Alaska ✓

7 | Empty

"You need to come with me, Alaska," Chase bellows at the top of voice, the sound effortlessly reverberating off the stone walls as I began to see the dim light ahead of me.

I keep looking forward, but show him my middle finger as I continue climbing. A group of guards barge past us towards the exit, trying to get to the walls that caged the valley so that they could hold off the rogue attack.

Why would the rogues be attacking now of all times? They had had years to attack whenever they pleased, and here they were trying to break in so that they could take over the kingdom.

I of all people knew that they could succeed, but the walls were so strong, and the fighting force within the city was too great for any rogues to break through for some time. The only way that they could succeed was to kill the king and wait us out. If they blocked our connections with the packs populating the forest surrounding Arla, then we would be screwed, and everyone would slowly starve to death.

I am meters from the entrance before someone steers me off to the right, pulling me so ferociously up a flight of stairs that I am unable to resist until we're ten steps up.

"Get. Off. Me." I demand in a clear voice as Chase pushes me up the stairwell, this pathway much darker than the main exit of the castle. "When will you realise that you can give up? No one's going to label you as weak if you do."

Chase shakes his head as he stands behind me, blocking the path down the stairs. "I was ordered by the guards to take you to the king. And don't think that I don't know that you were trying to escape."

I open my mouth, ready for a hasty retort, but nothing springs to mind. "I- I wasn't," I stutter but almost face palm myself afterwards. With the way I was behaving, anyone would be able to tell what my plan was.

Chase doesn't say another word as he signals for me to keep climbing, and I obey. Tomorrow I would have the chance to take out all of my stored up anger on him in the ring – if there was a tomorrow.

"Did the guard say what the king wanted to see us for?" I pant as we reach the top of the staircase, greeted by a wider corridor. Paintings hung on the wall, the faces of previous queens and kings glaring at me in their painted forms. On the ground lies an exquisite rug laced with gold in an ancient symbolic language which I cannot understand. This was the type of luxury a werewolf would dream of and rarely get.

It was clear that we had arrived in the top floors of that castle, where the king and his family lived. I couldn't believe how easy it was to get here, but maybe the guards who were usually here have been called up to attack the rogues.

Chase shook his head once more as he leads the way through the castle as if he knew the place like the back of his hand. "No," He replies in a gruff voice as he parades beside me. Thankfully he doesn't make another attempt to grab my arm. "But I have a good idea."

I am about to reply when I almost run into the sturdy chest of a guard. He holds his sword by his side, his huge body blocking the doorway to which we were supposed to enter. So this is where some of the guards had disappeared to – to protect the king.

"Let them enter." A gruff voice orders the guards, and they move aside to reveal the king with his grey beard and ancient, sagging skin. I never wanted to be as old and immobile as him: I would feel useless and a burden to others. Maybe there was a reason why werewolves died so early.

I stumble forwards into the large room; the same area where I had agreed to take part in the alpha trials. Looking back on my decision, I feel the room press closer and closer to me, wondering when they would come so close that I would eventually be crushed. The oxygen disappears from my lungs, and I feel as though I am suffocating. This was the place I signed myself up for imminent death, but also the slight chance of freedom.