The Lycan King's Muse

Ep 20: The Fertility Mark

"Are they the same rogues that attacked our king a few weeks ago?" Athena's question makes me draw a sharp breath, making the entire room fixate their eyes on me again.

When things couldn't get any worse, I just found out that the reason Lyall was wounded in the forest when I found him was because of rogue werewolves. My species.

I gulp hard, hoping no one would hear it.

"Probably," Lyall answers ever so casually, "If so, they should be easy to take care of. I took care of seven of them myself."

"And yet you almost didn't make it back if it was not for Mars," Naver must be the only person in the room that dares to poke the lycan king with his forefinger and grins widely.

It takes me a few seconds to understand what Naver is doing so casually; he is telling everyone in the room implicitly that even though I am a werewolf; I helped their king. Lyall could probably go back to the kingdom on his own. In fact, he was the one who helped me against Mason.

Yet instead of denying Naver's claim, Lyall shrugged and said, "That's true." His eyes meet mine. "My mate saved me."

Those four words echo in the entire room and it is enough to reduce the intensity in some people's eyes. I breathe a little lighter thanks to Naver and Lyall.

"And for that, we will always be indebted to Mars," Athena chimes in.

With no one noticing, Naver winks at me, which draws a small smile to my lips.

I'm not completely alone in this foreign kingdom, after all.

"It's abnormal for rogues to band together," Roy directs the conversation back to the original topic. This dark-haired man with a scar on his upper lip says, "But they have almost created an entirely new pack now and have worked together to rampage our small villages. This is a larger scale operation than we're used to getting from rogues."

Rogues are werewolves that got banned from a pack, usually because they break the alpha's rules or... they just upset the alpha. They have a burn scar shaped like a half-moon on their necks, which is a permanent mark of their rogue identities. Normally, as soon as the mark is etched on a rogue werewolf's skin, that person will lose their bond with the pack and alpha, which is a permanent loss. Rogues generally will avoid packs, making it very hard for them to join another pack and, reversely, other packs rarely enjoy the company of rogues. They also avoid other rogues because their instincts have been transformed into one-man-survival mindsets. I've even heard stories of rogues fighting with each other for food and territory.

In a way, it's like a curse. Once they bear the mark, they will find it hard to trust or even bond with anyone ever again.

So, Roy is right. It is abnormal for rogue werewolves to band together, even more, to band together for an attack.

"This is the second attack with a similar pattern," another man in a blue suit says, "Once they did it a week ago and if it wasn't for our king, who luckily was doing a visitation to the village, more of our people would be dead. Now, they have done it in Fidre village. They took out two of our guards guarding the southern wall and wreak havoc inside our territory."

"This is unacceptable!" Roy cries out with passion to the point I can see the veins bulging out on his temples. "No one messes with the lycans. How do they even get the power to take down our guards in the first place?"

I remember how Mason and his two betas ran away from Lyall, the Lycan King, despite them winning in numbers. Lycans are generally stronger than werewolves. Unlike werewolves who can shift into full wolves with four feet, lycans shift into humanoid wolves. Lycans stand on two feet, and have sharper senses and stronger strengths. One more thing that differentiates both of our species is the presence of our wolves' minds. Werewolves have two shared minds in one body, yet lycans only have one mind.