THE ROGUE WOLF

by Klaire London

  And then there's Hunter, concealed in the circle already laid out for Deathmatch. The match was strange, and I had been informed of the rules on the half day's journey by Josh. He had told me that a black circle was placed on the ground, to enclose the competitors. In the ring, the fight was even. Both the competitors were given the same weapon, which meant that the wolf's bane sword would have to be used at a later opportunity, should it present itself. If the two competitors were to break the circle, which required strength, due to the strange enclosing power of the black powder used to contain the challengers, then the fight would become uneven and the battlefield would be as large as they needed. Josh had also informed me that it was practically impossible to break the circle, and that it was better that way.

  His hair is as white as the snow itself, blending in like a fathomless canvas of a hauntingly colourless horizon. Black eyes scour Damien as he strides towards Hunter, his army positioned on a gentle slope, rising above our army and gazing down on us as though we were nothing more than rodents that needed to be dealt with.

  As Damien gets closer, a grin splits across Hunter's face with glee. I want to rip it to shreds with my claws alone. Someone so screwed up should not exist.

  And that's when I see the girl standing next to him, shrouded by the leader's heavy armour. Her clothes were ripped in places, the left leg of her leggings sporting a hole larger than the size of my infuriated fist. A blood stain runs down her cheek from a healed cut, although she clearly had no way of washing the stain away. Her face was slathered with mud, merging into the crimson of her blood like paint. If it wasn't for her perceptive azure eyes, I would've mistaken her for someone else.

  My chest releases a choked sigh. Bile rises in my throat, but I keep it down. The acid burns at the back of my mouth like poison.

  I take a step back, knocking into Josh's arm inadvertently. He flinches away, as if my touch was burning him.

  "Josh," I whisper, but something tells me that he already knows about Azra. Afterall, he'd been awfully silent since we had entered the huge clearing outside the crumbling walls of Arla. In fact, he hadn't even spoken a word. "I'm so sorry," I murmur. What else was I meant to say? At least she's alive? But that wouldn't be true, because death was better than being held within Hunter's clutches. It was better than ongoing torture.

  My limbs are frozen in fear. Thankfully, we still had Hunter's mate in our grasp; the joker to play when Hunter held in his grasp the Ace of Spades.

  My eyes shift back to Damien, taking in every movement as my heart rate begins to go faster than it ever has before. Part of me can feel the nerves writhing through his body, subduing him as he kept up his armour, blocking out emotions.

  But even from here I can hear Hunter's laugh. The zephyr carries it across the large expanse of land as if he was speaking through a megaphone.

  I crease my eyebrows anxiously. Why the hell would he be laughing?

  Hunter's chest rises and falls sadistically, both hands hovering lightly at his sides. "I thought that I was challenging the ruler of Arla," Hunter shouts, his eyes burning a scorching hole into my pupils. Why was he looking at me, of all people?

  "What're you talking about?" Damien orders, equidistance between myself and Hunter. "I am the ruler. I am King."

  Hunter's lips form a smirk. "But you're not the rightful leader," he sneers, his eyes appearing darker than they had previously. "You lost the Alpha Trials."

  Damien raises his head high. He knows that he has to appear strong in front of the kingdom, to give them hope. But having his position questioned would only result in those who had so blindly followed him questioning where their allegiance lay. They would question his right to the throne. And he would lose power.

  "The only reason you are King is because the rightful ruler didn't want to be Queen," Hunter continues. My hands twitch into fists. "When your riders came to inform me of your challenge, Damien, they stated that the ruler wished to compete against me in Deathmatch for the throne of Arla. Therefore, I would like to face her," Hunter states boldly. His head bows towards me. "Aurora, if you may."

  One thousand eyes turn curiously to give me a fleeting gaze. The rogues sneer, their bodies tense with the anticipation of an impending fight.

  I feel like I'm suffocating as the oxygen from my lungs expels itself. I can't breathe. How had it come to this? I didn't want to face Hunter again after I had already killed him, but with every single pair of eyes in a one-hundred meter radius on me, I have no choice but to compete. Again.

  Hopefully this pain will be over soon, I tell myself. Maybe, just maybe, this time it was close to being over.

  I step forward, but Josh's hand restrains me. I shrug it off with ease, ignoring the hurt look scattered across his cute face. It was a tangle of emotions that I couldn't even begin to unpick.

  "No, Aurora," Josh warns.

  "I have to," I whisper, "don't you see that?" I continue to walk forwards, refusing to glance back to see his reaction in case it shatters my courage.

  My legs carry me up the slant, past Damien and his grim face. He has turned a ghastly shade of white, not dissimilar to the pigment of Hunter's silver tresses. His fingers wind together absently, as he stares ahead of him, focusing on something that simply does not exist. I walk straight past him.

  When I reach the circle, the black arc missing a meter to allow me to enter, I hesitantly step through. My hands reach for the blade strewn carelessly on the ground five meters from Hunter's leather clad feet. Thinking that he was so close made my skin crawl as though maggots were wriggling over every square millimetre of my skin.

  A rogue places a trail of black powder behind where I had entered, sealing us off from the outside wall. I could feel the power emanating from the substance, pulsing like a beacon.

  I gaze into his pits - others would've called them eyes. "You've gotten what you want," I state as the foreign sword weighs down my grip. I tilt my head towards Azra. "Now let her go."

  Hunter's face remains emotionless as the seconds tick by, before splitting into a toothy grin. It makes me happy when I see that his teeth are far from perfect. His front right tooth is at a slight angle, the left one adorning a huge chip where half a tooth should be.

  "Ok," Hunter states solemnly, suddenly quirking up into a straighter position - abruptly alert. "But in exchange for my mate."

  I raise an eyebrow. Zara was well out of sight.

  "I can sense my mate, Aurora," Hunter snarls like the vicious animal he is. His fingers flicker up to his palms before drooping in a strange rhythm. "I know that she's here."

  I roll my eyes, crossing my arms over my chest. "Fine," I state bitterly, nodding to Damien.

  It takes a minute for him to return to the army, pulling Zara out from behind the lines of warriors prepared rigorously for battle. I suck in a breath as a rogue approaches with Azra, knowing the betrayal that could ensue. It doesn't. I let out a shaky sigh of relief as the exchange is swift, and Azra ploughs over into Josh's arms as he holds the back of her head like he would if he were holding a new-born child. He rests his smooth chin on her head, closing his eyes as a droplet of transparent water slips into Azra's greasy hair. In that moment, I see how much she meant to him. Without her, he would be hollow; incomplete.

  Hunter was cruel, but nobody could be cruel enough to kill Azra if it meant the death of his mate. Even so, he was a sadistic bastard.

  Hunter captures my vision as he rolls up the sleeves of his battle gear. Unlike me, he had become prepared. Despite the rules saying that the fight had to be fair, Hunter wore a silver chest plate, reflecting the dim sunrays into my eyes and momentarily blinding me. He also appeared mentally prepared, whereas I was nowhere near ready to fight after yesterday.

  "Are you ready?" Hunter enquires, rubbing his palms together before retrieving a sword the exact same make as mine from his belt. Why did everyone always ask that? Wasn't it obvious that the answer was no?

  I nod, unsure of how this would start. I had heard
of deathmatch as a haunting story around campfires back when I was a mere child - I had never anticipated it's actual existence. And now here I was, ready to die for some pathetic kingdom, and to save the lives of everyone standing behind me.

  The only way I can win is if I break the circle. I need the wolf's bane sword to ensure that Hunter doesn't mysteriously get reincarnated.

  Hunter is the first to move. Instead of a war cry, which I had expected, he moves silently as if his feet never truly touch the floor.

  His sword swipes across my body before I can blink, and I arch my back as quickly as I can. Thankfully I'm saved from the sword's path, but the exhilaration doesn't last long.

  Hunter prepares for another attack as I back away. I bite my tongue, stimulated by fear, the bitter taste of my own blood exploding into my mouth like a bomb.

  Hunter's blade swings across my body once more, but this time my sword is in the way to block his attack. I push his weapon away as it edges closer, using most of remaining energy to do so. I was exhausted after yesterday, but my newfound love for Damien meant that I had to survive. Not for us; for him. It would tear him apart from the inside out if I died. It would've been the opposite all but two months ago.

  I push him backwards, his feet skidding on the ice hidden deep within the crevices of the powdery snow. My sword cuts clean across his body, but only to come into contact with metal as he ducks and rolls out of the way.

  "I thought that this fight was supposed to be fair," I state angrily through gritted teeth.

  Hunter lunges towards me, nicking my right leg before I retaliate. The cut is small and shallow: something I shouldn't be worried about. "You should've come prepared then, Aurora," Hunter remarks. He steps closer daringly. "You know you can't kill me. So let's make this quick." Another step. I can feel his breath fanning against my face. He could easily take everything from me right now, right here. One quick movement, and I could be decapitated.

  I spit in his face. My sword finds his left leg, cutting cleanly across his quadriceps to the hollow bone beneath.

  Hunter's face distorts into a mask of agony, but within seconds it subsides. I envy in horror as the skin around the wound already begins.

  He is no ordinary wolf, I tell myself.

  Hunter notices my attention has drifted, smiling. "Why don't you ask that question you've been burning to ask ever since we met, Aurora?"

  I ignore his question, my heart beat so deafening I can barely hear his unimportant words anyway. I spin in a circle, using my momentum to collide my forged iron blade with his skin.

  Instead, it meets iron. The clashing sound breaks me from my trance, reverberating throughout my ears like the endless chime of a resounding war drum.

  Hunter pushes my blade to my chest, and continues walking forwards until my back hits something hard. I glance back, only to see nothing but the two armies stirring with the will to fight. To slaughter. An invisible wall.

  Hunter's face is just inches form mine. I can't help but think of how Damien is reacting, but I push him from my mind. "Why don't you ask it?" He roars in my face, a droplet of spit flying onto my cheek. I squirm under his weight as he presses his weapon dangerously close to my windpipe. The only thing stopping him from slitting my neck is the sword I'm holding across my chest as a lifeline.

  I refuse to crack under the pressure. "Ask what?" I enquire as calmly as I can, but my words are rushed. Furious, in fact.

  My inability to become wildly enraged just makes Hunter angrier. "About why I'm not dead. Why I'm so much better than any werewolf could ever be." He feeds.

  I shake my head. "I don't give a shit." I utter, before my voice turns into venom. "Go screw yourself."

  And with that, I push him from my body, my sword directly aiming for his throat. It meets his face, but he moves away too quickly. All that I manage is a scratch across his cheek, which has already begun to heal within the second.

  Hunter's eyes hold a wildfire as he glowers at me. His jawline pulses as he wipes away the blood from his face, as though bleeding was a foreign concept to him.

  He staggers forward, precisely arcing his sword as it meets my stomach. I don't have enough time to react as the blade makes brutal contact with my skin, tearing a hole deep within the rivets of my hope.

  Instead of a fire igniting in the wound, it grows cold. It doesn't hurt.

  "My dad always wanted to be strong, but he couldn't," Hunter stated as I clutched my stomach to hold in the contents. I leaned over, retching up blood. "he wasn't, so he turned to making me as strong as possible."

  I gaze up at him through my eyelashes. "I don't care," I state slowly, finding every ounce of strength within me to raise my sword, making another attempt for his head.

  Hunter bats mine away as though it were nothing more than a butterfly. Then he reaches forward at lightning speed, drawing a line across my leg, and cutting deep. I scream as the blade slowly makes contact, automatically falling to one leg, unable to uphold myself.

  "Of course you care," Hunter whispers in my ear. "Don't you want to be powerful? Don't you want to rule over Arla? I mean, surely that's why you chose to compete in the Alpha Trials rather than be executed," he snarled. I wanted to rip his tongue from his mouth, to stop his angry words fuelling my own blind rage. "You wanted the power, and now you have it. But you can have so much more. You could join me."

  There's silence for a few moments.

  "You're sick," I state unemotionally, "if you think that I'd even join you for one second."

  Hunter processes my words. However, the blade resting at the crook of my doesn't slide further like I had expected. Instead, his gaze is neutral, his pulsing jawline the only sliver of evidence of the infuriated Hunter I had seen beforehand. "Shame," he murmurs, his free hand running across my face, pulling away my top to reveal my mark. I curse under my breath as he stares at it with beady eyes. He releases the material, and it falls back to covering the two white pricks of skin. "I'll take joy in killing you."

  His fingers linger on my skin, and a building rage is focused in my chest. I hated him. I hated him so much, I didn't care what impact killing him would have on me. He had turned the world a brutal shade of corrupted evil. He had to die.

  Before, in the Alpha Trials, I had used my rage to fight, and now I was back using it as my weapon. I knew I couldn't rely on my anger, as much as I couldn't rely on any of my other emotions, but I needed to feel that hunger for revenge. I needed to watch my parents die time and time again, just to fuel the electricity in my veins.

  I slap Hunter's hand from my face, wrapping my fingers around his freezing skin. He tries to pry my grip away, but I'm already on my feet, squeezing until I hear the satisfying snap of crushing bones rattle against one another.

  My hand twists his wrist around as he howls out in excruciating pain. He grits him imperfect teeth.

  I don't change my emotionless face. He was getting what he deserved.

  "Like I said," I spit. "I don't give a shit."

  Hunter gasps as I kick him in the groin, rendering him useless on the floor. My blade next finds his neck, resting there before flicking up in a swift movement.

  But I'm not fast enough. Hunter places his palm on the end of the blade, breathing heavily as he rises to his feet. He still has hold of my sword.

  My eyes are wide open in shock as I pull back my sword. I can hear Hunter's wet blood against the metal as it slides effortlessly through his hand.

  But my shock doesn't last long. I shoot my hand straight forward, my fingers becoming clammy as I begin to sweat with the fear of my impending death.

  The sword doesn't make its mark where I wished it to. Instead, it clatters against Hunter's armour without so much as making a dent.

  Hunter's hands, still slathered with his own blood, indignantly take hold of my sword, cutting deep welts into his hand. The contrast between his pastel skin and his scarlet blood is disturbing. And with a bulge of his muscles, he tears my sword from my grip.