The Mission
1493 Words
THALINA’S POV
I stood there right in front of the very men who mocked and abused me before raising my snout and letting out a powerful howl.
The rogue wolves shrieked in fear. Some even scrambled and ran away tumbling into the forest. Greg looked at me with pride in his eyes while Felix continued drinking his wine.
“f**k! She is a cursed wolf!” Dirk wailed, pointing his fingers at me hastily. “This might be the punishment of the moon goddess after we ransacked the monastery!”
“Shut up!” shouted another rogue wolf. “She’s just another wolf. Let’s kill her and sell her body parts and fur to the collectors!”
“Dave is right!” said another. “No matter how strong she is, she can’t win over our number!”
They erupted into a consensus. Seconds after, Dirk leapt up from his seat ready to shift to attack me first but before he could do any of that, Greg already unsheathed his sword, jumped in the middle of us and put the edge of the blade on Dirk’s throat.
“Take another step and I’ll have your head rolling before your very feet,” he warned and bared out his fang.
Everyone gasped seeing how serious Greg is.
“Ah, the knight-in-shining armor!” Dirk laughed mockingly at him but took a side step to avoid the sword. “I never knew you’d take a liking to our slave girl.”
He spat on the ground cackling at the murderous glint in Greg’s eyes.
“Did you f**k her already? Man, you should have told us so we could share her!”
The rogue wolves hooted jeering with each other prompting Dirk to continue.
“Is she delicious? Did she bleed? I bet it’s her first time.”
Greg blinked and then coldly swung the sword in the air, cutting Dirk’s right ear precisely. Blood spurt out sprinkling the ground.
“f**k it!” he cried in pain holding his mutilated ear. “Greg Sullivan!”
“Enough!” the captain howled and shattered the glass on his hands. “Leave us alone! All of you!”
Instead of obeying right away, Greg removed his coat and covered me with it as I shifted back into my human form.
“I will be just around,” he whispered before disappearing into the dead of the night.
Felix motioned me to sit opposite him on the table and offered me another glass of wine.
“You have a majestic wolf. It will be a waste to keep you here only as our slave.”
Coming from the high of shifting into my wolf, I felt nauseated and overwhelmed rendering me speechless.
“I have a proposition for you. If you successfully finish it, then I will free you from being my slave.”
My eyes widened and I quickly lifted my head at him. “A-Are you sure?”
Is he telling the truth or he’s just trapping me?
“Only if you can complete the mission.”
“What is it?” I eagerly asked.
I will do anything for me to get out of this hell!
He leaned back and took out a dagger from his pants. “You will infiltrate the Royal Noble Academy disguised as a noble.”
The Royal Academy Noble? I heard from Sister Celine in the monastery about it. It’s a prestigious and the most expensive school for the wealthiest and most powerful werewolves in the whole state of Moonshrine.
Sure, I can do that. I can pretend to be a noble. I can learn it.
But what should I do there?
As if reading my mind, the captain revealed my mission.
“Once you are there, you have to make sure that you will blend in the crowd as their own in order to kill the son of the lycan king.”
Blood drained out of my head as cold sweat broke out of my back.
“W-What?! K-Kill the lycan king’s son?”
My heart twists in a mix of doubt and fear. This mission is atrociously dangerous and one that comes at a very high price.
I will kill someone. I will have blood in my hands. And there is no guarantee that I will not end as a cold corpse in the process.
I hesitated.
But this might be my only chance to break free from the rogue pack. This is better than being stuck here and be continuously violated by these f*****g rogue wolves.
“Why? You can’t do it? Then this conversation is over. You!” he ordered a rogue wolf on standby. “Chain this slave right now!”
“Wait!” I finally found my voice after a brief contemplation.
I locked eyes with the rogue wolf captain before making a decision. “I can do it! I can kill the lycan king’s son.”
A grin crawled out of his mouth. “Really?”
“Yes. I can do it,” I firmly declared, shutting down the doubts in my head. “I will surely complete the mission and you will fulfill the end of the deal by freeing me.”
Felix reached for my cup, cut his own palm, and squeezed his blood on it and did the same with his own cup. It’s a blood promise, a compact made to ensure that our contract was binding. Anyone who will not abide will be cursed forever.
“Good but I have to warn you this early, Thalina.”
He pushed the cup back into my hands, his cold eyes squinting into a threatening glare.
“If you fail… your freedom won’t be the only thing you lose.”
I felt acid rising into my throat before I gulped it down with the wine and the blood of the captain. Given the situation, I am very much aware that he can definitely kill me without batting an eye.
“I won’t fail.”
That is why I definitely have to kill the lycan king’s son! For my freedom! For my new life ahead!
“You’re not doing that.”
I heard Greg’s voice behind me but I just kept on looking at the moon above while holding the necklace around my neck. After settling things with the captain and agreeing to leave by the next day, I came to our secret spot in the forest where he taught me the basics in fighting.
“Do I have a choice?” I uttered softly weighing the non-existent choices that I have.
Being a slave or a murderer. Those are just the two things that I can be now.
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me enough to make my tears fall. “Damn it, Thalina! The Lycan King’s son is the most protected werewolf in the entire state! Sure, you have an extraordinary wolf but you are not trained for that!”
He threw me a piece of wooden stick from the ground to which I immediately caught beckoning me to fight him.
I stood up, my knees shaking and blocked his attack.
“Greg, I want to live a normal life. This is the only shot of freedom I have.”
We circled each other, breathless, the ground littered with broken twigs beneath our bare feet. Every strike against each other was more than what we are showing.
It was restraint frustration for him while mine is a mix of guilt, fear, and determination.
His blows came heavy and punishing, as if he could make me bend to him through sheer force. Mine were frantic, each swing fueled by the storm inside me.
“You cannot do this!” He easily knocked the stick clean from my hand and gripped my face. “Listen to me, Thalina. This is practically a suicide!”
“I will complete the mission and I will kill that son of the lycan king no matter how much it costs me!” I snapped, shoving him away with a sharp twist of his wrist.
“I cannot live being a slave forever! I am so sick of being mistreated and abused. I want… I want a different kind of life this time and if I have to kill someone to do that then I will!”
My tears continued streaming down my face as he stared at me without any emotion in his eyes.
After a while, he slowly wiped my tears away and held me in his arms.
“Can you protect yourself now? Can you promise me that you are not going to be the same kind of girl I came upon here? Abused. Bullied. Hopeless.”
“You taught me enough. Thank you so much,” I said, a little bit detached and dismissive.
Greg smirked before he slowly let me go and turned his back without sparing me a single glance.
- Writer
