63. Next Full Moon.
Narrator’s POV.
Sarah ran down the long hallways of the castle with panic evident in her features, she looked like she had seen a deadly ghost as her face had become oddly pale.
She stopped at her room and slipped into the door, taking out her phone quickly with her shaky hands, she wrote a message to the alpha king’s second in command;
You need to come, now. It is really important.
She pressed send and threw her phone on the bed tiredly, taking in deep breaths, she paced round the room impatiently and grabbed her hair in frustration. With the information she had just heard, she knew that the fate of the werewolves rested on the shoulders of she and Fredrick.
Her door burst open and her head immediately turned to it, “I saw your message, what is the matter?”, he looked incredibly panicked and disheveled. She felt guilty for making him worry so much but it was massively urgent; it was a life or death situation.
She took a deep breath before talking, “I overheard Emilia on the phone”, she took a pause and breathed out,
“What did she say?”, his patience was wearing thin, he wanted to know what their next move will be and what scale of worry should he be threading on.
“She is planning on killing the alpha king on the next full moon”, Sarah finally let out. Fredrick eyes widened into saucers,
“That is in two weeks!”, he exclaimed, “Wait, how can she even kill him?”,
“I do not know and I nope not to find out”, she shrugged, “What are we going to do? What is our next line of action?”, Sarah sat on the bed with a huff and Fredrick joined her, he gave her a worried expression and she knew what was coming next.
“You know what we have to do”, he sighed and looked forward, staring at the door like it would solve all their problems,
“Yeah”, she combed her tangled hair with her hands, “I know. I just dread it”, he placed an arm around her and kissed a forehead,
“I am scared too, Sarah, but it is something we have to do. To save both Daphne, the alpha king and the kingdom”, he explained and stood up from the bed, releasing her from his hold, “We will leave at the break of dawn, no excuse is necessary this time”,
“What?”, she asked in confusion and stood up as well,
“We are leaving without telling anyone. We will sneak out this time. On foot, we will get to the vampire territory in about three days, we will spend at least two days looking for the luna queen, hopefully we would find her by then and use about seven days to get to the witch territory. After that, we get to the castle by vehicle and hope to the gods that the alpha king is hale and hearty”, he said all at once. Sarah simply nodded, agreeing to the plan that he had just come up with. It baffled her how incredibly smart he was and it did not come as a shock to her that he was th alpha king’s second in command for his quick wits and ability to formulate sensible plans for difficult situations.
“I will try and sneak us some food”, she suggested,
“You do not worry yourself about things like that, I will take care of them. You should be worrying about how you would get some rest for tomorrow is a big day”, he sounded like a motivational speaker, another thing she found extremely attractive in him.
“Okay then, good night”, she smiled,
He bent his head down and kissed her on both sides of her face, “Good night, beautiful”, she blushed bashfully as he left the room. No one had ever referred to her as beautiful, other than him and maybe Daphne once or twice, but that was it.
They set off the next day, before all the other staff could even blink an eye open, they had snuck out of the castle gates without alerting the guards that were on ‘night patrol’; Fredrick knew that those set of guards usually slept off around midnight and did not bother to bat an eyelid until their shift was over by day break.
It had been almost two and a half days sine they had left the castle and they were finally standing at the borders of the werewolf territory; just one more step further and they would make it into the vampire territory, where no doubt, vampires would have them swarmed.
Fredrick held her hand and gulped, “This is it”,
“This is it”, she repeated his words with a sad smile, he turned to face her and sighed,
“Sarah”, he began, knowing it was possible that they would not make it out of territory even if they made it in.
“Yes?”, she had her neck strained up, anticipating what he was about to say, “I am listening”, her eyes shone in hope, what did he want to say? Would it benefit her in anyway?
“Do not worry”, he dropped her hand and took the leap of faith by stepping forward. She huffed in confusion and silent anger as she also took a step forward and into the vampire territory.
“On the ground now”, it seemed like the vampires had watched and waited for them to cross into their borders. Four men stepped forward with menacing looks on their faces which made Sarah mortified but Fredrick was not in anyway fazed. He had worked with the alpha king for years; he had definitely seen worse.
“State your business”, one of the men said in a robotic tone, like he had said this so many times, it had been permanently imprinted in his brain,
“We are looking for someone”, Fredrick said, “A female werewolf, we were thinking she might be here”,
“A female werewolf, ay?”, one of the men smirked, he was the man that had led Daphne to the vampire lord the day she was captured.
“Yes, female werewolf, do you know if she is here or not”, Fredrick was naturally patient but now, it was wearing thin. They had a time limit and did not have the luxury of being side tracked in anyway,
“What would a female werewolf be looking for on vampire territory?”, one of the men asked, smirking as well. All the guards had been informed about the luna queen seeking refuge on their lands, but they were not to tell anyone of her arrival; it was a direct order from the vampire lord himself.
“We have checked the whole werewolf kingdom from east to west to south to north, we did not find her. We also had the liberty of checking the witch territory but she was not there either, this place is our only hope. The fate of the kingdom rests in this woman’s shoulders”, Fredrick explained,
“We might have seen something, maybe a little something to refresh our memory”, the man was still smirking as he rubbed his hands together. Fredrick rolled his eyes and took out his wallet, giving them a couple convincing notes to share.
“Now would you tell us?”, anger was evident in his eyes as he stood up from the ground with Sarah who was very quiet and unmoving; as bad as it sounded, se was still trying to figure out what Fredrick could have wanted to tell her.
“A small shed, western border. You did not see us, we did not see you”, they were out of sight within a second as they took to their heals, laughing like mad men.
“Damn it”, Fredrick kicked a stone in anger, how could he be so foolish as to give them the money before receiving proper answers,
“Do you think they tricked us?”, Sarah asked, placing her hand on his shoulder,
“They most definitely did”, he growled in anger,
“Shhhhh”, Sarah hissed, “You are going to alert another set of guards”, she reasoned, “Besides, we will never know if it was a lie until we try. He said western border, right? Let us go”, she started to head west and he followed suit, grumbling about how stupid he had been for thinking the vampires would give him the right directions even if Daphne was there.
“My word, Fredrick, that’s the shed, the small shed they were talking about”, Sarah said happily, pointing at the old form of shelter, the shed looked like it could be almost centuries years old,
“We are not sure she is in there”, he shrugged. Personally, he hated pessimism but also hated getting his hopes high, only for it to be crushed later on, another reason he decided against telling Sarah what he wanted to say to her.
“Well, there is only one way to find out”, she stated and skipped happily towards the shed,
“Sarah do not do that, you do not know who actually lives there”, he called out to her, but she was long gone. With a sigh and a rub to the temples, he began to follow her as well, “This woman is going to get us killed”, he muttered to himself, although, her enthusiasm certainly amused him.
She waited at the door for him before knocking on the door, hoping it was the person they wanted and prayed for it to be.
Daphne’s POV.
I was feeding my baby when I heard a knock on the door, it was surprising because I most definitely was not expecting anybody today, or any other day; Eric always came unannounced, not that there was anyway to tell me, seeing as I did not have any communication device.
I knew it could not be Eric, he came here two days ago and he never shows up within a ten-day interval; as I said, he only ever comes three times in a month to check up on me.
I tucked my breast back into my bra and stood up from the bed with DJ in my arms, cautiously, I went over to the door and silently cursed it for not having a peep hole; what kind of door does not have a peep hole.
The knocking came to a stop and I opened the door slowly and gently, I was immediately met with two familiar scents that made my eyes widen and my heart pause for a second, “Am I seeing things?”.