From struggling against one ghoul to slaying five in a blink of an eye, Ashton had grown a lot. It had been a month since the bloodsuckers were found dead and a lot of things had happened since then.
The king sent some of his most capable men to find the culprit behind this attack, but they were too late. It took them a week to get there because of the differences between the ideologies of Vampires and Werewolves.
The Vampires wanted to investigate this incident on their own, but for some reason, the king was adamant about not allowing that to happen. Maybe he was worried that they might get killed as well.
But in the end, he allowed a few vampires to accompany the werewolves to investigate the scene. However, since a week had already passed, by the time they reached there, no evidence was left behind. Just a week's time was enough for nature to cover Ashton's tracks.
The investigators had to leave empty-handed. However, a hunt was organised to find and kill the culprits of the attacks. But they never found anyone. After another week of constant vigilance, the team left.
As soon as they left, the attacks started once again. However, last week they stopped as abruptly as they had started. All the werewolves knew was that sometimes it was the undead that attacked the werewolves and sometimes it was the suspected vampire.
Except that nothing was known about them. Even the surveillance systems weren't good enough to catch them as it seemed they knew every single blind spot of the cameras and patrolling company and effortlessly took advantage of it.
The mistress thought someone from her council was aiding these bastards and interrogated them all. She had suspicions on a few of them and ordered for them to be kept on house arrest. Surprisingly, the attacks stopped the very same day.
Thus she knew there was a traitor amongst them. When in reality, Ashton stopped attacking the werewolves because the date of his departure to the academy was drawing close. If the attacks stopped abruptly after his departure, everyone would know it was him all along and that scenario would not have been pretty.
As for his levels, well, he was doing pretty good. His werewolf genes were on level 9, vampire ones were on level 7 and finally, the undead ones were on level 5. He had also gotten more proficient in using two different skills from different genes at the same time. Making his existing skills evolve into something new.
As for Lucifer, Ashton had never heard from him ever since the day he awoke as a Zompirewolf. He had wanted to ask Lucifer a lot of questions regarding his potential as a new species and his powers.
However, it seemed he had to do it all on his own. The system helped him very now and then, but only in life-threatening situations or when he was about to do something incredibly stupid.
As for the relationship between the Mistress and him, well, nothing had changed much, if anything at all. Ashton still hated her more than anything and his goal remained the same. He wanted to kill her in the most gruesome way possible.
But Mistress did not seem to share the views she had for him anymore. Ashton was precious to her, but not as a pawn. She had seen him grow at a speed she had never witnessed before and thus had formed a soft corner in her heart for him.
As for Donovan, the closer Ashton and the mistress got to each other, the more frustrated he became. To him, it seemed as if Ashton was trying to replace him as the Mistress's prime mate. In this mindset, he kept giving Ashton combat training that was much worse than anyone on Ashton's level could have handled.
However, the Zompirewolf aced all of those tests which in turn made the Mistress acknowledge him even more. The two of them were soon spending more and more time together in the Mistress's chambers and Donovan thought they were doing what the Mistress and he did whenever they were alone in her chamber.
But it was far from the truth. The mistress was only teaching him about some important stuff that Ashton should have known before entering the academy. However, it wasn't like the mistress had not tried to pull moves on the boy.
In fact, she tried it almost every single night for the last month. But Ashton did not entertain her in the slightest. For starters, it wasn't his age to get busy with such things and secondly he knew what would have happened if he ended up doing the deed with the mistress.
Just like Vampires, the werewolves too had mates. While in vampires, most of them could only have one mate for the entirety of their lives, it wasn't true for the werewolves. The werewolves could have as many mates as they pleased.
There was another way in which the vampire mates and werewolf mates differed from each other. While in vampires, if one of the mates died, the other would die as well, it wasn't the same for the werewolves.
Instead, in the case of the werewolves, the mates would not be able to hide their emotions from one another. Thus exposing them to one another's feelings and secrets. This bond was the reason why Donovan seemed agitated to leave the Mistress alone with Ashton as he could feel what the mistress felt for him.
Either way, Ashton's teachings finished when he was a couple of days away from leaving Maddencreek and heading for the 'knowledge capital' of the kingdom where the academy was located in.
The mistress wanted him to rest properly, but it was not going to happen anytime soon. As Donovan stopped him right out of the mistress room.
Everyone around them could feel the tension between the two of them. Ashton hated Donovan for the way he had treated him and for the fact that he was a close ally of the mistress. While Donovan hated Ashton because of his jealousy issues.
"I am here to challenge you-" Donovan began speaking but was cut short by Ashton.
"Not interested," Ashton replied and kept walking away.
This infuriated Donovan to no end and he lashed out at Ashton. As he was about to plunge his rapier deep within Ashton's back, but he ducked down and firmly planted his foot on Donovan's chin, knocking him back.
The most bad-ass thing, however, was that Ashton did all that with his hands deep within his pockets and without a weapon.
Ashton slowly turned around to face the werewolf who he wanted to kill just as much as the mistress. But now was not the time to do that. He needed to gain more strength. That was the entire reason why he agreed to attend the academy in the first place.
"You dare touch me with your feet!?" Donovan yelled out in rage as a drop of blood trickled down from the side of his mouth.
"I apologise. I thought you liked staying under someone's feet at all times.." Ashton replied with a smile on his face before getting into his battle stance.