Heart Of The Lycan Queen

1. Why Am I Alive?

The wildness inside you can't be contained.

~

(Elian)

The knife was sharp and blood oozed, warm, down her shirt. Someone was calling her name. But she... she was softly cloaked in darkness.

"Hey, wake up, El. El, you lazy idi0t, wake up." The voice was familiar, but Elian didn't want to wake up. Her head was pounding and her whole body was screaming in agony. "Hey, El... you sleeping monster... waking you up is like..."

Elian opened her eyes and her heart shuddered and stopped when she looked at the woman bent over her. Her heart beat turned violent...

Elian grabbed her dagger that was always under her pillow, as she kicked the woman in her gut. She jumped up from her bed and pushed her against the wall, pointing the tip of the dagger to the hollow of her throat...

"Do not f*cking move." Elian hissed as she blinked her sleep away. "F*cking stand there, right there."

Robyn Gere pushed her hands away.

"What the f*ck are you doing, El?" Robyn asked.

Robyn looked like the Robyn Elian had always known, and she wasn't the murderous b*tch she was last night.

Last night was...

Elian took the dagger back from Robyn, and warily looked at the tall woman in front of her. The bitch...had killed her!

Was that just a dream?

She looked at the room and realized this wasn't the cottage she shared with Blake. This was a room in the Order Of Amethyst's main house. The main house she had been living in, before Blake and she had finally moved in to their own cottage, together.

How was she here? Why was she here? Was yesterday night just a horrible, oddly realistic nightmare?

She tried to wake her brain up from its fugue state.

"God, a dagger in the throat for trying to wake you up? I should have said no like Zoey." Robyn said as she stepped away from Elian. "What was that, El?" Robyn looked irritated.

"Bad dream." Elian muttered, but she wasn't sure what it was. Was it really a dream? If it was, why did it feel so real? She could still almost feel the pain in her body.

"Must be one heck of a dream. Lafayette's initiation starts in an hour, and you don't want to be late."

"I don't even want to be there." Elian muttered as she looked at Robyn's vanishing back.

As far as Elian could remember, Lafayette's initiation was six months ago, and just a few hours ago, the woman walking away from her had hunted her like an animal with eight other hunters... Elian had fought, until the knife... and before she knew it, here she was...

NOT DEAD!

What the actual f*ck is happening here?

She thought about everything that had happened last night and wondered whether it was real or not!

If it was real, why would anyone want to kill her? She had so many questions, and no answer at all.

***

Elian stared at the daughter of her adoptive parents. Sister was too loving a word for Lafayette, anyway. Once upon a time, Elian wouldn't have minded using that word, but once upon a time was long gone.

"I, Lafayette Knight, swear to protect the weak and the frail with everything I have. I vow to follow the rules and take my powers, not for granted. I avow to only use my power to see through the darkest night to hunt the creatures that feed on the vulnerable. With this mark," Lafayette said as she cut a small s***h with the dagger in her hand, and the amethyst on the hilt shone in the sunlight.

Lafayette's hair shone like spun silk in the morning light. Her soft lavender dress made her look like an innocent girl, which she was not.

The weak and the frail... F*ck you, assholes. Elian thought with a snarky look in the general direction of Lafayette.

Elian was neither weak, nor frail. She was the strongest warrior these Hunters ever had, but they wouldn't be willing to accept it.

Lafee was talking about humans, like Elian, of course, but Lafee didn't know how amazingly incredible humans could be. They had survived years and years, without any real power, like the creatures of the night or the elite hunters that hunted them... without knowing these beasts existed and still, they had survived.

Elian's parents died—no, they were murdered— when she was just a baby and Elian was adopted and raised by Soren Knight and Rosanna Knight.

They were both members of the Order of Amethyst, a group of elite hunters. They hunted supernatural creatures lurking in the shadows of the night.

Elian lived in one of the biggest towns in North America, Faleah, where most of the supernaturals lived, because of the large forests and woods around.

To fit in with the elite hunters, Elian had started training before she could fully talk.

She had trained day and night, and eventually she became the best warrior and hunter, and yet... she would always be the outsider, because she was a stray, and she was not a hunter by blood.

They all believed that Elian was the lowest of the lowest, just because she didn't have any real power. Like Lafee, who had night vision. No, not goggles. Actual night vision.

Elian's fiance, Blake Woods, had super quick reflex.

Elian had worked twice as long and twice as hard, to match up with them. To be on their level. She had given her everything to train to get to where she was now.

Now she could fight against half of the hunters with power, and she could still win. And they called her weak. They were all such snobbish, arrogant assholes, except a very few. If she had a choice, she would have left them long ago, but she couldn't.

She was born to hunt the shape-shifting evil monsters that had killed her parents. She was born to be a hunter, blood or no blood. This was her destiny. Killing werewolves was her destiny.

'Oh the irony!' A voice mocked inside her head.

Elian stared at Lafee as she continued on and on about how she would serve humans. She scoffed loudly, interrupting Lafee's memorized speech.

As if Lafee was going to give two f*cks about humans and whether they lived or not!

"What f*cking balderdash..." There. She said it!

Hunters standing around looked at Elian and they all gave her a glare. She defiantly pushed her chin up and glared back. She was no weakling to wither under their gaze.

Elian had said the exact same thing the first time, too.

Yes. She did.

It was like a- a strange déjà vu, or maybe it was not. Elian knew she had lived this day before in her life. Six months ago.

She was sure this was not the figment of her imagination or a nightmare.

If she was right, now her best friend would elbow her in-

Zoey elbowed Elian subtly on her side, when no one else was looking, as she hissed at Elian to stop. Elian's eyes widened. She was either a clairvoyant, or she was living the same life, all over again.

Both of the options sounded too far-fetched. But she was already leaning closer to the second option.

The thing she thought of as a dream, was not a dream.

Or maybe I am just going insane, she thought with a frown.

'Here she is at it again!' The voice snorted inside her head. She was sure she had heard the voice that night... no, yesterday night... her eyes widened in disbelief.

Elian stared at the dagger in Lafee's hand and her eyes widened as a flash passed through her head. She saw the blood dripping from the cut on Lafee's hand. Elian heard the hiss of the blood as it melted to the ground.

Elian's vision blurred and for a second, she saw the dark red blood oozing through the beige silk blouse she was wearing, staining it red. She blinked her eyes, as fear pulsed through her body. When she opened her eyes again, the blood was gone.

Am I hallucinating? She thought to herself as she rubbed her forehead. She was feeling hot and sweaty and her breath came out in a panicky gasp.

Her hands crept towards her stomach and she winced as she touched exactly where the knife had pierced her insides.

No, this isn’t right. This shouldn't be. I was dead. I- I can still feel it... the sharp sting of the blade as it cut through my skin. I can still feel the heat of my oozing blood, the rush of the cold air.

She looked at the people around her, stunned. People she had known all her life. And nine of them had killed her.

Nine hunters, nine people she had trained with, ran with, hunted with... they had attacked her like she was a rabid animal on a full moon, and then one of them had plunged the knife in her back... as Robyn, one of her best friends, watched.

She was lying on the ground, blood oozing out of her wounds, screams of pain leaving her lips in a whimper.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because you are an abomination." 

"Sleep, darling, sleep."

Her body shuddered at the thought of the horrible night.

But she was here... alive and in the exact same day her life would start to go horribly wrong.

This was the same day she would meet him, the onyx wolf with the most beautiful—no, horrible fur, and then, the next day, the man would come to her dreams. He would call to her blood, call to her body and she would give in. Every time.

Her cheeks flushed when she remembered the dreams.

They were always... always so steamy and sexy. Full of feelings Elian couldn't ever explain.

And six months later, she would be betrayed by the people she had believed her own. And one of them would be her best friend.

"-with this mark, I pledge myself to the order of Amethyst." Lafayette finished as she poured the blood over the Violet Amethyst on the hilt of the dagger. The violet stone turned a dark red before the stone glowed.

A tall man in his sixties stood up from the chair he was sitting. Lafee smiled at him and handed her dagger to him with a bow. He grabbed it and then touched the tip of it on his head before he handed it back to Lafee.

Elian touched her own dagger to make sure it was still there and it was. But her dagger wasn't given to her at the ceremony. She had bought it with her own money. To the hunters, her dagger was just a silly prop, but Elian loved it, nonetheless.

In fact, Elian didn't have a swearing-in ceremony when she turned eighteen. Only 'real' hunters had the ceremony when they turned eighteen and Elian was fake, wasn't she? They would never accept her as their own, even though she considered them her own!

When Lafee's ceremony was over, after she officially became a member of the Order of Amethyst, everyone walked towards Lafee to congratulate her. There were cheers, there were songs, there was food.

This was also Lafee's birthday celebration. She turned eighteen two days ago. Every 'real' hunter got their special powers when they turned eighteen.

It was not exactly a great power, but it was a power nonetheless. Some had night vision. Some had scent tracking. Some had great speed. Some had inhuman strength.

"Why am I alive?" Elian mumbled as she walked away from the crowd.

'You are given another chance.' The voice said. The same voice that asked her to run yesterday.

Another chance? What the heck did it mean?

"You- you were there yesterday."

'I asked you to run.' The voice said. 'And like a dumbass, you stayed.'

Elian scoffed. Who in their right mind would listen to a voice in their head? She hadn't, either. So sue her!

And why would she want another chance to live this shitty life where she died in the end without any answers?

'If you choose correctly, you might get to live. And find the answers you want.'

"Is this a damn video game that one can play over and over until your heart runs out?" Elian asked with a sarcastic smile. "What f*cking strangeness is this?"

'You only get one heart. If you die this time, you will stay dead. So please, don't die.' The voice said with a huff.

"I hadn't planned on dying the first time. Not planning to do it the second time, either. But who the hell are you? How do you have all the answers and how did you know they were coming to kill me?"

No answer. Nada. Nope.

"Hey... you? Stalker..." Elian tried again, feeling madder than the mad hatter.

It was radio silence once again.

"When I don't need you, you go blah, blah, blah in my head and now you are gone?" Elian thought and her eyes turned steely when she saw Robyn talking with Blake, smiling, twirling her red hair in her index finger, batting her eyelashes.

She had never really noticed how flirty Robyn was with Blake.

"Oh, b*tch, flirt all you want, but I am coming for you and you will regret the day you chose me to be your enemy."

___