The White Werewolf || Season One: Ties That Bind

Chapter One

Bremervoord, 1239

Robin clutched the book to her chest with one arm, swallowing thickly as she stared at the man standing across from her. Her other arm hung limply at her side, her fingers twitching in anticipation of having to defend herself. Though she was sheltered in most ways, she wasn't entirely naive. She knew it was going to come to that.

Melcedem clucked his tongue and shook his head at her. "Such a disappointment, my dear," he drawled condescendingly. "Ten years of almost impeccable service and your training ends like this. I had higher hopes."

"Ten years of being at your beck and call for minimal training," she murmured back. "Ten years of fending off your disgusting advances. I should have been the one with higher hopes."

"And what gives you the right to be so judgmental?" he snapped, not used to her arguing with him.

"Is it judgmental to ask for the consideration any human being should get?" she retorted.

Not that she had ever expected it from him. She had never gotten it from anyone else, save one person, and he was lost to her now.

Before Melcedem could answer, she accused him of the much more pressing issue she had just overheard. Her suffering wasn't as important as this. "You're conspiring with this Yennefer to murder all monsters."

She hadn't heard the whole conversation, but she'd heard enough.

"Murder?" he snorted, eyeing her as if she were a petulant child. "Monsters are monsters, my dear. They can't be murdered. Only eradicated, as they should be."

"They might be monstrous on the outside, but appearance doesn't make a monster. Actions do. You're a monster, even though you're human and in control of your magic."

"And you're the authority, are you?" he teased her. "With your vast experience?"

"I've read every book in this tower, many of them firsthand accounts of your so-called monsters. That must count for something."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not going to have a philosophical debate with you, my dear. You have clearly outlived your usefulness, and you know too much. Perhaps I will learn something from dissecting your body."

She hadn't expected that comment, but she'd been ready for his patience to run out. Though she'd never seen the laboratory behind him before, she knew how to use what was in it against him. She hadn't used magic like this in a long time, but it was what she was naturally best at, despite its forbidden nature.

She raised her hand and pointed it at the flayed body of the alghoul on the slab behind Melcedem. The creature slithered off of the table before standing and lurching in her teacher's direction.

This was a true monster. Naked and hairless, lumpy and pale, the tall, lumbering thing only had one driving force, the hunger for human flesh. As it took step after squelching step, its guts tumbling out onto the stone floor, she knew her animation magic would not last long.

But it didn't have to. Melcedem was completely unprepared, and before he'd even turned the entire way around, he was screaming as teeth sunk into his neck. A torrent of blood gushed down the front of his drab gray robe and he fell to the floor, his eyes already glazed over even as he marveled at his apprentice's hidden abilities.

The alghoul fell shortly after, letting out an otherworldly gurgle. Robin shuddered as it hit the floor with a wet flop, then again as she looked at her dead teacher.

She didn't want to speak to him again. He was the only person she'd spoken to for the past ten years, and that had been more than enough, even for her extended lifetime. But she had to find out what he knew. She had to extract what he could tell her.