บท 9: The Figure In Black
"You've schooled your servant well, it seems." Alpha Dahmer didn't hesitate to begin another one of his charades, his voice dripping with malice as he addressed Esme, but she remained provokingly quiet.
When news of her demise reached his ears, he was a bit bothered by the end result.
He deliberately withheld this information from the rest of the pack, fearing that his actions would tarnish his hard-won reputation and undermine the very power he had maneuvered so ruthlessly to attain.
Esme's body was not able to withstand such torture, but he was so angry that he acted blindly without thinking about the consequences it would impact on him later. He wished she wasn't a Montague, he wished he was the one who had been born under the Montague name, cause if he was, he would have been blessed with the moon goddess's gift, and he wouldn't have to entangle himself in a web of deceit, just to become an Alpha.
It was because of her and no one else. She is the architect of his problem.
As he loomed over her, he was acutely aware of the fear that radiated off her, but beneath the surface of her terror, there was something else about her he couldn't pinpoint. Her changed aura disturbed him.
"A little performance, wasn't it?" he jeered, "faking your own death must have been a brilliant strategy for you to incriminate me. Perhaps I should reduce you to ashes, right here, right now." he snarled, but both of them knew that as much as he desired it, he could not.
Esme didn't have the strength to retort and stayed quiet. Even if she said something to defend herself, Dahmer would hit her, and what she experienced so far was enough to keep her mouth shut for the meantime.
She hadn't realized that Dahmer was busy scrutinizing her shorn locks until he asked. "Why did you mutilate our heritage? Did you fail to remind your pathetic self the reason why you bear this hair in the first place?" his voice was calm as he began a conversation, and Esme wondered where this gentleness was coming from.
He drew closer, pulling a chair beside her bed and forcing Esme to recoil. Her gaze darted away from his piercing stare, but he ignored her paranoia and continued.
"Long time ago," he reclined in his chair. "The ancient Montagues were blessed by the Luna deity, who granted them the gift of blue hair. The deity made a promise that as long as the blue hair was preserved, our family and our packs would thrive. You on the other hand, you seem cursed from the moment of birth. You not only lack a wolf, but you are weak and disconnected from the moon's power, unlike my brother Finnian, who was able to transform at such a young age, and he is infused with the lunar essence, despite having two mixed colors of hairs."
He sneered. "The problem isn't your hair, Esme, but your very existence. By coming to this world alone, you've brought death to your mother during her delivery, and your mere presence was the catalyst for our father's demise. And as if that weren't enough, you're wolf-less, an aberration in our pack. What I tried to do for you should have been a favor in your eyes, cause you're a burden, a useless appendage."
He took a pause and leaned forward. "You asked me before why I hated you, why I despise you so much that I want to murder you, so I'm telling you this, I hate you because you're the reason our father never loved my mother. I hate you because you're the reason he rejected Finnian cause he didn't want a child from my mother. You are the reason why I'm like this! You did this to me! And it hurts me every single time I see Finnian standing up for someone like you! Your father never really loved my mother since the day he married her, and he only married her so you could have a mother. Every decision he made, every action he took was to benefit you and you alone. But what about us? Our feelings, our worth??"
Esme shook her head when he finally poured out his feelings, and she tried her best to clear out the misunderstanding he had. "You're mistaken about Father! Father loved all of us and he always had our best interest at heart! He was only being careful about his emotions but he…"
Dahmer threw his head back and laughed, cutting her mid-sentence. "Save your silly excuses for someone who's desperate to hear them. Stop trying to be the good one in this story! He is no more, so don't give me that baseless crap! You should worry about yourself from now on, cause even the moon goddess herself seems to have abandoned you. It leaves me wondering, why bother pretending to live at all? You're a constant reminder of failure, a liability no one wants or needs. If I were in your shoes, I'd take the merciful route and end my own suffering. Ah… yes, we tried that already, but even death itself seems to have rejected you, a cruel irony you turned out to be in the end."
"Dahmer…" Esme could not believe he said all those hurtful things to her.
He met her shattered gaze, and he felt satisfaction from the way she looked at him—a broken little thing, that was what he wanted her to feel, to experience. He rose to his feet and turned to leave, but paused at the door.
"Stay in your chambers and never show your ugly face to the world again." He slammed the door after leaving, causing her body to jerk at the loud bang. The silence that followed was short-lived, as Vivienne stepped into the room after his exit.
—----～♡～--------
In a sunken fortress located near the black river in Illyria, a shadowed figure dressed in sable attire crossed the threshold of the dark citadel.
The fortress was forged from a mysterious, gleaming obsidian stone that stood as a sentinel against intruders, forbidding any souls from breaching past the walls. But, the fortress's protection was not enough to condemn the figure who strolled in, his steps unhurried and unbothered, like he owned the place.
The guards stationed at the building's main entrance grew tense as a figure in black emerged from the murky mist beyond the giant gates. He paused mid-stride, and the two guards exchanged wary glances before settling it on the figure ahead.
Swathed in a voluminous black cloak that billowed behind him, the intruder's hood casted a deep shadow over his visage, rendering it impossible for the guards to discern his features. The wind howled in their ears, but the guardians of the fortress refused to submit to the underlying threat whispered to them.
These guardians have long manned their post, aware that those who sought entry to the fortress held no benevolent intention in mind. If they did, they wouldn't be here.
"State your mission." One of the guards stepped forward to question the intruder, his tone demanding, whilst his hand rested on the hilt of his blade, his grip tightening against the leather.
"You aren't allowed to be here. This environment is forbidden to all but the initiated. Leave at once!" The guard's voice was stern as he commanded, making the consequences of his defiance known by unsheathing his blade, but the figure ahead tilted his head.
In a slow, deliberate motion, the figure reached for something at his belt, the eyes of the guard tailing his movement, but what followed defied comprehension or logic. It was an act so swift and terrible, it seemed like the work of dark magic.
The guards stood frozen when the figure casually turned his back to them, but something was disturbingly off. His fingers were bloody, and blood dripped from the four star blades clutched between them. With a voice that sounded husky, he muttered a word.
"One, two…"
As if on cue, the heads of the two guards fell from their neck, neatly sliced off and not even the guards themselves realized till it was too late. Their bodies crumpled to the ground in a sickening thud, and the figure turned his head slightly to the side when he heard the sounds of an alarm bell being rang.
"THE FORTRESS IS UNDER ATTACK!! THE FORTRESS IS UNDER ATTACK!!"
The guard in charge of the bell made the announcement from up the tower, alerting the patrolling guards below, but he was soon silenced when a star blade connected with his neck.
The gruesome scene triggered the guards who rushed to the entrance to be met with the dead bodies of their fellow comrade. They charged at the intruder with a face scrunched in anger and fear, their bodies shifting into wolves mid-air as they lunged at the figure.
A few minutes later, the figure in black strode purposefully through the silent hallway, the fetid stench of blood and death clinging heavily in the air. The sounds of his boot echoed through the stone passage as he ascended the staircase, punctuated by the soft thud of someone's head being kicked aside.
Entering the fortress's main core, the figure approached the oak tree that had been magically planted in the heart of the fortress. The once healthy tree had turned dry, twisted and gnarled over the years, with crimson, cable-like threads that look like nerves, stretching through the trunks, stems and branches.
The roots formed an impenetrable barrier to restrict anyone from getting close, but the figure remained unfazed at the sight. With a deliberate slowness, he raised his hand, and the air seemed to shimmer with a dark energy as he manipulated the roots with an unseen force, parting them to create a path, and he moved.
He stopped before the dead looking oak tree and placed his palm against the tree trunk. In an instant, the nerves on the trees began to pierce through his skin, entering his body and spreading throughout his entire system.
He groaned from the pain, his body trembling from the burning sensation that shot through him, but he didn't stop — he would never stop, not until every bundle of nerves, every power that was stolen from him were consumed by him. The crimson cables vanished, and the figure looked at his trembling hand to see the nerves pulsing inside of him before settling down.
He exhaled in relief, and a low, menacing chuckle followed, whilst he clenched his palm tightly.
"Finally." From beneath his dark cloak, he grinned, revealing sharp canines that glinted at the tip.
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