“So, how did you find me?“ I asked simply. I needed holes in their answers to gauge what they were going to mean to me. Allies that could be weaponized or enemies in disguise?One of the younger women, fierce-eyed and wind-bitten rose up just slightly, enough to speak.“We heard,” she began, “of the girl pulling in powerful Melbringers for a cleansing.“She ambled forward, her boots crunching frostbitten moss. “We were hunting one of them. A Melbringer who thought she could pollute the coastlines of the east. She bargained for information for her life.”I raised a brow at that. They were hunting? Melbringers? A joyous grin almost split across my face at the thought. They were experts at being at the end of offensive Sorcery.“She said they were all coming for you. So we all thought to come along too, to meet you and to rid you of those condescending pests,” her teeth gritted at the end. I could almost taste the hate in her words.If they hated Melbringers, did they know what I was? I
Alpha Tyran Demartel of the Moonstone pack is the name of my real father who perished ensuring my safety.Another family member I'd never grown to know because of The Melbringers. And now the werewolves that claim to be in his pack are at my doorsteps. It couldn't be a mere coincidence. It smelt like one of Becca’s tricks.I hummed before uttering, “He’s dead. Why does this matter?”The room plunged into tension. Perhaps I was too blunt about what I said but the discomfort never came so I ignored the ways their limbs tightened with apprehension.Ethan retorted with a gentle, enabling tone. “But his people aren’t.”I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to feel. Grief? No. Shock? Maybe, but even that felt too mild. All I could summon was my cold rage and a strange tug low in my ribs.Ignoring that as well, I solely inquired of the obvious, “What do they want?”“They said, verbatim, they want to see ‘the daughter of their dead Alpha.’” Caleb recited from a text.“They mean no harm,” Abel co
Luckily before I sank too deep, the door creaked behind us. I took the distraction to step out of his embrace to see Khalid stepping inside with a deadpan face. “He’s ready to talk to you.”With that, we followed him to a room downstairs where Harris sat at the long table. His shoulders sagged like a man who hadn’t slept for weeks. His once pristine demeanor hung limp as though the weight of age had settled fast on him these past days.“You wanted answers,” he said without looking up. “I’ll give them.”We sat opposite him. Ethan leaned forward. “Where is Higan?”“If I knew,” The older man's voice rumbled roughly, “he’d be chained in the basement.”“But you should have guessed,” I pressed.He nodded once, his messy hair following carelessly. “There are three places he could have run to. The coast caves in Rivermoore, the northern training sanctum he used to retreat to, or…” he hesitated, “or wherever she took him.”“Becca,” I confirmed.He finally looked at me. “I don’t know what she i
Ethan was beside me in a breath, his hands cupping my face, searching and scanning my body for scaring. “What were you thinking?” he scolded harshly with a glare.It's been two days since I'd properly seen him and that was all he had to say to me?I swallowed down the ball of discomfort lodging in my throat. “Doesn't matter,” I breathed out deeply.His eyes burrowed into mine but I couldn't bring myself to hold his gaze so I looked away, dusted my pants, and stood up straight.“She mentioned I’m drawing the Melbringers in,” I told them. “Like moths to flame whatever that means.”Khalid exhaled with a pinch at his forehead. “So it’s happening again.”“What's happening again?” I raised the question.Abigail stepped into my sight. “The cleansing.”“The what?” I scoffed at the sheer ridiculousness of the term. Ethan stood motionless and quiet behind me but I continued pretending to be oblivious about his obvious annoyance.“It’s what they do,” Khalid continued with a curled distaste on hi
“I expected a monster,” a deep callous voice stated coldly above me, dark, seasoned. “Instead I find… a child.”I forced my eyes upward to see who.The woman standing before me had silver hair pulled into a crown braid, strands of it fluttering like ribbons in the wind. Her skin was earthen-dark and smooth, ageless in a way that made you forget what time meant.Her robes were black with lacey lines of royal blue, embroidered in patterns that resembled sigils. Power radiated off her like heat from a volcanic rock.“I nearly didn’t come,” she continued, striding closer as her boots crunched softly over the broken stone. “When the message reached me, I dismissed it. The missing Lupomancer in Springville? Of all bland places.”Heaving rapidly, my chest rose and fell. What did she shoot me with? Why did my sides burn so much?“Then,” she crouched to my eye level, gazing into me with her pearly eyes. Her voice dipped, “I felt it, like rot twisting through the ley lines two days ago. Melbrin
Higan was missing, Becca was missing, and the town had grown wary to the tragedy at the Stark mansion that prompted Alpha Stark to take over the town of Springville.That was all I learnt in the report narrated by Abigail following the events that occurred right after they found me by the edge of the woods at Springville.I'd walked there from where I woke by instinct. It took about a day of nothingness scratching the corners of my brain.Without a home to go to, I simply wandered around the woods listening to the town and its new buzzing patrols. It wasn’t hard to connect the dots from when I was escorted to my old house which was rebuilt.I would have liked to say it was surprising to see the entire town of Springville under lockdown from Ethan’s army but it wasn’t. I’d expected nothing less from him.But it was surprising to hear that Higan managed to escape along with Becca which made killing her more difficult now.No one seemed to be willing to open up about how I left their sig