The sun rose too early. As it crested the horizon I was already up, the last remaining wolf in the temple, while my pack had fled under cover of darkness. I had to buy them time, Fred time, to set things right.
Maybe once they were free he could investigate what happened with my father. A fleeting, useless, pipe dream.
I heard their footfalls before I saw them. Next was their howls, met only by my own piercing cry. The first of them stepped onto the stone while I leaned in the doorway of the temple. I willed it to rain, to smother any scents, and for the first time in a long while the moon goddess granted that wish.
The naked form of the leader of the 11th house emerged from the stillness of the pack. Giant wolves surrounding him on all sides. His eyes were cold, calculating, and cruel.
"Elsbeth, the cursed." He shouted coyly, his bare feet leaving damp impressions as he advanced on the stone towards the sacred grounds of my people.
"Stop Bricent. If you don't stop I swear I'll slice my own throat before you ever get to." I growl and his step stills. His wolf craves the hunt, obsesses over it, to lose his prey so close to victory would have been torture to someone like him.
I hear him growl in response, "You're surrounded Elsbeth -- I know you're not cowardly enough to take your own life." He takes another step forward and I pull out the knife concealed at my waist. I see him grow pale as the blade is poised at my own throat, pressed with enough force that a little rivulet of blood drips down along my alabaster skin.
"What do you think you're doing" He shouts but doesn't move forward.
I laugh, playfully, "I want to speak with you, obviously."
I can almost taste how badly he wants to dig his canines into my neck from here.
"About what" he growls again, I can see his temper rising.
"What evidence do you have that it was my father, present it to me, because I know he's innocent." I shout back, a gamble. Stalling for time.
"If you can prove he truly did what you're accusing him of I won't slit my throat" I finish. It's not really a lie, I won't slit my throat because I never intended to.
I can see him struggle to contain his wolf but his eyes phase out and I can see him mind-linking with the rest of his pack. The rain picks up but I can see it doesn't phase him.
I pray again that this gamble will be enough time for Fred and the pack.
"Done. The omegas will be here with the evidence soon." Bricent shouts against the rain before retreating back into his pack, shifting into a muddy brown looking wolf. He sits on his hind legs and stares me down, his teeth barred, waiting. The threat is palpable.
An hour passes, then two, and my arm grows weary holding the blade but I never falter. I am of stronger stuff, the last in a great line of powerful alphas, the blessed of the goddess --now forsaken.
The omega, in human form, arrives with a box. She's a dainty, plain thing in a brown rucksack that's purporting to be a dress. She places the box at Bricent's feet, her head bowed in submission, before she lowers herself to press her face against the dirt and crawls backwards into the throng of wolves on her knees.
Instantly, Bricent shifts and his smile is so cold I have to resist the urge to shudder. I'd thought him beautiful once, in my youth where his fanaticism felt like nobility and loyalty and all things I'd treasured in a potential chosen mate. He plucks the lid of the box and pulls from inside his first piece of evidence, the bag reflects the light. A knife that's covered in dried blood.
"The weapon that murdered her, covered in that foul heathen's fingerprints." He spits, unwilling to say my father's given name. I shake my head, "Fingerprints can be transferred, he could have held the weapon before it was used to harm her" I shout back at him, knowing that my challenge will make him more angry.
Bricent throws the bag down into the open lid on the ground aggressively before reaching into the box to pull out a packet of paper. "Transcripts taken from your father's phone of his planning her murder." He hisses.
My body stills, that can't be real, but Bricent's face shows no dishonesty. When I don't speak he knows he's struck a nerve so he continues, "He says in here that the goddess tasked him to purge an impure queen, and he hunts for the knife. He says it's a very special blade that can only be used once. The force of using it dooms both the wielder and the target. When he tore her connection, he tore his own mind and his own connection to the goddess with one senseless thrust of the blade."
My breath catches because that would explain his madness but why would he think she was an impure queen? Why would he condemn our pack? It doesn't make sense. Even if he'd been tasked, he was a clever wolf. He would have found another way. Why kill her so publicly? He had placed the pack above all else his whole life, my whole life, and taught me to do the same.
"We both know that doesn't sound like him." I shout back. He then drops the packet of paper on top of the bag with the knife before reaching into the box to pull out a tablet. The large screen flickers to life with the touch of his finger.
"There was a video Elsbeth. They caught it all on film." He whispers in a dangerous, resolute tone. The whisper was a promise of death.
I can see it clearly despite the distance, despite the rain and my heart races. My father looks regal in his formal court gowns. The black cape, the prim blazer, the white cravat. He slinks into the queen's room, she can be seen at her dressing table combing out her long blonde locks. There is no attendant helping her and a strange stillness on her face despite my father's presence. He steps closer to her, his face blank. She still doesn't react, she must see him in her mirror but she doesn't move. Not when he pulls the blade, not when he stabs her in the back. She just stares at him impassively through the mirror from her seat before slumping over. She offered no resistance, called for no help and never pleaded for her life. She seemed to almost know it was coming, resigned to die with dignity. Her face and front unmarred by the murder, a pretty corpse. The red blood drips down her back as he plunges the blade in once, then twice, then twenty five more times. His face growing from cold to maniacal with each strike. The man I'd known and loved unravelling before my very eyes.
Finally, after what was mere seconds, but felt like a lifetime, he drops the blade and starts to twitch. The queen's lifeless face is pressed delicately against her dressing table. Eyes wide but unseeing.
My father rips off his cape, his cravat and shifts, ripping his remaining clothing to shreds in the process. His wolf looks strange. He twitches and spasms as he tries to flee. Bricent's finger stops the video. I would never forget that video, un-see the demented thing that my father had become. I couldn't compute the man in the video with the loving gentle creature that had raised me and taught me everything about being a wolf. I could only hope that the rain made my tears less apparent.
"Do you see? You pitiable cursed thing, you cannot be allowed to live." He whispers, throwing down the tablet. My hand holding the blade shakes as I struggle to control my emotions, but he's not done.
Bricent picks up an empty vile with an ornate lid and waves it in the air, "This was how he got into the palace, into her chambers, without alerting the royal pack guards --without alerting me." I quirk my head.
"Sleeping draft?" I ask and he nods. I shudder, those were foul things that caused those using them to experience countless horrors in their sleep. It had driven more than one wolf to madness when dosed with too much.
"Do you see?" Bricent growls, "Do you understand?"
I shake my head, "This makes no sense to me."
"He's guilty Elsbeth, I investigated him myself and it was confirmed by the leader of the 1st house as an impartial party." Bricent shouts, looking impatient. I reel at this news, I hadn't heard of the involvement of the 1st pack. They had no claim to the throne, and they'd never shown an interest in trying.
"Show me the video again." I plead with him and he obliges, picking the tablet back up with a little too much enthusiasm. I think he might enjoy this as much as the kill, torturing me with the information that someone I'd loved had done something so despicable.
I try to memorize the details as he plays the video for me over and over again. The rain stops and I continue to openly weep. My shame gone.
The sun starts to set on the horizon as he places the items back into the box, a clear indicator that he would no longer entertain my delays, but I must have watched the same video a hundred times before his patience drew thin. The image of my father's face, his descent into madness, seared into my eyelids. My aching arm lowers the blade from my throat as agreed. Bricent's eyes light up at the gesture and a satisfied smile spreads across his face.
Bricent laughs giddily and starts to edge forward, to claim his reward. In those few precious seconds I use the blade in my hand to slice my other palm. His face pales and he starts to shake. He lets out a blood curling roar.
He lunges towards me, but it's too late. My blood smeared palm presses at the moon goddesses emblem on the door and the flames erupt around the temple. The open space leading into the temple shifts, warps, rippling like water and I grow cold. Looking back at his enraged face was priceless though.
"Don't you fucking dare you mongrel, you're not worthy, you're not worthy, I will never bow to you! How dare you even try, the audacity of this heathen, this forsaken to think she can rule me!" He roars, pressing up against the flames and hissing as they burn his skin.
"You swore I'd have my kill if I showed you, you swore to put down the blade!" He screams, shaking with fury.
"No I just promised I wouldn't slit my throat, you were too short sighted to set up any other terms Bricent. That was always your problem. You've always been a small man without any vision." I taunt him, trying to seem brave in face of the terror gripping my legs.
I take one last look at him, square my shoulder, hold my breath and step inside. A step closer to saving my people or losing my life, only time would tell.