lycan prince, I promised myself matching the playful grin on the side of his mouth.
Being the new face in the academy, I was immediately marked as an outsider and quickly became their target to bully because of my ‘weird’ and ‘unbecoming’ mannerisms.
How would I know how to use that thing they call a computer or that I need those chopsticks to eat the ramen in the cafeteria when no one taught me how?
All I know is how to plant crops, cook, and wash clothes. I am not well-versed with the new technology because I am ignorant.
But I took it as a good thing to be picked on by him since I got to be exposed to the lycan prince’s presence and study his weak points so I could kill him swiftly.
“I guess it’s my lucky day again today,” I murmured when Lurcival Sterling set his eyes on me from his own royal table in the canteen with that devilish grin written all over his aristocratic face.
The whole cafeteria went silent when Lurcival stood up from his seat and walked towards me, his own circle of wolves tailing him and surrounded my table.
“Well, well. What’s this? The academy is letting in strays now?” He began his daily devotion of bullying me, earning snickers from the listeners. “Tell me, Thalina, when you eat, do you chew with your mouth closed, or is that a foreign concept out in the dirt fields where you came from?”
I sighed and continued eating, completely ignoring him but taking in the fact that he was covered with claw marks on his arms probably from a wolf duel.
The lycan prince is a master in combat so it would be hard for me to beat him in a one-by-one fight.
“Look at her clothes. My maid wouldn’t be caught dead in rags like that!” Nicole, one his friends and the ‘b***h that he shagged’ shrieked.
The crowd snickered and a sharp whistle coming from Jason, his minion wolf, rang from the back.
“Maybe she might still have fleas from working on their little land just to afford to study here, you little social climber!”
Laughter roared while my fists curled at my sides.
They shoved at my shoulders as they jeered, forcing me to stumble forward, my face buried right into my pasta.
Lurcival faked a gasp. “Careful. Don’t touch her too hard. She might break. Or worse, she might snap.”
He put his arm over my chair and leaned closer to me. “Come on. Show us your wolf. Or is she as pathetic as you, too?”
The crowd began to chant, cruel and mocking while I wiped the sauce off my face.
“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!”
My chest constricted, but I kept my chin low, fists curled breaking the handle of the metal spoon in my hand.
“Or maybe she doesn’t have a wolf at all. Maybe she’s just pretending to have one to catch a wealthy noble wolf here,” Nicole taunted me. “Maybe you don’t have one at all. Maybe you’re just a worthless, hollow thing. How pathetic!”
My throat tightened, heat flashing beneath my skin. My wolf surged against me, furious, and ready to come out and tear every one of them. My vision cleared out just like what happened on that blue moon.
Another shove slammed into my shoulder sending me straight into the floor.
Laughter erupted as another wolf minion under the lycan prince stuck out his boot, tripping me when I tried to regain balance, tumbling me back into the ground with my face down.
My wolf growled inside me wanting to come out but I shook my head to control it.
Do they really think this would break me? Hell, I’ve endured far worse from those f*****g rogues than these petty students can ever think of!
This will not faze me!
“Oh no! Did the little mutt fall down again? Somebody get her a leash!”
The crowd howled. One of them yanked my hair hard, jerking my head back causing pain to flare across my scalp.
“Careful! She might bite!”
My wolf surged again but this time, I cannot guarantee that I can control it anymore. My breath became ragged, my eyes burning hot and I could already feel my nails itching, sharpening into claws.
Lurceval pressed a boot hard against my hand on the ground, grinding it just enough to sting. My vision flickered gold, nearly unleashing the beast inside me. “Can’t get her out, right mutt?”
“Wolf! Wolf! Wolf!” The whole crowd continued chanting, agitating my wolf even further that I am trying so hard to contain.
My throat trembled with the growl clawing its way out to be free but I forced myself to spit words instead of sharp teeth.
“I will not give you the satisfaction,” I said in a low clenched teeth trying my very best to keep my wolf from surfacing. “You’ll choke on your own laughter before I give you what you want,” my voice breaking but defiant.
The lycan prince froze for half a second staring at me uncannily before his cold smirk widened and then threw back his head and laughed harder than ever before.
“Then you’ll never survive here, farm girl. Let’s go! I’ve had my fair share of entertainment for today!”
He turned away with his pack of sycophants trailing after him, their laughter echoing along the hallways.
I let out a sigh of relief before I stood up, chest heaving, the wolf inside me trembling with rage I could not release. My energy was all spent from controlling my own wolf and its instincts that for a moment, I nearly let go and ruined my mission.
I ran down the side of the corridor with my head low, my breath sharp from the prick of humiliation knowing that everyone in the cafeteria witnessed how they treated me like trash. The situation is no foreign to me having been bullied in the monastery and in the rogues’ pack but the feeling is still a burden that got me gritting my teeth.
But before I could shake off that feeling, I collided hard with someone. Good thing that his reflexes are fluid, quickly preventing my fall, firmly holding my waist to keep me up.
“Watch it,” a voice said, low and sharp.
I looked up and blinked hard, my heart slammed in my chest when I stared at the face of the man who just saved me. Greg?
My shock is palpable seeing the exact same man that has me going sleepless for months appear right before my very eyes.
He has the same lips, eyes, nose, and whole face structure as Greg. The only thing that differentiates this stranger from that rogue wolf is the color of the skin and the warmth in his eyes. This man exudes nothing but calculated coldness while Greg is a brutal wide-grinning savage. For a moment, I thought Greg followed me in the academy but looking at his white skin and slicked back hair, I quickly dismissed the idea.
My wolf is eerily silent before the presence of him which caught me off guard.
The man arched a brow when I stood there just staring at him, wide-eyed. “What? Seen a ghost?”
I staggered back. “No… I just…” My tongue tripped. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Funny,” he said, eyes studying me as well. “You are the first one to tell me that.”
“I was just mistaken. I’m sorry,” I said a bit too fast.
There is no way that he would be Grey or anyone related to him.
His uncanny resemblance to Greg shook me to the core and the silent way he studies me makes it feel like he can see through my pretensions.
He tilted his head, looking at the bruises on my hands, the red pasta sauce all over my uniform and my messy hair that had loosen from its tie with those cold hollow eyes like I was a puzzle he had solved. “You are Lurcival’s new play thing.”
I clenched my hands in a fist. “I’m not anyone’s plaything.”
I said it a bit too strongly that I saw amusement crossed his eyes.
For a moment, silence stretched between us. His gaze lingered at me, piercing, reminding me of the man I failed to say goodbye to.
Then, without warning, he stepped back, expression unreadable. “Careful, sharp-tongued girl. The academy eats the weak alive.”
He turned and walked away, shadows swallowing him with each step.
I stood rooted to the spot, my breath unsteady. He painfully looked so much like Greg.
Same face, same huge body structure, just different vibe.
“Who is that man?” I whispered looking at the direction he’s heading.
And why did my wolf suddenly go silent in his presence?
- Writer
