THE ROGUE WOLF

by Klaire London

  Panic becomes the host of my body, and upon seeing the demon, I scoop up the sword from Titus's chest. Maybe it wasn't so bad that the guard had placed his corpse there in the first place.

  Clutching the blade with all my might, I handle the sword with ease, sprinting out into the piercing sunlight. Blinking rapidly, I pick out my target as he readies to throw his own weapon: a knife which was surely covered in some form of excruciating poison.

  In a split second, I pause. Was I really going to save the king's life, especially after he had ordered the demise of my rogue pack? Or was I going to kill the real rogue – the true threat?

  The king or the rogue? The king or the rogue?

  My mind is suddenly made up as the rogue bolts forwards, and in a whirlwind I spin my body around, and hurtle the trustworthy blade towards its target.

  Standing in frozen fear, I watch as people duck out of the way of the sword in the nick of time. Many curses at me, glaring in my direction, but fall silent when they head the thunk of metal on bone.

  The body falls down the steps as the creature's heart stops almost automatically, finally finding its grave on the lowest ranking of steps.

  Even though I was unaware of it, the rogue was the first I would kill, and it would certainly not be the last.

  7 | Empty

  ❝When are you going to get it through your head? We're in this together!❞

  Josh huffs as he limps behind me, an arm draped around my shoulder as we rush through the crowd, trying to get to safety. An elbow shoves in my side, causing me to hiss, but I ignore the pain. I wanted to get as far away from the rogues as I possibly could. I had seen what they could do, and I did not want my fate to be sealed by such a beast.

  Josh's strides were wobbly as he staggered along, his head constantly lulling as he became dizzy. He had only woken up two minutes ago, but we had been forced to run to safety due to the havoc.

  "Aurora!" Someone called over the chaos – a voice I did not recognise.

  I didn't stop. Azra and Josh were safely with me, and I had no need to be distracted. This was war, and I didn't want to be killed when I was so close to escaping the pain.

  The same person pulls on my shoulder with a hard tug, forcing me to face them. I come face to face with the steely grey eyes and sharp jaw line I dreaded to face on the battlefield. His hair was ruffled from the fight, and a recent cut ran along his cheek, dripping thick, crimson blood.

  "Aurora!" Damien shouts in my face so that he can be heard above the racket. "The king has asked to see us. We need to go now."

  I glance around at the werewolves pushing and barging past us through the corridor, some descending into the chambers below the castle, some sprinting up to the turrets – to wherever they thought that they would be safe.

  Halting, I shake my head and it takes one look at Josh to make rage fizz through my veins. Did he really think that I would simply follow him after he did that to my friend?

  And so, I slap Damien hard across the cheek with the cut, leaving my hand stinging with pins and needles. I hope it hurt him more than it hurt me.

  "Don't you dare come near Josh again, arsehole," I growl, and feel my legs picking up the pace as I continued my ascend towards the entrance of the castle. Through the noise and shouting, it would be easy to slip out unnoticed. Then Damien could have the title he rightfully deserved.

  Damien persists and grabs my upper arm, holding me firmly in place.

  I try to jerk my arm away, but he's too strong. "Get off me you dick!" I order, but he does not comply.

  Damien doesn't comprehend my words as he opens his mouth to say something. This better be good otherwise he'll find yet another hand mark across his other cheek. "It's a competition, Aurora. I did what I had to do, like you had to kill Titus."

  I clench my teeth together, ready to argue in defence, but after a second, I realise that he's right. I had to kill Titus to win, and he had to hurt Josh to get into the final. He wanted to be king, and I wanted to survive. But I won't give him the satisfaction of my forgiveness.

  I growl. "Just stay away from us."

  "Auror-"

  "Piss off Damien!" I hiss, hoping that he would finally give up, but his grip stays firm. It was going to be much harder defeating him than I first planned.

  "Please, Aurora. The King needs to see us now," Damien continues. Was he ever going to give up. Would he ever accept that I was human and I needed my own space? No, of course he wouldn't because he was Damien, the king of arrogance and cockiness. Well, at least he was a king of something.

  "God, don't you understand the meaning of go away?" I roll my eyes, and with one final attempt I am able to writhe my arm out of his iron clamp.

  I saunter off, and Damien stays frozen in the same spot as if his feet were stuck to the floor with superglue. He watches me carefully, with Josh and Azra beside me: at some point in the previous minute, Azra had taken Josh from my shoulder and propped him up on hers instead.

  "You need to come with me, Aurora," Damien bellows at the top of voice, the sound effortlessly reverberating off the stone walls as I began to see the dim light ahead of me.

  I keep looking forward, but show him my middle finger as I continue climbing. A group of guards barge past us towards the exit, trying to get to the walls that caged the valley so that they could hold off the rogue attack.

  Why would the rogues be attacking now of all times? They had had years to attack whenever they pleased, and here they were trying to break in so that they could take over the kingdom.

  I of all people knew that they could succeed, but the walls were so strong, and the fighting force within the city was too great for any rogues to break through for some time. The only way that they could succeed was to kill the king and wait us out. If they blocked our connections with the packs populating the forest surrounding Arla, then we would be screwed, and everyone would slowly starve to death.

  I am meters from the entrance before someone steers me off to the right, pulling me so ferociously up a flight of stairs that I am unable to resist until we're ten steps up.

  "Get. Off. Me." I demand in a clear voice as Damien pushes me up the stairwell, this pathway much darker than the main exit of the castle. "When will you realise that you can give up? No one's going to label you as weak if you do."

  Damien shakes his head as he stands behind me, blocking the path down the stairs. "I was ordered by the guards to take you to the king. And don't think that I don't know that you were trying to escape."

  I open my mouth, ready for a hasty retort, but nothing springs to mind. "I- I wasn't," I stutter but almost face palm myself afterwards. With the way I was behaving, anyone would be able to tell what my plan was.

  Damien doesn't say another word as he signals for me to keep climbing, and I obey. Tomorrow I would have the chance to take out all of my stored up anger on him in the ring – if there was a tomorrow.

  "Did the guard say what the king wanted to see us for?" I pant as we reach the top of the staircase, greeted by a wider corridor. Paintings hung on the wall, the faces of previous queens and kings glaring at me in their painted forms. On the ground lies an exquisite rug laced with gold in an ancient symbolic language which I cannot understand. This was the type of luxury a werewolf would dream of and rarely get.

  It was clear that we had arrived in the top floors of that castle, where the king and his family lived. I couldn't believe how easy it was to get here, but maybe the guards who were usually here have been called up to attack the rogues.

  Damien shook his head once more as he leads the way through the castle as if he knew the place like the back of his hand. "No," He replies in a gruff voice as he parades beside me. Thankfully he doesn't make another attempt to grab my arm. "But I have a good idea."

  I am about to reply when I almost run into the sturdy chest of a guard. He holds his sword by his side, his huge body blocking the doorway to which we were supposed to enter. So this is where some of the guards had disappeared to –
to protect the king.

  "Let them enter." A gruff voice orders the guards, and they move aside to reveal the king with his grey beard and ancient, sagging skin. I never wanted to be as old and immobile as him: I would feel useless and a burden to others. Maybe there was a reason why werewolves died so early.

  I stumble forwards into the large room; the same area where I had agreed to take part in the alpha trials. Looking back on my decision, I feel the room press closer and closer to me, wondering when they would come so close that I would eventually be crushed. The oxygen disappears from my lungs, and I feel as though I am suffocating. This was the place I signed myself up for imminent death, but also the slight chance of freedom.

  I remember the naïve girl who had walked into this room without knowing what she was going to face over the next few days. Since then, I have killed two more werewolves and stained my name with even more blood. The girl who was dragged up those stairs no longer exists. She is a ghost who haunts this room. She died the moment I agreed to participate in the Alpha Trials.

  Damien kneels the moment he is a few meters away from the king, but I come to stand next to him. Last time, I had knelt, but over these past few eventful days I had learnt to never give up, and I was certainly not going to give into the king now.

  The ancient man glowers at me when I do not go to my knees, but I ignore his piercing gaze. I would not give in to someone who had ordered the murder of innocent lives, including Noah's.

  When Damien realises that I'm not going to kneel, he stands up and places his hands behind him, trying to be respectful to the king. The Alpha raises his head in respect whereas I stay in my standing position, making no effort to make myself look slightly presentable.

  I wonder where Azra and Josh are. I had been forcefully pulled away from them before I had the chance to say goodbye, but wherever they are, I hope that they are safe.

  "You asked to see us, Alpha King," Damien addresses the elderly man. I make no attempt to talk.

  The king nods and begins to walk from his throne to the level ground, pacing slowly in front of us. "I wanted to congratulate you two on getting to the final," The king begins and pauses his strides. "Whoever wins tomorrow, I would like to say congratulations and I know that either one of you will make a great ruler.

  "But the rogues are attacking because they know I am weak, and that the alpha trials are taking place. The reason they are attempting to invade us now is because they do not want Arla to gain a king or queen so that they can easily overthrow the kingdom when I am dead." The king pauses. "They have come here to kill you two and me."

  I feel the blood in my veins slow and turn to ice. I already had the possibility of dying tomorrow. I didn't need another threat that brought my sell-by-date any closer.

  "We will hold off the rogues for as long as possible, but the victor tomorrow will be crowned and I will resign as soon as the winner has been made clear," The king concludes. "We have a war to fight, and Arla needs the strongest leader it can possibly get. But until tomorrow, you must rest and we will try our best to keep you safe."

  I roll my eyes. Nowhere was safe, especially if the rogues manage to make their way into the city. I didn't know how big their army was, but judging by the panic of the inhabitants, it must be verging on huge.

  "You can't just keep us locked up in the castle," I retort, stepping forward although I had no intention to. "We're better use out there on the battlefield than here."

  The king nods solemnly. "I know, but I can' t ensure your safety out there. This kingdom needs a ruler, and I'm not going to let you two run around with the risk of getting killed."

  I roll my eyes and cross my arms as I stand there, glaring at the grey orbs of the king. Although he may appear weak and fragile with age, his eyes are as hard as titanium: impenetrable.

  "Guards!" The king calls, waving a finger to those behind him, except they never come.

  "Crap," I murmur as the king swivels on his heel, instantly getting the sword from his from his belt. The archway was just out of eyesight, but as we all rounded the curb together it was evident that the guards standing at the archway had disappeared, streaks of bright scarlet blood in the place where the armoured soldiers once stood. "They're here."

  The two guards who had stopped us from entering the room in the first place rush up behind us, placing their bodies before the king as some sort of barricade.

  "Sir, the attack was a distraction," one of the bulky werewolves informs. "A second group entered the kingdom using one of the underground passages."

  I watch as the king swallows, not in fear, but in defeat. As his protectors tighten their stance, he turns toward me and presents the handle of his sword. "Take it, Aurora. You need to protect yourself."

  I raise an eyebrow. I had chosen a side, and right now it was looking like I had made the correct decision. "Don't you need it?"

  For once, the corners of the old man's mouth twitch up. "I'm a dead man anyway."

  I stand in silence as I take the cold handle, the brittle metal feeling alien beneath my touch. It was a beautiful sword with a thin and razor sharp blade that was easy to manoeuvre.

  Abruptly, an arrow impales the first guard, and soon the second as a bow appears around the corner where the rogues supposedly were. The two protectors fall, leaving the king exposed once more. It only takes me a second to realise that we would be lucky to get out of this attack alive.

  The king withdraws another sword, his chest rising and falling slowly as he stops himself from hyperventilating.

  Damien throws a knife towards the rogue with the bow as he exposes more of himself, the knife embedding itself in the young rogue's skull. The corpse falls to the ground in slow motion, the boy's lifeless fingers dropping the weapon as he falls.

  The rogue's tactics surprise me. Usually they would charge head first into battle as if each and every single one of them had a death wish, but this was a structured attack. Maybe they weren't as feral as I thought.

  But then my thoughts are shattered as the windows smash, causing me to flail backwards in surprise. The rogue with the bow and arrow had yet again been another distraction.

  As soon as I've balanced myself, the rogues are already sprinting towards us, faces scratched, bruised, and lavished with dirt. Each and every single one of them has a strange wild aspect within their eyes, turning them a deep yellow.

  I jump in front of the king as a rogue swings his axe towards me. I duck as the metal causes the marble beneath my feet to crack, and slice with my sword.

  The metal effortlessly cuts through bone, the rogue's hand carrying the axe becoming detached from the beast's body. The rogue squeals in pain, but I stab my sword straight through his heart before he has a second to retaliate.

  Another rogue is on my case before the other falls to the ground. This one looks even younger than me with perfect skin and a mop of greasy blonde hair. His eyes are only slightly yellow, but they still hold that feral aspect I had grown used to.

  The young boy swings his sword, and I slide along the marble floor to avoid getting sliced in half. As I slide, I begin to hyperventilate as I realise how close I had come to death. Sometimes I wish that I could be fearless, but everyone is afraid of something. I just happen to be afraid of having a long, painful death.

  I stand up the moment I am out of the rogue's reach, steadying myself before leaping towards the boy, sword gliding through his body before he can turn around. Rogues may be reckless, but it didn't mean that they were good fighters.

  There are only three rogues left. Damien fights one, whereas the other two advance on the king. One bolts towards the old man, but he is surprisingly quick to slash it down before it can commit treason.

  The other rogue, however, is different to any other rogue I have seen. His hair is blonde – almost white – but his irises are so dark, it appears as though they are melting into the pupil. His face was sharp like Damien's, but his eyes were more slanted, and his nose had a ridge in it from where it had
been previously broken.