A sudden force hits my body hard from the side, making me lose my footing. The world around me becomes a flash of blurriness as my body sways in the air. I have one fraction of a second of awareness during my fall, trying to make sense of what is happening. My eyes are on the boy, who looks shocked at me.

Then my body hits the ground, and pain radiates through my entire body. I grunt in pain even more, when I feel a heavy weight on top of me. The body of the man flows past me in the air. He falls to the ground a few feet from me with a louder groan.

I catch the eyes of the person who pushes me down. Then I gulp at the pair of angry green eyes reciprocating my gaze.

Athena looks exactly like Lyall. But the angrier version.

Much much angrier version.

"What are you doing here?" she growls. Her mouth forms a sneer, showing off her perfectly aligned teeth while her hands grip my arms so tightly that her nails dig into my skin. I think my head hit the ground when I fell because for a few seconds I can only stare blankly at her Goddess-like face. I know she is beautiful from the meeting I attended. But now that I can see her closer, her skin is like porcelain, perfect with no flaws or spots. And with her dark-blue hair framing her face, she looks so... badass.

I only blink when I sense her knee on my stomach. Instantly, panic courses through me, and I let my wolf instinct take control of my body. Without thinking twice, I bare my fangs to the lycan king's sister, yank her hands with a sudden surge of strength, and push her with all my might.

Athena falls to the ground beside me as I crawl backward, away from her. I see her staring at me wide-eyed, but I don't care. The most important thing for me right now is to check if my baby is okay. I put my hand on my stomach and try to feel her heartbeat. She is still small, just a tiny bud of existence growing inside of me, but with my healing magic, I usually can sense what the baby is feeling. I had done this before with a pregnant female in my pack. It was like talking with the baby without actually talking since babies can't form their thoughts. It was more like exchanging senses and once the baby was born, he didn't have any recollection of our interaction.

Through my hand, I reach out to the life growing inside my stomach. 'Are you okay?' I ask her.

She doesn't exactly reply to me, but she sends me a feeling that she is sleepy. My sudden fall was a shock to her, but now she is going to sleep again as she needs to keep growing. Of course, she didn't say that to me directly. I sensed it through my touch.

"Are you okay?" Athena asks, "Did I hurt your stomach?"

I blink myself back to reality. Quickly, I take off my hand from my stomach and attempt to stand. However, my balance is off. I sway to the side and will hit the ground again if Athena hasn't caught me so easily.

She pulls me to stand on my feet, then stares at me from head to toe. Her mouth forms the same sneer again as she crosses her arms. "You have answered none of my questions and I know you are not mute."

"Uh... you hurt me a little," I tell her. My gaze travels to the entire field where I notice all the warriors have stopped whatever they were doing and are staring at us. Even the man that was flying in my direction is gazing at us while sitting on the ground. "And uh... I want to talk to you..." My voice becomes smaller. I always feel awkward when people look at me too much. I am not used to being the center of attention, always used to making myself hidden every time.

"How did you even get here?" Athena asks me, "I thought Lyall locked you up in his room with him being paranoid and all about finding his mate."

Her words surprise me a little. A slightly pleasant surprise. "Lyall is paranoid?" He told me that his kingdom is dangerous for me, as his mate, but in the days that he ignored me... I have started to feel that he wants to slowly make my presence insignificant to him. Yet Athena's words reassure me I still have influence over Lyall... which means he would still let me stay here.

"I asked for the help of..." I spin around to see the boy, but he is no longer on the spot I saw him. I spin myself twice more to look in every direction of the field.

The boy is nowhere to be seen.

"Is this the customary werewolf trait chasing her own tail?" Athena mocks me, drawing laughter from the warriors standing on the field.

I stop and gulp hard. This is to be expected, I guess. The boy must have been scared for Athena to tell Lyall about him meeting me. And I don't want to get the boy in trouble. After all, he did say Lyall would kill him and I never want to cause any harm. As a healer that's one of our main four principles, "primum non nocere" or "first, do no harm."

"I used a magic ball to teleport myself from the room," I lie, "but it's nowhere to be seen now. I guess the ball evaporated after I use it."

Athena stops smiling. Her icy colored eyes seem to turn frozen even more. "And where did you get this disappearing magic ball?"

Uh oh... I can't answer that I got it from the maids too... I don't want to make anyone get fired or punished. Werewolves that are found to disobey the alpha get severely punished in my old pack. Some even got stripped of their titles and became rogues.

Primum non nocere...

"Uh... umm..." I fiddle with my dress and bite my lips. "My... wit."

Athena arches her brows and her lips quirk up slightly as if she is holding back a smile. She thinks I'm being funny!

"My wit," I repeat more firmly. "You don't have to know where I got the magic ball. I am here to talk to you. So let's talk."

Athena burst into laughter right after my serious talk. The warriors in the field mostly smirk and giggle at my words too. But I don't mind them. It's not the first time someone considers my straightforwardness laughable.

"Okay," Athena says at the end of her laughter, "what do you want to talk about?"

I chew on my lower lip. Then gulp the lump in my throat. I am prepared to be laughed at again after what I am about to say.

"Did Lyall ever ask you to train me?" is the first question that pops out of my mouth. I just have to know. He told me sweet words but then kept me at arms-length while locking me up in his room.

That's fucked up.

I get that the only reason that he keeps me in his kingdom is to break his curse... however he thinks I can. But I just... I don't know. I have this hope inside my heart that he's different from what my brain is telling me. That at least he has tried to ask his sister or try to make me feel more welcomed in his kingdom. It's not like I'm demanding too much, right? I have even offered myself to work as his healer for free.

But of course, what did I ever expect from the lycan king?

"No," Athena says.

He doesn't care about me. He only cares about being able to feel after a long time and breaking his curse.

I am just another tool for him.

And likewise, he should just be a tool for me to gain a better life for myself and my baby. A new life that is protected inside this lycan kingdom's walls.

I bury that disappointment and that shattered bud of hope inside me. The one who falls in love first is always the loser. I am ashamed to realize that the lycan king has affected me in such a way.

My wolf whimpers inside me. She still tries to reason with me, such as saying that Lyall might have been busy, or he might have been too worried about us.

'Bullshit,' I hiss at my wolf.

'You're angry partly because you find out your heart is opening up to Lyall and you feel you are betraying Ed.'

That. I can't argue with that. I just lost Ed. It has not even been a year. I feel so bad about having these feelings with Lyall when I am supposed to still be grieving about Ed. What does that make me when I move on too fast?

'It's the mate bond,' I tell my wolf, 'And you, Sasha.'

'I have done nothing you wouldn't do yourself,' my wolf sulks. She then shuts me out in my own mind, refusing to converse with me anymore. I let her be.

"Do you want me to train you?" Athena asks with disbelief, "Our lycan warriors' way? I have to tell you, I am not a soft teacher."

I blink at Athena's words. It sounds like she would really teach me.

"Mostly, I want to learn to defend myself." But then I feel the need to confess to Athena, so I say, "I have always wanted to be a warrior, but I am a female. So I was not qualified to learn any martial arts in my pack. Lyall said I could not get out until he deemed me as strong. But if I never get the chance to learn to be strong, how would I ever grow to be formidable?"

It's an honest statement, as it is the reality back in my pack. Women stayed weak in my pack because they groomed us to be weak. They deprived us of the opportunity to grow strong. And then we grew up thinking it is the norm, that it is the way things are in life.

It is not.

It can't be, right?

There must be something more I can be in this life than being a mere weak woman.

Athena stares at me unblinkingly. I notice that the warriors on the field stay silent, too. Honestly, I expect them to laugh at me for saying all those things. I know the men in my previous pack would have laughed and turned me down, saying things like, "But you're a woman. Even if you're given the same opportunity, you wouldn't be as strong as a man. So, why bother?"

Curling my fists on my sides, I am prepared to argue this time. In my old pack, I would just shut up and keep the words within me. But this time... I am going to fight until they give me a proper chance–

"Ok."

I blink several times before Athena's words register in my mind.

"What?"

"I said okay," Athena props her hands on her hips. "I'll teach you. We'll focus on self-defense, though. I don't think your body can withstand our rigorous warrior training since you have never ever been trained in your life. I am even skeptical you can withstand our beginner self-defense class, but you can prove me wrong."

I blink again.

That easy? Is she pitying me?

"I will remind you again," Athena tells me, "I am not a soft teacher. I need to see progress every day and you will need to keep up with my pace. If you can't, go back to hiding in Lyall's room."

Forget those buds of hopes that were torn because of Lyall, I have new hope blooming inside me. I can be my own hero. And I will work for it.

Right as soon as my mouth is forming a smile, I hear the warrior that was previously thrown in my direction groan in pain when he tries to stand. His ankle is twisted at an awkward angle and he looks horrified by it.

But Athena only clicks her tongue and says, "You should be more careful, Wyatt. Go to the infirmary and take a two-day break to heal yourself."

"Oh, I can help faster." I jump to the man's side, crouch down near his leg, and take off his boot.

"You think you can heal a twisted ankle faster than our royal healers?" Athena asks with a mocking undertone. "He would need two days in the infirmary. I thought you wanted to start your self-defense class as soon as possible..."

Her voice, however, dies down when she sees my glowing hand on Wyatt's ankle. The warrior's bones bend in the direction I nudge them to, until they form the perfect biological ankle. I also soothe the redness and swollen skin. In just a matter of a few minutes, the ankle has healed perfectly.

Two days? Did she say the lycan royal healers would need two days to heal a broken ankle?

Before I can ask further, my chest feels like being tugged. My wolf is too late to warn me as I smell the musk and coffee scent I have been familiar with.

I see the pair of heavy, dark boots behind the warrior I just healed first. Then I feel the warrior's entire body trembling as the Lycan King hovers on top of us with a menacing aura.

Slowly, I look up. And I see a pair of green eyes looking at me with so much darkness brewing inside them.

I take back that Athena is the much angrier version of Lyall.

Apparently, I have not seen the dark side of the lycan king...

...until now.

–to be continued

Copyright @ Karasmara, 2021.