The Moon Goddess' Chosen

443 Facing a Royal

Victor was glued to the spot by the intense stare of the blue eyes before him. He swallowed under the gaze of the colossal wolf watching him. The rogues beside him were in a similar state.

Breathing felt like hard labour at this point, almost as if breathing too hard would prove offensive to the wolf and yet breathing too little would only bring them closer to death.

‘A royal… I’ve never seen one this big. And we’d been so careful to stay out of their way all this time. How did it come to this?’ the man berated himself. In the thrill of his expedition, it hadn’t occurred to him that he could end up becoming the reason the rogues were rediscovered.

Despite all the training this trio of rogues had been through while in hiding, nothing had prepared them to face a hulking wolf that rivalled all the royals they’d ever seen.

They were sure this one was bigger than all the royals they’d seen including the Rogue King himself. It didn’t make a bit of sense… What was logic in the face of death? A lot of logical thoughts broke down when faced with a fearsome opponent.

Trying to make sense of the situation, they noticed something even more absurd. The wolfish colossus was far too big to even move around the trees in the forest.

It was trapped simply because it was too big. Victor looked about but couldn’t find any signs of carnage anywhere. It would be impossible for a creature like this one to move around the woods without bending trees and flattening everything in its way, right?

This was a werewolf, by all means, but one that defied the logic that ran their community. Werewolves were generally bigger than ordinary wolves, but they never got as big as the colossus that was towering before them.

For some reason, they didn’t want to run. It felt like it would be useless to try and get away from the wolf even though it stared at them from the other side of a wall of trees that formed the treeline around the foot of the mountain.

.....

Victor was not sure what to do at the moment. Just when he was about to start thinking, something stopped him from coming up with a plan. It was the hint of recognition that sparked in the large wolf’s eyes.

The amber-eyed rogue scanned the wolf once more. It was all white, but with a patch of black fur on its back almost like it was being shielded from the sun. The large wolf stared at Victor with increasing curiosity, its ears unconsciously twitching.

‘Don’t get curious about me. You should be letting me be. We only seek to pass by you… Wait, that fur coat.’

Recognition finally sparked in his eyes mirroring that of the royal standing before them. He recognized the wolf he was staring at. While the size of the wolf was completely different from the last time he’d seen it, he was certain it was him.

‘You’re supposed to be dead…’ Victor snarled. It didn’t matter if the wolf couldn’t hear him. Just how much would it take to snuff out the life of a single royal?

Bringing down an entire mountain pass hadn’t done the trick. Now what?

A blue mist began to surround the large wolf, rolling in from behind the wolf and all around at it once with no clear source.

The subtle crunch of bones filled the air. This was a transformation. The colossus was shifting. This wasn’t the normal shift the three rogues had gotten used to. Drake was shifting in a cloud of blue mist.

Frozen in place, they watched as the colossal wolf shifted back into an average-sized man. The same man they had tried to kill earlier when they destroyed the mountain pass.

Victor snarled at the man, anger flowing through his being. ‘What is this guy made of? Not even an avalanche was able to kill him.’

Expecting the rogues beside him to back him up, Victor continued to growl at the man. Drake finally opened his eyes, his transformation complete. The fear that gripped the rogues kept them from attacking even through his long transformation.

Attacking during his shift would have been the best moment at first glance, but to these three rogues, it felt as though interrupting the prince would spell their imminent death.

He radiated an aura unlike anything they were used to seeing among the royals… and that was saying something for wolves that had been in the presence of the Rogue King before.

“So you’re the one that betrayed us,” were Drake’s first words.

While Victor was angry about not being able to kill the prince, he was now shocked to see that the prince had recognised him. He was sure the prince had never seen him in his wolf form.

‘How?’ he thought to himself.

‘That voice is the same as well. The same cocky delta that dreamt himself a saint,’ Drake replied, ‘I’m starting to wonder if I should have killed you back then.’

The anger that had only diminished moments ago came back brimming with more ferocity at the man’s words. ‘So you still look down on me. You’ll be dead soon enough. By the time the Rogue King is done with you and the rest of your pathetic family.’

“Don’t you love the colour of your eyes better now?” Drake asked out loud, “It’s a symbol of freedom and innocence. It shows just how much of your life you’re still in control of. The higher you are in rank, the more you’re obligated to work for the royals. You surely realise that, don’t you?”

‘Your values are nothing like mine. You know nothing of what the rest of us go through. You were born with power. You’ve never known what it is to train so hard and gain so little in exchange.

What’s more is that you don’t even know what it’s like to have the power… power that you worked so hard to achieve, stripped from you by a mere command,’ by the time they’d gotten this far into their conversation, Victor was now sure the royal could hear his thoughts.

This only worked to anger him even more. What right did the royal have to invade his mind? They weren’t even in the same pack. He’d only recently broken off from the two empires… but even then, the prince had a semblance of power over him.

Victor bared his teeth at the royal before him. The prince’s clothes were a mess with his shirt and trousers starting to lose their luxurious lustre. But even in this state, he didn’t look helpless. If anything, the presence of three rogues before didn’t faze him one bit.

This was the power difference Victor had grown used to. And it reminded him of the power the prince had taken from him. It was almost like Drake now wanted to mock him for being weak.

His deep loathing for the royal easily clouded his judgement and dulled his senses.

So much that it even kept him from perceiving the clawed hand that suddenly struck his side, piercing through his ribcage with a sickening bone-crunching sound.

The rage that had filled him only seconds later diminished and intense pain flared through his mind. The wolf trembled in pain and fear, his legs going weak. Drake was still standing before him, his expression unreadable with the pain that now flooded Victor’s mind.

The greying wolf turned to his right and locked eyes with the person that had just impaled him.

Instead of meeting the amber eyes of a rogue that he’d been travelling with, as he’d expected, his eyes widened as they were met with the intense burning hue of an alpha’s crimson irises…

‘H-how…’ his thoughts were muddled with the pain that only intensified.

Something wasn’t right.

The rogue, in his human form, pulled his bloodied hand out of the greying wolf and pushed him to the ground. As the rogue pulled his arm out of Victor’s gut, the wolf lost its balance and tumbled to the ground convulsing in pain at the wide gash in its side.

“I’ve given you several chances to prove yourself, but with time, I’ve come to realise just how useless you are to me. After that stunt you pulled with the mountain pass, I was ready to let it slide on the account that a weakling like you had managed to down one member of these troublesome royal families, but alas, even that proved too hard for you.”

Drake’s breath hitched at the sudden change in his situation. It was troubling enough that the rogue that had just plunged his hand into Victor’s side had suddenly changed eye colour. However, when he spoke, something else gripped the more primal fear lying deep within the prince.

The voice that rumbled from the man that Victor had been travelling with was not his. It was completely different. Much deeper and filled with far more hatred and murderous intent.

It belonged to the Rogue King.

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