LUNA ASTERBELLE’S POV
A sticky hand held one of my legs as I was about to go out of the basement. In an attempt to kick it away, I caught a glimpse of a woman’s hair. "Lizzy?" I uttered her name before I bent down to grab both of her arms for me to carry. "Lend me your assistance out here for a while, Dawn." I ordered him at the same time that I lent him Lizzy’s right arm, which he carefully wrapped around his shoulders.
"Is she a friend of yours?" Dawn asked along the way out, and I simply shook my head as a response, which made him curious. "If she isn’t, then why are we helping her?"
I breathed in heavily. "Lizzy is just someone I recently knew from the dormitory. She might be friends with Yuki, so my conscience wouldn’t allow me to just leave her behind there. There’s no guarantee that the wolves are totally lifeless now; they might have been pretending to be dead," I answered him.
"You’re hiding something from me, aren’t you?"
I almost stumbled on my own feet because of his sudden query. "There’s nothing to hide from you, Dawn." I lied.
Silence engulfed between us until we arrived at where Dawn left Yuki. She almost freaked out the instant that she turned around at the entrance where we came from.
"What happened to you?" Yuki quickly approached me, then her eyesight shifted to the woman we carried all the way here. "Is that… Lizzy?" she asked, her voice expressing how worried she was.
Dawn made Lizzy appear like she could walk on her own, just for the sake of attempting to lift Yuki’s spirits. "Luna has the explanation for everything that they went through. Yuki, on the other hand, has the reason why those wolves summoned her," he said before he sat on the ground with his eyes closed.
He must be tired.
"Yuki… do you know anyone who could treat Lizzy’s wounds? She’s much more injured than I am."
"It doesn’t look like it, though," she commented. Her upper lip curled a little bit to show disgust at my appearance. "Lizzy can survive on her own. You don’t need to search for a doctor or whoever, as long as she’s around."
Confused as I was, I no longer had any energy to speak further. I sat beside Dawn, waiting for him to push me away. However, he let me stay with him in such a tight spot.
We were currently inside a men’s comfort room, still located in their dormitories. As weird as it sounds, Yuki said that the wolves were coming in and out of the toilet itself. She only needed to close its lid for the summoning spell to cease. She also mentioned how high the possibility was that it was Shin’s doing.
Alpha Shin couldn’t stand the fact that I refused to stay with him, so he must’ve thought that this might be the only plausible way to force me to come back to him.
"Sorry, all of this happened because of me. It’s my fault that the other students had to lose their lives…" I bowed down for a few seconds.
Yuki shook her head, and when she was about to reply, Lizzy suddenly moved. "Where am I?"
The injuries she had earlier vanished like thin dust. A yellow aura flashed through her entire body. And just like that, Lizzy was completely healed. She regained her full consciousness, and she didn’t even look exhausted, unlike the three of us.
"Ah, Miss Asterbelle, I see that you’re finally reunited with King Dawn." She sincerely smiled at me.
"Are you a Shaman?" I asked in pure curiosity.
Lizzy nodded once. "I’m the only Shaman left that’s living in Grimstone. Everyone else of the same kind died years ago."
Just thinking about the existence of Lizzy here made me wonder why their Alpha didn't make use of her powers to heal everyone here who got infected by the disease. "Haven’t you tried removing the main source of the virus in your pack?" I directly asked.
Lizzy seemed troubled; she started biting her nails. "Alpha Shin—I haven’t met him in person yet. I’m too afraid of how he’ll take advantage of me as a Shaman. Merely hearing rumors from the other students is enough to tell me that Alpha Shin is indeed merciless," she answered me with fear in both her eyes and the way she spoke.
"Putting that aside, what’s with all that blood, Luna?" Yuki could no longer contain her curiosity.
I avoided making eye contact with her, thinking that she’d give up after a few minutes. However, Lizzy was the one who gave a response. "Miss Asterbelle ate the wolves in the basement."
Lizzy didn’t even hesitate to say that to Yuki, so I glared at her. "Shut your mouth before I regret saving you," I said irritatedly.
She raised her eyebrows with a shrug. "Were you planning to keep them hidden in the shade? Sorry—"
With a swift motion, I stood from the corner as I quickly grabbed Lizzy by her neck. I strangled her as tight as I could. I thought that my fingers were already buried deep in her neck, but they weren’t.
My entire hands were getting pushed away by such a strong magnetic force. If I had been a second late in stepping back, my fingers would have been completely twisted and crushed. It was as if Lizzy had an invisible pair of hands, which she used to almost leave mine fractured.
"Stop that, both of you." King Dawn tugged on my shirt, which forced me to get behind him. "Someone is fast approaching. Judging by the footsteps, it’s most likely Shin or Nero." Dawn took a peek at the door after he slightly opened it. "It’s Shin," he said in confirmation of who it was.
The puzzles in my mind are beginning to get clearer. If the Alpha intends to come here, then he must know that someone else other than the three of us is here.
"Let’s run away!" I announced.
Exerting all my strength on my right leg and foot, I stomped on the wall. It totally destroyed how it was constructed, though it didn’t ruin the entire building.
I held both Yuki and Lizzy as I ran at an inhumane pace. As much as I wanted to take Dawn with me, I only had two hands. And besides, he can catch up to us no matter how far I get.
"Aren’t you tired of running away yet, my dear Luna?" Shin’s voice echoed through the hallways of the dormitory. "Do you really want to witness the death of all these innocent students?" He was obviously using them to blackmail me.
I was expecting Dawn to follow us, not Shin.
"So that’s the Alpha…" I heard Lizzy whispering to herself.
"And what if I am?" Shin loudly replied, as if he wasn’t far away from us. "That amount of aura is suspicious. You’re a Shaman, aren’t you?" he asked Lizzy, who had no idea what to reply.
I stopped sprinting when I made up my mind to face the Alpha. Although no words seemed to come out of my mouth. My chest felt tight, like someone was preventing me from speaking. I glanced at Lizzy, suspecting that she was the one who did it.
"A-Alpha, I’m Lizzy, a Shaman. You can use me as much as you want, for as long as it would benefit the pack as a whole, or even if it would just be for your own pleasure!" Lizzy answered at the same moment that she blocked Yuki and me.
Dawn managed to arrive just in time. "What’s going on?"
"Shin is probably interested in getting his hands on Lizzy," Yuki replied. "If Shin claims Lizzy, then we would have nobody else to rely on in the academy. She’s the only one capable of bringing us back to life, no matter how impossible it seemed."
Shin smirked upon hearing his sister’s explanation, which he followed up with applause. "I’m impressed that you think of me that way. But your inference is not quite right…"
The Alpha marched towards us, halting in front of Lizzy. He held her chin before he leaned closer to her face. Their noses were brushing against one another, and their lips were only an inch apart.
Shin made Lizzy face the three of us. His hands roamed on her uniform, slowly unbuttoning it. He rested his chin above her left shoulder, slightly turning his head to sniff her from that position.
Lizzy’s hands were trembling. I could feel it from here since I was holding the tips of her fingers, even if we were somehow apart.
"D-do what you want with me, Alpha," she stuttered.
That was the last time that I heard Lizzy’s voice. My ears rang with the sound of Lizzy’s neck cracking when Shin rotated her head with all his might, a full three hundred and sixty degrees.