Inevitable Conclusions

Chapter- Three

Chapter- Three

Astrid is really good at sneaking out, good enough not to alert the hyper vigilant wolves with all their higher senses. So it’s not much of a surprise that she’s sneaked out to the grounds of the Mating Festivals multiple times before she is actually authorized to be there by the werewolves. She’s been to the mansions were different packs resided, she got into the kitchen of one of the Royal parties, she was in search for a human and usually stuck within the human crowd that no one noticed, but this time it was different.

It’s mostly the timing, all her previous exploits has been in the first week of the festival, mostly in the day time where the human slaves were more common in their hurry to get things done for the werewolves, but currently it was the starting of the last week of the festival, the sun has set a few hours ago, the whole city seemed to be packed with werewolves rushing in from one party to the other and most importantly she has a thirteen year old werewolf chained in the backyard of one of the Royal mansions that she was meant to be watching over.

No literally, there was a half turned preteen werewolf growling at her and threatening her body harm while Astrid was meant to make sure that nobody actually ever harms the girl, it’s a sick sort of irony that is mostly seen within the werewolf community whose wits were basically none. In mere seconds, it seemed all her plans of sneaking into the back and doing some good old socializing with rest of the human slaves had entirely vanished.

It was quite a good opportunity too, unlike the rest of the mansions and outhouses the normal packs stayed in any property belonging to the Royal family were extremely hard to sneak into due to the high security. In the whole month since she arrived to the city she had only managed to sneak into one of the quieter Royal mansions, and that too was in the middle of the night in pouring rain to avoid being scented by the guards. Other than a mild cold she hadn’t gained much from the expedition either, and when she finally did get the authorization to be in Royal grounds she was stuck in dark lonely corner babysitting a half feral werewolf.

This time it wasn’t even her fault, honestly, Astrid has been on her best behavior since she heard that the Vikram pack would be taking the slaves with them to the Festivals, well best behavior in comparison to her usual attitude. It was whole heartedly the kid’s fault if anyone was to be blamed, or maybe the Alpha Vikram who assumed a pre-teen would be ready to be in a relationship with the Royal family; she was just on babysitting duty.

Technically everyone could attend the Mating Festivals, as far as she knew the theory was just the idea if meeting people, everything that came after, marriage, or mere friendship, or the babies was solely up to the werewolves, but only a rare few packs and their chosen got into the exclusive gatherings by the Royal family, where presumably wolves from the royal blood line choose their future beaus. The Vikram pack might not be prestigious enough, but they were large enough that the Alpha was invited, and since the Alpha Vikram was a happily mated greying old lady, she had a wide selections on kids and grandkids and she choose the prissy thirteen year old among them to present to the Royal family.

The kid apparently did something un-wolf like in front of everyone that her mother had more or less dragged her outside, forced her into a half shifted state where she couldn’t speak, tied her onto a post in the seemingly secluded backyard and ordered Astrid to watch over her. It was a full moon, which meant the wolves were extremely agitated, these parties sometimes got intense when so many Alphas were in the same room in a territory that wasn’t their own, and when they couldn’t take it out on each other some dickish werewolves went for the weakest member which would no doubt be an unguarded pre-teen forced out of her mind, the ironic part was that they entrusted the slave who was legally not allowed to harm a hair over a single werewolf if something did happen with the kid.

The kid was still growling and whining, feeling the detachment of her pack, the full moon was not helping her case because there were more werewolves roaming around now, entirely shifted to enjoy the night. Apparently the secluded part of the garden wasn’t as secluded as she thought it would be. All the whining and growling was now starting to earn the shifted wolves’ attention, some of the growling back in return and flashing their eyes and fangs at them. Most of the wolves eventually turned back and roamed in another direction, thankfully choosing not to make a scene and hurt the defenseless thirteen year old, but not every wolf is quite as decent it seems.

“s**t” she cursed under her breath when one of them started moving closer to them, the eyes were blue, Beta but that wasn’t much of a relief considering the werewolf by her side was thirteen, tied to a post and Astrid was an actual defenseless human.

She quickly turned back to the growling kid, taking a few steps closer with her hands held high in front of her hoping that translated the same in wolf form too. The girl made a motion to jump at her and Astrid flinched back, but kept her balance.

“Okay, you don’t like me I get that. You need to calm down okay?- Please, or you are gonna get both of us killed here, well me killed and you hurt- So can you just calm down , quit it, right now! Please” Astrid starts talking; trying to keep her voice as low as possible in order not to alarm the kid further and also because she didn’t know the exact hearing range of wolves, they probably wouldn’t appreciate the mentioning of death anyway.

She doesn’t have time to bother with worrying about the tone of her voice because the shifted wolf seems to have made up its mind and was distinctly approaching them.

“Dude-Come on!-I don’t even know what your name is, Stop f*****g growling okay? Good Wolfy?-God, Calm down, it’s alright-It’s alright” she swears out just as the kid started getting more restless at the sight of the approaching wolf, causing the kid to growl warningly, which is all that the other wolf wanted to hear it seems because in seconds the wolf’s pace increases as he trudges towards them.

“No- No- No!” She swears just as she finally gets a hand on the kid, the kid doesn’t care about Astrid anymore, more interested in the approaching werewolf. Astrid cautiously keeps a hand on her half shifted shoulder, trying to coax the young girl back.

The wolf pounces before Astrid even notices it, the force of the motion is so strong that Astrid falls to the ground with a loud thud despite the grip she had on the kid. Her head is searing for a second as she tries to open her eyes in the dazing pain, the first thing she notes is the giant contrast between a fully shifted wolf and the half- shifted thirteen year old that is under the wolf, the wolf seemingly trying to bite at the girl.

The kid finally seems to understand that she isn’t winning here because in seconds she howls loudly, Astrid doesn’t need to be a werewolf to know it’s a call for help born out of pain. Astrid knows she should stand down now, the kid’s pack will be rushing out in minutes, but the wolf keeps clawing flashing lewd fangs at the tiny kid it has under him, there is another sharp scratch of claws on the girl’s face that spills blood and Astrid simply can’t stop herself before she is jumping in and trying to push the older wolf back.

An action that yields zero result as the wolf simply growls harder, but the next time the claws come down it’s right through Astrid’s shoulders scratching across her chest as her shirt rips and blood gives away.

In hindsight, between the searing pain all across her body she notes that the wolf finally steps away from them, maybe at the scent of human blood which he wouldn’t have expected. Then there is more growling and howling coming from her surroundings which eventually turns to words, but all she can feel at the moment is that she has more or less got her chest ripped off that she doesn’t even bother to look.

She doesn’t die, that’s the first the she notes when she finally opens her eyes without wanting to swear out loud for three hours due to the pain. Then she recalls a lot of angry words, conversation invoking more growling and fangs and a lot of insults aimed at her from multiple werewolves all involving ‘human scum’, ‘filthy pollutant blood’ and a long list of death threats and punishment all aimed at her. She hadn’t passed out exactly, if she still passed out of a little pain that would be an insult to everything else she suffered, but that didn’t mean she was wide awake and conscious enough to nod along to every death threat and insults given to her by too many different packs all the while her f*****g shoulder was ripped off.

“Your shoulder isn’t ripped off” it seems she said that last part out loud because that is the first comprehendible word she hears and the speaker is a thin black-haired boy who is crouched down next to her, his hands holding way too much bloody bandages and cotton all the while he looked like he was having a panic attack at the sight of too much blood.

“Uh- Sorry I have no idea what I am doing” the guy admits, “I was here cleaning the floors and one of the Masters just told me to take you away and take care of-of this- and I am so sorry, but I have no idea what to do and the blood makes me want to throw up a little-But your shoulder isn’t ripped off though, well it doesn’t look like that at least-Oh god!- That’s really bad-” the guy really does look like he is going to faint any second.

“Don’t throw up on top of me” she warns first and foremost as she tries to sit up a little straighter and stop slouching on the nauseous boy who could potentially barf all over her, “Are any of my internal organs visible?” she asks next because she can’t quite turn her neck down and look without the pain getting even worse.

“Uh, No- not really” her answers, ”Uh the mark stops right before your huh-b-boobs” he stutters the word out, blushing all the while at the words that Astrid presumes the human boy is not any older than seventeen or so and completely unaware of female anatomy as he is currently looking like a blushing bride.

“Ohh, whatever was I going to do if my boobs were scratched of?” she asks sarcastically just to watch the guy squirm a little. She pokes around with the unharmed arm to see the damage and notices that most of the blood is coming from her shoulders, which is the only deep cut it seems and the rest of the line that stretches to tip her sternum are just some long scratches by this point.

They are inside one of the mansions, but besides the two of them the place seems to be empty, there are a couple of mops, wet floor signs and other cleaning equipment’s by a trolley in a corner right next to where she is slouching with the strange boy, but besides that the place seem to be deserted, makes sense considering the boy was here to clean the place up, so the occupant werewolves must not be around.

With a little help from the guy she manages to stop the bleeding and get most of the claw marks bandaged of, Astrid’s bandaged herself way too many times that she doesn’t even stress about it, thankfully the kid was good at taking instructions despite his nausea that the process is just made easier.

“That was stupid thing that you did, you know? You could have like died” the kid, Mato- he had introduced himself as he bandaged her up- said warningly, “But I saw what the werewolf was doing, I guess he would have hurt the kid pretty badly huh? Still pretty stupid though- That werewolf kid would have healed and stuff and you are just, very bloody” Mato goes on just as Astrid places the last of her bandages around her torso.

“Save me the speech kid, Am I getting punished or not?” she asks simply, the only thing that mattered when it came down to it. She might not have actually ever harmed the wolf, but from the long list of insults she heard it seems the other wolf was pissed off at the very idea of her blood getting caught in his claws and when it came down to it the Vikram Alpha would rather give her to the other pack to be punished rather than bring bad name to themselves.

“I don’t really know” it seems the kid didn’t know anything at all, “Well both the Alphas seemed angry, they are still talking now- but one of the betas of your pack gave me the medicine and all the bandages, so that means they wouldn’t let you get hurt that easily right? - I mean you saved that kid” ah, childish logic that still persisted in years of slavery, now that was something rare. That also explained Mato’s lack of reaction at her wrist, either he didn’t know just what it was or he hadn’t noticed with all the blood and wounds.

Astrid gladly takes the painkiller offered to her and pockets it, it won’t be enough but she could save it for when the pain gets worse, now the excess adrenaline in her system was helping in subsiding the ache.

“Sure” she smiles for the teen, “Hey Mato, which pack do you work under?” she asks, the only thing she is actually interested in right now, she hoped Mato knew that at least.

“Vincent- Rovers Pack, we were lent to work in the castle grounds for the Mating Festivals. Why?” he looks curious.

“Ever heard of the name Isabella Baxter?- A woman in her late twenties, blond hair, green eyes” she asks even though she doesn’t have much hope by this point, but she does have to try no matter how stupid her companion might seem.

“Uh, No- Should I?”

“Never mind. It’s fine” And it is, it really is perfectly fine, she tells herself despite the despairing emotion that wells in her every single time she gets the answer regardless of the number of times she has heard the same reply. “It’s okay, you can go back to whatever you were doing before you got dragged along, I’ll clean up the rest of it myself, Is there a toilet or something I can use?” she asks as she tries to get back on her feet.

Adding to her shirt being ripped and torn due to the claws, the front of her previously white shirt was a sick shade of red with new blood. The wolves would just get even more angsty at the sight and smell of human blood that there is a good chance another wolf could jump out and rip her into tiny pieces, or just get insulted at the sight of human blood again. So she needed to get some degree of clean and scrub the blood away even if it might agitate her bandages.

Mato helps her up, and only takes his hands off her once he is sure she can stand by herself and the blood loss hadn’t affected her.

“The slaves toilet are all outside, it’s very far away, you can just use one in the castle- trust me there is lot - other than a couple of slaves no one is here because we are meant to be cleaning the place spotless for another one of these parties, even if someone sees you, you can just say you are one of the cleaning staff” Mato jumps a little, seemingly proud of himself at having thought up the idea.

“That-That would be pretty helpful actually, Thanks Mato” she says genuinely.

Mato smiles kindly at her before he jumps again.

“Oh, I have an extra Shirt! I brought it along just in case I had to do something messy, but you obviously need it more than I need do- Uh, it hasn’t been in the wash in a while though” he adds and flourishes away until he takes out a small bag from the corner of the room next to the cleaning equipment, and just as he said he hands a soft blue shirt with a few stains and just a couple of strands bitten off.

“Do I look like I am in any condition to be picky about cloths?” she asks as she gladly accepts the clothing, feeling tremendously grateful. Mato simply smiles again.

“Hopefully I’ll see you around” he waves her goodbye as Astrid starts walking towards the nearest toilet according to Mato’s directions. Astrid doesn’t return the words because she can’t promise that back, not when she had no idea what this little tussle with the werewolf cost her.

The mansion she was currently in was unnecessarily complex, with too many useless twists, turns and just plain ugly paintings hanging all around the walls, that added to the fact she was currently injured and have no doubt lost enough blood for Mato to clean up for the night, it meant that Astrid was kind of confused despite the instructions the younger boy helpfully provided. She understood that the wolves had stronger senses all around and didn’t get confused or lost, but that didn’t actually validate making housing structures so uselessly puzzling, it’s a royal thing she presumes, because she has been in other mansions and some of the richer packs, and while she will admit not many packs favored wits these days, none of them turned their fancy villas into hardcore mazes either.

She finally manages to spot a relatively empty toilet in one of the silent sections of the mansion, She couldn’t spot any wolf or human in sight, the large front door was closed, the lights dimmed, and the hall seemed messier than the rest of sections of the mansion, which meant the cleaning staff hadn’t been to the room yet and she could finally be alone to swear out loud without wolves or humans overhearing her and glaring at the trackers.

So it’s understandable that she is cursing out any and everything she can think of as she finally trudges into the washroom, more or less showing the door open in her hurry. The first thing she does is turn the water on and take a large gulp of it from the faucet, she is thirsty which is something she hadn’t even noticed in the searing pain and trying to suppress the said searing pain in front of an already traumatized Mato, her shoulder aches when she bends down to drink the water, but her dehydration has finally trumped over her pain that she doesn’t stop until her stomach seems to finally stop growling.

Her shoulder stings even worse when she straightens up again. Three is a large mirror perched on the wall, reflecting her tattered state. Her shirt is pretty much useless, with the whole collar of it more or less ripped off, exposing her newly bandaged collar bone, shoulder and sternum, there is blood scattered to her neck and cheeks, most of it already dried up that she can finally smell the stench of it when she bothered to take in a few deep breaths, but on a happier note it seems her bandages are holding up pretty well, other than the dark dab of blood at the origin of her injuries the rest of the marks have stopped bleeding.

She has to rip the shirt the rest of the way to get it off, because she is pretty sure she can’t actually lift her bruised shoulder right now to take it off otherwise, fortunately the shirt Mato lent her was one with buttons, it will take some effort but Astrid presumes she could look presentable enough to walk back to the Vikram pack, that is if the Alpha allows her. She doesn’t dwell on the thought further knowing full on well that there is nothing her complaining and anxiety could do to help her situation, the Vikram Pack weren’t huge asshole, they had given her meds after all, not a lot of packs bothers with damaged slaves if they didn’t want them around.

She manages to get the now sticky shirt of her skin and under the running faucet to get rid of some of the blood, before dabbing it over her skin to get remove of the excess dried blood on her skin. She is too focused on the action all the while trying not to scream or swear in pain that she almost misses the light whistle that reverberates in the empty bathroom, but the sound is too contrasting in the eerie calm of the flow of the water that Astrid snaps into attention in seconds, she turns around quickly, sparing the pain at the sudden action.

One of the bathroom stalls in the corner is wide open, she had completely missed it in her hurry to drink rehydrate herself and swear up a storm, but what she couldn’t miss right now was the man inside the stall, slumped over a toilet bowl, his cloths ripped open, displaying the crisscrossing scars of claw marks on his chest and back, all still oozing crimson red as he stared at her with wide eyes and a smirk that didn’t meet his wrecked face.

He drawls something out Astrid can’t understand, but then coughs out loud and within seconds he is barfing out his stomach’s contents onto the floor, seemingly not even having the strength to turn towards the toilet he was sitting right next to. She presumes he is the one who whistled because he still has that unnatural smirk like he knows something she doesn’t even though he looked completely out of his mind. She takes a second to observe the guy, utterly confused at the sight of a clawed open man throwing up in one of the better parts of the royal mansion.

The first thing she notes is obviously the blood and the scars, she presumes she is conditioned to it by now, the ability to note out every bruise and break in soft skin whether it be hers or others, but yet despite all her experience when it comes to the sight of blood, and specifically werewolf claw marks- her own current bandaged cuts included in that list- seeing the guy with blood and scars still alerts something inside her, the same something that had prompted her to jump in the middle of a fully turned werewolf and half turned thirteen year old who couldn’t defend herself, it’s not a good thing, such a tendency to intervene when she knows she shouldn’t for her own sake, the still drying blood on her skin can attest to that. The reason she is startled is maybe because the guy looks different than the other slaves she has met in all of her existence, and that was quite a lot of human slaves.

His eyes were surprisingly intense, as if he was actually pretty alarmed at her sight but yet forced to be loose limbed and pliant, despite the marks on him he looked well, almost worryingly so, the kind of gorgeous that demanded attention. He didn’t look malnourished and starved like the rest of them, but rather healthy and the cloths that weren’t ripped off and falling of off him was nicer than anything Astrid has worn in her life. The last thing she notes is the bite marks all across his body, multiple bite marks and in a startling second it makes sense.

The scars, the blood, the hollowed out look and most particularly the placing of the claws on his skin, marks she had seen before and dreaded, marks many depraved werewolves and brothel owners no doubt wanted to place on her every time they seized her up at an auction.

“And for a second there, I actually thought I was the only one who f****d up tonight” Astrid says the words out before she can stop herself.

She looks at the body of the man and her mind reels back to her childhood where she had watched similar marks stretch across familiar skin, for a second she is all of six years old forced to hide, to keep quiet and watch all for the sake of her protection.

There is second where the guy’s eyes bore into hers, his façade of a smirk seemingly disappearing for a moment, a second where Astrid freezes at the intensity of the stare on her, a second that seemingly lasts for way too long, in the end Astrid takes a cautious step forwards, for once in her life not entirely sure of just what she is stepping towards….