UNKNOWN
It was a cold, cloudy and miserable night.
Even the stars hardly shone through the dark storm clouds.
The lands in between the pack territories were quiet as ever, there was hardly any movement, no
animals moving through the trees, no wind tickling the leaves.
The moon just peaked out as the clouds moved, but it wasn’t really enough to light up the forest.
Without a wolf’s eyesight, it would be pitch black and incredibly eerie. It was so dark that even the
slightest noise was amplified. A bird in a tree sounded more like someone crashing through the
undergrowth.
A woman stood in the middle of no man’s land holding a phone against her ear. She was silhouetted
against the subtle light of the moon when the clouds moved, but there seemed to be nothing special
about her, she was just a woman in the trees.
She was standing tall, attempting to appear confident, but her posture and small movements said
whatever the person on the phone was saying was cutting through her like butter.
Whoever she was talking to was not happy, not happy at all.
“I’m sorry, alpha… They… she marked them.” she whimpered.
“THEY WHAT?!” The man’s voice was angry, absolutely fuming. “What do you mean they marked
each other?! You were supposed to stop them!”
“I… I didn’t get there in time, alpha,” she replied.
“Because of your incompetence, we need to have her reject one of them to break the bond, or, at least
one of the ‘Kings’ needs to die.”
“You have failed me too many times already. This is your last chance. For the last time, you need to
stop her from coming into her full powers. Then, she needs to reject one of them. Are you still
managing to give it to her at the very least?”
“Yes… yes, alpha. She’s having it every day.”
“So, she is still falling for it?”
“Yes, alpha. The shortbread is doing the trick.”
“Good. That’s good. At least you’ve managed to do something right, perhaps I do still have a use for
you.”
She stayed silent.
“What about children?”
“She’s sterile for the time being, alpha. They can’t have a child.”
“Good. Keep it that way. They cannot be allowed to reproduce. If she is to have anyone’s pups, it’s
mine. Destiny and the future of the Kingdom relies on it. Any child she has that isn’t mine will doom
the Kingdom to ruin.”
Again, she remained silent.
“This is crucial. If she gets pregnant before I can mark her, my mark will not take, even if I mark her
under the full moon with the blessing of the Moon Goddess. If you fail at this and she falls pregnant, I
will kill you, and then I’ll have to deal with her pup before I can take her as mine.”
His voice was full of menace. He meant every word of what he was saying.
“Do you understand me?” Every word was harsh, aggressive and punctuated with a growl.
“Y… yes, alpha.”
The woman was trembling so much you could hear it in her voice.
At first you could have assumed that it had been from the cold, but it was clearly actually from fright.
She was scared of whoever was on the other end of the phone.
“Good. See it done.”
When he hung up, she dropped to her knees, sobbing, her head low. But… it didn’t sound like tears of
pain or even regret for what she was doing. Instead, it sounded like tears of fright.
She was worried for herself, terrified for herself.
She was completely remorseless about whatever she was doing and whatever she was planning, as
was whoever was on the phone.
She pulled herself back to her feet, dusting off the leaves and dirt that must have collected on her legs
when she dropped to her knees on the ground. She glanced around to make sure she hadn’t been
followed, before turning back to look up at the moon, stretching her arms above her head and her neck
from side to side before turning and walking with a determined gait back towards the Blood Moon
pack’s territory.