Lucas
They have returned. My father and his army, from the sound of it, had been victorious. Our father was constantly bent on expanding our territory and increasing our military power as well. He was power-hungry and, thus, garnered more enemies than friends. He was wary of everyone, including me, and it had led to him murdering my mother, Luna, in a fit of rage. I had not forgiven him, but I had learnt to move on regardless of the stigma his bad reputation hung over my head. I was his son, after all, his only heir. Although I was capable of holding my own, he had forbidden me from fighting in the recent war. He was ‘protecting his heritage', according to him.
I left the privacy of my room to welcome them, and the villagers had assembled too, singing the praises of our warriors. The outcries of exultation filled the air, and soon the courtyard was full of people. Suddenly, a horn blared shrilly, announcing the arrival of my father, the Lycan King. He was also an Alpha, but he preferred to be referred to as royalty, his pride unquantifiable. The people split into two, creating a path for their king to come through, and as soon as he had begun his walk of glory, the villagers resumed their cheering in honour of my father. He was a proficient warrior and his wolf had fur as black as the night, his mere shapeshifting compelling his enemies to surrender before the fight eventually began.
"Welcome home, Father. I see that you are victorious again. The pack has missed your protection. " I turned towards the crowd and yelled at the top of my voice:
"Long live the Lycan King!"
"Long live the Lycan King!" the pack echoed vivaciously.
"Long live the Red Bone Pack!"
"Forever and ever!"
The father glanced behind him, gesturing for something to be brought to him. His Beta, Logan, bowed reverently and jogged to the back of the queue at once. He returned shortly with someone, a young woman who looked drained of her essence. She moved under the chains shackled to her wrists and ankles and collapsed at my father’s feet, bone weary. The latter raised a meaty fist, and the noise ceased in all directions. Everyone was curious to know who the stranger was, but no one was as curious as I. She was lithe, built like a chap, but no lads I knew let their hair grow as long as hers did. The tip of the ebony hair tickled the swell of her butt, and it shone in the sunlight.
Her tresses cascaded in a glorious mass down her back, her face to the ground.Then, he wrapped a handful of her hair around his knuckles and revealed her smeared face to the rest of us. I almost heard her collarbone resetting with the force behind his maltreatment of her, and I winced on her behalf. Murmuring broke out again amongst the people, and it took the father raising his arm again to silence them.
"My family," Father addressed the crowd, "this is Princess Miatta of the Black Fur Pack. She has been given to us as a sign of the promise of the alliance I extended towards them. Do we accept her into our midst? What shall we do with her? "
Immediately, suggestions began to fly into the atmosphere, gradually at first and later in a heated manner.
"Feed her to the scavengers of the air!"
"Gorge out her eyes and make her dance for us!"
"Render her a sex slave; she is of no use to us!"
The cruise suggestions from the crowd made our captive cringe in panic, and she shuffled her legs in defiance, wishing to escape my father’s clutches. He swung the back of his hand across her face, and she fell to the brittle earth again, no longer moving. I feared for her life, but I dared not stand up for her to my detriment. Besides, I didn't know her well enough to run to her defence. He let go of her hair, and her limp body sagged unceremoniously.
"I have decided," he started when the noise had died down, "to let my son make this big decision. If he indeed is to be Alpha someday, he will have to start learning to make some difficult decisions. "Go ahead, son," he urged me, and I could hear them chanting my name. I raised an arm and the noise faded out immediately.
"Thank you, Father. If I may suggest, I say we keep her until we find something useful to do with her eventually. She is more beneficial to us alive than dead. "
Miatta
When I awoke for the second time that same day, I found myself in a dark room with its floors covered with dry branches and leaves. It was neither too big nor too small, and it resembled a barn. It reeked of unwashed bodies and rotting plants. I could barely see two feet from where I sat in solitude. The heat in the room was getting to me, and soon, I began to itch, scratching my hands and feet at intervals. My fur was no longer comfortable on my skin and my wolf was on her back, rolling from side to side.
"Devil's beans," a soft, feminine voice spoke from beside me, and my heart almost leapt out of my chest. To see who it was, I homed in on my lupine sight instead of merely depending on what my human eyes could notice, and it was then that I realized that I was not alone in the room as I had earlier thought. There were women and children, littered in all corners of the confined space. They were as dirty as I was, and some of them were asleep.
"They apply it to all the new slaves to ensure that they behave themselves," she continued, dragging a branch around in some sort of game. The word'slave’ caught my attention above all that she said, and I stood up alarmed, stumbling a bit in the darkness.
"Slave?" I repeated it in revulsion and clawed at my fur in discomfort. Whatever they had applied to my fur was going to kill me before I allowed myself to be regarded as a slave. "I am no slave! I am a princess, the Princess of the Black Fur Pack, and I was sent here as a gift to this pack. I think there must be a mixup somewhere. I'm not supposed to be here but in the Hall of Alphas with the rest of the royalty like me. "