THE ROGUE WOLF

by Klaire London

  And before me, in his royal robes and looking out of place within the citizens of the city, stands his Highness. He looks at me, raises his chin, and diverts his gaze.

  "Fight two, Round one of the Alpha Trials. The match will last until one of you is unable to continue." The guard hands each of us the same, small silver dagger which I gratefully take. At least I knew how to use it. "The rules are the same as earlier. Good luck." He states, but I feel his head turn towards William. Of course he didn't want me to do well, let alone the rest of the population.

  The guard brings down his arm, and then sprints out of the ring, the yelling of the crowd dying like his fading footfalls.

  William smirks at me. I thought that someone over the age of thirty wouldn't do something of that nature at that age.

  "I'm going to make your death nice and slow, so that they can have their show." William bared his teeth, yellow canines exposed to the sun. "Have fun dying, rogue."

  I snarl at him. "It's Aura," I correct, but he does so much as bat an eyelash.

  An ear-splitting shriek rips through my opponent's throat as he slices with his knife, bringing it down in an ark. I spin out of the way, but just in time. If I had been a millisecond later, the blade would have made contact with my skin.

  I spiral around to growl at him, bending my knees and holding the knife out in front of me, my battle position telling him that I'm ready, although mentally I feel as though I will never be ready. Not for a competition like this.

  "You're swift, I'll give you that." William sneers as he swipes with his blade once again, but his actions seem jerky and uncomfortable: he was not accustomed to such a weapon. "But you're not escaping death this time, rogue."

  When will they realise that calling me rogue makes them look pathetic? I wasn't even a true rogue. If I showed them one of those, they wouldn't survive to see another day. I had only encountered one once when it crossed our territory when I was still part of a pack. The beast was killed before my eyes, and it was one of the earliest murders I remember witnessing. It was one of the many events that had shaped my past, and continued to weld together the loose strands of my future.

  I fail at avoiding William's next attack, backing away too slowly as the male knocks me over onto the ground. My back hits the hard floor beneath me, accompanied by 'oohs' and 'ahs' from the audience. One person even yells, "slit her rogue scum neck!"

  I shiver at the remarks, but I'm quickly back on my feet, breathing rapidly to try and gain some oxygen, when I realise my vulnerable position. Above me is my opponent, fists clenched so tight, it seem as though the bones are breaking through his pale skin.

  A fist meets my stomach, and I immediately double over in pain, flimsily treading backwards as I begin to splutter up blood, spraying William with the liquid. Somehow, he doesn't seem fazed by the prospect. But I can't let him see how much his strength hurt me, so I grit my teeth and chew my gums until it draws blood.

  Abruptly, a hand wraps itself around my neck, the freezing knife pressed against my windpipe, almost crushing the air from my lungs.

  For a second, I'm too shocked to move: any movement I create, I feel as though he'll slice my neck open, and that would be it. I would be gone. The pain, the suffering for once in my life, would be over.

  Maybe it's not so bad to die, here in the sand, by the hand of a monstrous guy. Maybe I would let myself think like that, but animal instinct takes over, and my elbow connects with the man's stomach.

  He doesn't flinch much. Not even a flicker of pain crosses his face as I spiral out of his arms, knife at hand.

  However, he seems dazed. I quickly kick his arm, knocking the knife from his grip, sending it flying meters behind him. Going against every single moral my father taught me about having a fair fight, I keep my own weapon clasped firmly within my grip. William was three times stronger by default, and I required the advantage to win.

  William retaliates, punching me in the side of my head, my reaction speed too slow to stop him. If I had been a normal human being, I would have been knocked out without a doubt. The fact that we were werewolves gave us superiority to the creature that composed half of our DNA, especially because of our faster healing rate.

  I block his next attack by shielding my hands with my face, but the protection doesn't last long. My midsection lies exposed, so he just punches me once more in the gut instead.

  I try to keep a stoic expression, but by now I feel as though I'm deteriorating into pieces.

  "Go on Aurora!" Someone calls from the stands, the voice distinctly Azra's. "You can do it!"

  "Yeah! Go Aurora!" A stranger called out from the viewers, not caring about my rogue background. Nobody else joined his pointless cheers, but the words sparked hope within me, and one spark was enough to light a fire.

  My heart thrums. My muscles ache. My body is ablaze. And I thrust all of my power into one blow, time slowing down as my fist makes contact with the monster's head. I slash with my knife, but William momentarily knocks my arm away so that all I inflict is a shallow cut across his left cheek.

  The blow created by my hands is harder than I think. William's arms pinwheels backwards as he struggles for balance, which he unfortunately gains.

  Yet again, his clenched hands appear as his feet land wider apart, giving him a more secure base.

  "So the rogue can fight." The wolf snickers at me, somehow finding time to do so.

  "Why are you acting so surprised?" I retort with a shrug off my shoulders.

  William opens his mouth to reply, the beginning of a word forming in his voice box. He never finishes that word. I punch him in the throat instead.

  William produces a horrible gurgling noise, but his arms still manage to shoot up and reach for my neck. I defect his arms away, but he punches me again before I can protect myself fully. My hands fumble for my knife, slick with sweat, but after years of practice with a similar weapon, I'm able to regain control and thrust it deep into the man's abdomen without a second thought. But in a swift motion, William pushes me away, allowing me time to gather my strength as the knife is left lodged in his body.

  The blaze inside me roars to an inferno, the blood gushing through my ears, blocking out any sound from the crowd. All that existed was me, this battlefield, and my opponent. Nothing else. We were floating in the middle of existence, tipping precariously on the seesaw of life and death. If William got another chance, I would lose my balance, fall, and die.

  There were only a few steps that I needed to do, and one million ways it could go wrong. As well as that, there was only one way it could go right, which wouldn't end up with my imminent death.

  I step forward so quickly, William has no time to compensate my actions before I deliver another skull rattling punch to his head. It was hard to reach his ginormous height, but I myself was not too small, and a little jump gave me the elevation I needed.

  My opponent sways for a nanosecond, but I use all my might in that tiny space of time to kick William's legs out from under him. His bulk of muscle topples to the ground at lightning speed, his head bouncing up as it rebounds off the floor.

  He was not unconscious, but it gave me enough time to act.

  I wrench the knife from my opponent's chest, the pulse of my heart racing through my fingers as adrenaline poisons my bloodstream. Yet William reads my actions as I raise the blade above my head, and hits away my arm, knocking the knife ten meters to my left.

  I'm up on my feet before I can comprehend my actions, snatching up the weapon as though it was about to detonate from the lack of use.

  I could throw a knife, but I could also miss. It wasn't my favoured weapon, and if I missed this opportunity, that one way of doing my plan correctly would combust. I would die if this didn't go to plan. I was caged, swallowed up by the arena, with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

  William is already to his feet, his eyes squinting as he raises his dark orbs towards the sun. His hand brushes off the sand from his face, and then goes to run over the
tender lump where his head made contact with the arena's sandy carpet.

  He spots me, mouth open, his nose bleeding so profusely that it's already dripping down onto his shirt. Would people miss him if I decided to kill him right here, right now? His pack would be left unprotected, but otherwise I couldn't see him having a mate. He was as cold hearted as the rest of them.

  I take a deep breath, focus on the one way, and let the knife fly.

  William's life ends with a gurgle.

  And the crowd stares at me in silence.

  5 | Nightmare

  ❝Forever does not make loss forgettable, only bearable.❞

  "Four more fights to go," Josh sighed as we dispersed from the long day of battles. Azra had been victorious over her opponent, and all of us had moved onto the next round.

  I raise my eyebrow. "Four?"

  "If you get to the final, that is." Josh points out, and I nod. I wanted to get to the final so that I could have a chance at surviving the tournament, but I didn't want to become queen.

  However, there was another option. If I was put up against Azra or Josh, and I lost, then they would let me live. That was the only other way that I could escape this torture alive, and we all knew it.

  I turn to look at Azra. It was obvious when I gazed into her cobalt orbs that she was uncomfortable with the prospect of me dying, almost as uncomfortable as I was.

  Josh places his hand on the small of my back, steering me towards the dining room as we headed for dinner. The contact felt strange on my body, but I ignored it as he pushed me towards the noisy chatter of the other competitors.

  The cobblestone hallways all looked identical: grey, bleak, and composed like a stack of precariously balanced rocks. I didn't have the foggiest clue where I was going, and I was glad to have someone like Josh with me.

  We round yet another corner, a flame torch eating at the darkness. At least I recognised this part of the ancient and crumbling hallway: it led to the dining hall.

  All of a sudden, I begin to feel nauseous, as if my stomach has suddenly been churned a million times in one second. Bile rises in my throat as my footfalls become weak, and I no longer feel as though I can support myself. My sudden reaction doesn't have an explanation, I just feel as though I want to curl into a ball, and shrink so small that I disappear off the face of the earth.

  I didn't want to go into a room full of people who wanted to kill me. Since I had slaughtered William in cold blood, I knew that they would all be furious. Each and every one of them would want to rip my flesh from my bones.

  Josh notices my discomfort, and supports me with his other hand. I wonder if he thinks I'm going weak at the knees because of his touch. "Aura, are you ok?"

  I shake my head. "They're going to kill me." I whisper, suddenly frozen in place like a statue. Today I had killed someone, yet here I was like a dog with its tail pressed firmly between its legs. God, I was so messed up.

  Josh squats as I sink to my knees, becoming eye level with me. His eyes were still beautiful, perhaps more beautiful than my own.

  "No, Aurora, no they won't." He gives me a hand up so I'm back on my feet. "Everyone in there hated William, trust me."

  I shake my head in disbelief. "Well at least he wasn't a rogue," I hiss between my teeth, not anticipating how harsh my words sound, and I feel my legs confidently drag me towards the dreaded dining room. I was petrified at the thought of going in there, but somehow I don't feel daunted as I get closer to my destination.

  "Aurora!" Josh shouts from behind me, followed by the echoing of heavy footsteps. "I'm being serious."

  I roll my eyes, not hesitating to falter. I was not used to being social, and Josh feeding me lies was not helping. He was a good guy with the right intentions, but nobody lied to me.

  I march into the dining room, and all eyes turn towards me as I stand there, my hands flying to my sides, my foot freezing in mid-air as I decide not to continue forwards.

  Yet again, I am surrounded by a storm of angry eyes, scowling at me as if I was the devil. I could tell just by looking at someone that they wanted to kill me, their eyes filled with the complex drive of bloodlust.

  Time pauses as my eyes flick over to Damien. In that one second, he nods, and the whole room bursts into cheers.

  My heart skips a beat. What the hell was going on? As I look back at the eyes who I thought wanted to murder me a second ago, all I see now if joy, as if a mountain had been lifted off the shoulders of every werewolf within the confines of this room.

  I swivel on my heel, and Josh smiles at me. So he was telling me the truth. Maybe I should believe someone for once in a while.

  His face bears a grin so wide, it's as if he's trying to mimic the Cheshire cat. Then he raises an eyebrow and places an arm around my shoulders.

  "I told you," he murmurs. "They all hated him."

  My eyebrows crease as we grab a place and take a seat where we sat yesterday, the bench still empty as if where we had previously sat was slavered with poison.

  "That was awesome!" Someone calls from the room, but there are so many voices, it's hard to tell what exact direct it comes from.

  "Nice one, Aurora!"

  "Who knew the rogue had such guts?" Another yells.

  "Who knew the rogue could fight?"

  "William is freaking dead!"

  I take my food as quickly as I can, instinctively wanting to get out of this room as soon as possible. As everyone notices my discomfort, they all settle down and get back to their conversations.

  "Tell me about him." I suddenly say, the words leaving my lips before I can process them in my mind.

  Azra looks up from her steak, a quizzical look glaring right at me. "Who?"

  "William." I state firmly. If everyone else was going to make a huge deal about me killing him, then I might as well know what the fuss was.

  Azra sighs as she puts down her knife and fork, pacing her hands together on the table. "William was an alpha who used fear to rule over his pack. If one person ever stepped out of line, he would kill them before they had a chance to explain themselves." Her azure orbs captivate mine as she continues. "He killed his own daughter when he found out she could shift. He was a monster, and you killed him."

  I can't believe my ears. It feels as though a secret has been whispered to me so quietly that I can't hear it. "He killed his own daughter? That's..." I glance up at the ceiling as I try to find the right word. "Sick."

  Someone brave enough to sit next to me clatters their plate on the table, greedily taking a ginormous cut of stake from the dish.

  "It's more than sick." The stranger pointed out, using his knife to signal to me. "It's psychotic."

  I glare at Damien as he takes a mouthful of the meat, chewing quickly as he strived to speak more to me. I take notice of the light stubble lining his jaw, and the sharpness of his perfect jawline. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, he was handsome.

  "I'm sorry, but who invited you to our conversation?" Azra enquired, a look of pure bitterness plagued over her face.

  Damien grinned through a mouth full of food. "I did."

  "Well you're not welcome." Azra shrugged her shoulders, crossing her arms as she distracted herself from her food.

  Damien gave her a sympathetic smile. "Well, I'm afraid that you can't tell me what to do."

  I turn my head and glare at the older werewolf. He was certainly not a likeable person, and cocky to say the least. He had held a knife to my neck and threatened to kill me yesterday, and yet here he was trying to talk to me as if he actually cared? Who did this guy think he was?

  "Piss off, Damien." I growl at him, and then spot an empty table in the corner of the dim room. Using my free hand, I point to the oak ledge with a single chair drawn up next to it. "Perhaps you should go over there where you belong: away from everyone else."

  Damien is stunned by my words, and tilts his head my way. "That's no way to speak, princess."

  "So I'm princess now?" I laugh in disbelief. Was he seriousl
y trying to flirt with me? "I thought that I – and I quote – 'have no place in this world,' you know being a 'blood thirsty beast' and all."

  He glowers at me, his gorgeous eyes turning sour. "I'm sorry?"

  "It's Karma, arsehole." I state, and get up from the table. I had suddenly lost my appetite. "I'm not hungry," I conclude, storming out of the room, leaving my friends behind.