Seventy nights after meeting the General
Time was filled with injured soldiers coming from further down south than ever before.
The werewolves were fighting humans by the old forest. This was not only unprecedented.
It was unthinkable. Still, only one human captive had been brought here so far.
He had been here for days now, remaining eerily silent.
I did not see much of Axel even though I went to bed well into the night.
He was busy with military matters. I tried not to think about how little he informed me of his whereabouts.
If he kept quiet so as not to worry me, his efforts were futile.
The only thing that kept me from worrying was the ever-increasing amount of injured soldiers to tend to.
I manoeuvred through makeshift beds and worried wives and omegas all through the night.
During my shifts I avoided Inge like the plague. I knew I had to speak to him about Axel’s reasons for not mating me, but I did not want to divulge any details that would make me flushed.
Their feud was completely unnecessary. Both were too proud to speak on it first. I counted the hours until I was alone.
When I was finally alone during the late shift, I started on a medicinal stew.
The human was the only one still awake. He pretended he was asleep.
I could tell from his breathing that it was a lie.
For a while it was quiet. Just the sound of deep breathing and a low little hum as I stirred the contents of a cast iron pot.
Then, a hand at my throat. A knife in that hand.
“Don’t speak,” he said. I knew it was him.
The human from the bed. How he freed himself with only one arm, I never found out.
The knife, he got out of my own belt. I recognised the engraving on the back of the blade.
With his arm around my throat, he pulled me out of the room.
No one noticed. No one was awake to see, and I did not have the guts to scream with the threat of beheading looming over me.
I went with him quietly. No reason to be rash. I would wait for any opportunity to get out of the situation.
We moved to the courtyard. A risky move, out in the open.
He carried me towards a dimly lit hallway.
The sun had set long ago, but not everyone in the castle could be asleep.
Inside, there were sure to be soldiers playing cards, officials still deliberating, omegas finishing up their evening meals.
Anyone could spot us at any given moment.
I felt his heart beating loudly, as his chest touched my back.
“The emperor wants you,” he said. “You’re the traitor, aren’t you? The druid that he is looking for?” I laughed.
“How can I betray a man who never wanted my kind to be alive in the first place?” I asked. He put the knife closer to my throat. I felt it touch me as I swallowed.
“If I bring you back with me, he will let me live,” he said.
“He won’t,” I answered. “Besides, how are you going to get me back to the empire? Through the forest? You will never survive,” I said.
“I don’t have to take you back. I just have to get you to the seashore.”
It hit me then. The sound of the marketplace. A bustling city. The scent of the sea.
“Why is the navy stuck here in Auriyonne, while our brothers are out fighting rebels up north,” I heard a tall soldier complain. As if fighting would bring him anything but death.
“They will call on us soon enough,” came the voice of a man that was too old to be a soldier, wearing armour far too valuable. “When the wolves play in the forest, the armada moves north.”
The spy wanted to take me to the fleet. I remembered Inge’s words from a few days ago. The castle will be empty. Three days. That means tomorrow. Axel was leaving tomorrow.
I decided then that there was not going to be a right moment to fight back.
And there was no time to wait. I grabbed his hand.
I bit my tongue as we struggled for the knife.
A sharp pain and a burst of red. The knife cut my hand.
I managed to twist myself around until we were face to face.
He did not expect it. The blade was in my hand.
He had let go of the knife. I was pushed against the wall.
The blade sliced through my hip. The force of the stone wall hitting me as I held the knife in my hands.
I turned towards him. I took the blade by the handle.
I pointed it at him. I managed to scrape his neck with my blade before he ran.
I did not follow him. I couldn’t. I had to warn him, I had to warn Axel.
Adrenaline rushed through me as I ran through the courtyard.
It was only nightfall. He had to be awake.
I neared the great hall. I could feel I was getting closer to the General.
I picked up on his scent. He was still in the throne room.
I followed my instincts and ran towards the doors.
I did not even feel the pain. I did not register the trail of blood following me around either.
“Halt!” A guard stretched out his arm in front of me to stop me from barging into the room. It was not as though I had the strength to open the doors anyway. I locked eyes with the other guard who did not make a move to stop me.
“Open the doors,” I said. The alphas did not move. They seemed unsure what to do now. “Fine,” I said. I tried to proceed myself, to push the doors open, but the alpha in front of me held steady, now coming into contact with my chest. He tried to push me away from the doors.
“You’re certain you should be touching the General’s omega?” I asked. The body in front of me stilled. “When the General’s omega is in distress, will he forgive those who keep him from him?” That did the trick. The alpha that had not made a move to stop me was opening the grand doors.
The moment there was even a sliver of light illuminating the floors, I slipped through the crack in the doors. I ran into the room. I could scent my own distress, but there was no time.
I only just stopped myself from bursting out his name. “Alpha!” I said. That might have been worse. I stood in the middle of the hall, as I had once before. So many alphas, each one larger than the first, with their eyes on me. My alpha stood in the middle, right in front of his throne.
His eyes found me. They took in the sight in front of him. And what a sight it must have been. A ripped tunic. A bare foot, as one leather boot got lost in the rush to get to him. My linen trousers, sliced through on the side. Blood trickling down from my hand to the floor.
“Gabriel?” Axel said.
He was there before I could even think to move closer. His eyes were searching for something. They found it when he grabbed my hand and saw the state it was in. The cuts were almost deep enough to reveal bone. A struggle was evident in the pattern the knife had carved on my hand, on my thigh.
His eyes were different then. Almost pitch black, yet glowing crimson. Unnatural. His scent darkened with them.
“You were attacked,” he said. His voice low, a gravelly tone. Deeper than usual. More dangerous.
“Yes, but I-”
“Who did this?” he asked.
“Axel, I have to speak with you,” I said, but he was not listening to me. He assessed me from head to toe with his gaze, until his eyes landed on the wound in my thigh.
“Alain, find a healer!” Axel shouted. “Now!” Alain ran past us, with a speed I only thought to be possible when werewolves were shifted.
Axel ripped a strand of fabric from his own shirt.
He took my hand, and wrapped it around the wound.
He then dropped his coat to the floor, and ripped a sleeve from his top.
He crouched down and used the sleeve to bandage my thigh, before knotting the fabric a little too tightly.
I winced. The adrenaline was starting to wear off. I woke up to my own pain.
“Alpha, listen to me,” I said. I addressed him by rank in hopes of getting him to pay attention. He stood back up to look me in the eyes. “The attacker, it was the imperial spy from the infirmary. Before he ran, he told me something important.”
Instead of a response, I received an arm under my legs and another around my back, as I was picked up to be carried away bridal style.
My attempts at communication were clearly futile.
Axel marched through the room, right out of those doors, with me in his arms. He was careful not to touch the gash on my thigh, but it was still painful.
Tears welled up in my eyes. Not just from the pain but also from the frustration of not being heard.
Before he left the throne room he said only one thing. Not to me. To the alphas in the throne room. “Find the spy. Bring him to me.”
And I hated that he was hearing what I was saying, yet wilfully ignoring me at the same time.
Not much later, I found myself being carried into the infirmary by the General.
Alain was following close behind. The healer on site rushed to get me into a bed.
Axel lowered me onto the bed. He was gentle.
As if I was fragile. As if I was the only thing that mattered, and there was nothing else to worry about.
His gaze was soft on the surface, but there was something dangerous hidden beneath it. Something deadly. It reminded me of the danger he was in. The danger that his entire army was in, if I did not intervene.
Before long, Inge entered the infirmary in a rush.
“How did you get injured?” Inge asked. He unwrapped my thigh first.
“Look, that does not matter. The spy, he told me about the attack. And I remembered something I heard from an imperial soldier, back at home.” I yelped when alcohol met my wound.
But I had to tell him. I had to warn them.
“He said the armada will be ready to attack Kanna, to lay siege to the castle, when the wolves are in the forest.” Axel was listening now.
“The spy wanted to get me to shore right away. The armada must be close. The battle happening in the forest is a distraction. They want to keep the army occupied on the ground. When you are hours away from here, they will lay siege to the castle, and then take the city from the river.”
There was a moment of silence. It was filled by my own whimper when the needle punctured my thigh.
Stitches. Several of them. Axel held onto my uninjured hand.
I squeezed his hand so tight my own hand was starting to hurt.
He used his other hand to stroke my cheek.
Words were exchanged, but I could not make out their meaning.
Axel turned to me then. Danger in his eyes. “He wants to take you from me,” he said.
Alcohol hit my injured hand. A moment of clarity.
“General, what are your orders?” Alain asked.
“Recall half the troops,” Axel said. “They should be back before dawn. We hold the Grey Keep.”