The Lycan King's Puppet-Chapter 79: The Bloody Festival

There were wolves everywhere, each with fierce and glowing eyes.

When she looked again, she didn’t see him again - it might have all been in her head.

Even Zach might have come, she thought.

Aurora kept jumping up to see the center of the arena to no avail. There was no possible way to see through the tower of people crowding the center.

And he was at the center.

One howl started and others joined in the howl. It was so loud that they had to close to cover their ears.

The shawl Aurora gave her slipped off her neck and got missing in the sea of legs and paws.

Drumming began, just like it had done at the first mating ceremony she attended. The rhythm was different, though. She caught herself tapping her feet.

It was starting...

She had to see. She just had to.

"Take me high up. I want to see."

Terrence didn’t seem to register her words. She waved her hand in front of his large eyes. His gaze finally snapped to hers.

"Take me up. I want to see the King."

He lowered his head to the floor.

Another wolf turned towards her growling with bared teeth.

Claire slowly moved closer to Terrence, shoving Aurora behind her.

Terrence bared his own teeth and growled.

Were they going to fight...?

Then, the other wolf turned and left.

That was just the beginning, she knew. Worse could happen. Much worse.

She climbed onto his back and looked around. She could see the drummers and the lit torches surrounding the center, but not the people inside it.

"Take me higher. Up the hill." She leaned close to his large ears to say.

With a growl, Rory’s guard picked her up as well and followed them up the hill. The squeeze was a tight one.

When they reached the end, Claire slid down.

Yeren was still seated on the high table, a goblet of wine dangling in his fingers.

A woman in a pure white silk robe knelt in front of him, still within the circle.

His bride.

She imagined herself kneeling there, waiting for whatever the woman was waiting for and snickered.

The heavens forbid such a thought! She said to herself, shaking her head vigorously.

Aurora came up beside her.

Then Yeren stood up from the table and moved to the edge of the raised platform, standing directly in front of his bride in white.

He nodded at her, lifting his cup and taking a long drink from it.

Slowly she started transforming into her wolf in front of him.

Claire tried to see the expression on his face, but he was too far.

What was he thinking? From what she could see, the woman was curved in all the right places.

She wasn’t some ’privileged excuse for a beauty’as she expected.

She started a howl and the crowd responded by howling back.

The drummers had to be Lycans like the King - they didn’t seem to be affected much by the moon.

The she-wolf prowled about the center, making eye contact and baring her teeth to the wolves around.

An attendant took the goblet from Yeren as he stepped into the circle.

Claire squinted her eyes. His bones started bending and breaking, his back hunching. The robe tore off his bore as he grew very big.

All the wolves lowered their heads to the ground in obeisance. Even Terrence and Rory’s guard.

Both sisters stared at each other with open mouths.

The King was... black... and fierce-looking.

The drumming became more fierce, the rhythm swirling in tempo.

The female moved first, attempting to circle him.

Cursing, Claire started moving forward. He would overpower the blasted woman and bite her neck soon enough.

Why had she even come? Did she risk her life to watch him claim another woman?

Terrence’s head brushed comfortingly against her side.

Claire hesitantly rubbed his fur, greedily taking the comfort he was offering.

Yeren didn’t move. He didn’t reach for the woman, he didn’t attack her. He just followed her with his eyes, doing nothing.

Was he waiting for the perfect time to strike? She wondered.

Then the woman pounced on him, her jaws wide in preparation to clamp down on his neck. He moved away in the blink of an eye and pulled the female down to the ground.

She had been right. There had never been a question of who was more dominant between the two.

The female wolf tried to shove him off. Instead of biting her neck, he just held her down and kept looking at her.

Do it already! Do it and be done with it! She was thinking.

Claire couldn’t spot Andon in the crowd - she had never seen his wolf before.

When the woman shoved him off the second time, he moved away.

Why wasn’t he claiming her?

Then, he charged at her, his teeth bared.

The female met him head on and they tumbled on the ground. The floor vibrated on impact.

It didn’t look like the fight for dominance she had seen... It looked like pure and unhinged violence.

Claws and teeth were darting this way and that. In all of their doings, not once did they bite themselves in the neck.

Out of the blue, Yeren shoved the woman across the ring. She let out a whimper as she laid their heaving as she drew each breath.

He drew close to her, snarling.

Claire held her breath. Aurora’s small hand curved around her arm as they both watched.

The woman climbed to her feet and ran into the forest. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

A howl started somewhere in the crowd.

"What a coward she is." Claire mumbled.

Rory inched closer. "I don’t agree with you. You’d say anything because you don’t like her."

"Of course I do not."

Yeren didn’t go after her. No one did.

Was it normal for the bride to run away?

Yeren tilted his head up and howled up to the blood moon. Everyone gathered responded.

Her eyes skimmed the crowd once again. And for some reason, they fell on a peculiar red wolf.

Could she have been mistaken? Was it really him?

"Claire?"

She spun around. "What is it?" She held her sister’s hand.

"We should go. I feel like something bad is going to happen if we remain."

She patted her head. "We have our guards to protect us."

Rory caught her hand by the wrist and held it firmly. "He is here. The bad wolf I told you about. He’s very close - I can feel him, Claire."

Her face paled instantly. The cold night air instantly made her regret losing her shawl. And it wasn’t even hers.

"Let’s go." She tapped Terrence.

Distant howls started sounding from within the woods. The ground thundered beneath them as something made its way through the forest.

"What is that?"

Wolves started leaving the arena, while some began growling ferociously.

What was happening?

Bands of wolves emerged from the forest, rushing at the crowd with eyes the colour of blood.

The last thing she saw before she was whisked away was Yeren being surrounded by his shifted guards.

She kept glancing back as Terrence and Rory’s guard rode them away.

Most wolves didn’t flee. They rushed towards the other arriving ones violently.

War was the first thing that came to her mind.

And that woman was all alone in the woods.

Her hair swung in the wind as they sprinted back to the castle. When they reached a bend, they encountered five dark-furred wolves waiting there.

Terrence growled, lowering his head to attack.

"Claire! It’s him!" Rory called out to her, her voice carrying in the night breeze.

Claire looked around.

All of them were black... they looked the same.

One of the black wolves pounced on Aurora and her guard, causing them to tumble to the ground.

Claire made to slide off immediately, but Terrence was too big off the ground.

"Rory!" She yelled at the top of her lungs.

Hearing her sister’s grunt gave her a wisp of hope.

The insufferable guard was back on his feet and attacking them.

She slid down and ran to her sister. The impact of the jump made her limp, but she ignored it.

"We have to get away. The castle isn’t far anymore." She pulled Rory to her feet.

Aurora couldn’t move her leg.

It was slightly twisted. Claire gasped.

"Hold my neck." She whispered, lifting her sister onto her back.

Aurora bit her lip to stop herself from crying out.

Claire had no idea where the castle was from where they were.

She only knew that she had to get her sister to safety... and to a healer.

Running like her life depended on it, they reached the end of the road. When they glanced behind them, the road was empty.

Turning her attention to the road before her, they continued on their journey.

Another glance over her shoulder confirmed that they were being followed.

She looked around, searching for a place to hide. There was a cottage in sight, but it was too obvious - and their scents would be traced down there.

Rory’s grip on her neck tightened, suffocating her.

They should never have left the castle in the first place! Damn her and her stupid curiosity, she cursed.

Now, Aurora was terribly hurt and they were being chased down by possible rogues.

The wolf chasing them was drawing closer with each stride.

"I can’t run any longer." She could barely breathe. Her heart was in her throat.

A very large black wolf came out from nowhere and knocked it down.

Claire didn’t wait to watch the spectacle.

There was no way of telling if the wolf was a friend or an enemy.

"That is him." Rory whispered in her ear, her voice quivering.

Claire froze.

"The wolf that marked you?" The anger in her voice was hard to mask.

Aurora said nothing - her silence was loud enough.

"I want him to see my face. It’d be the last thing he sees before he goes back to the hell he came from." She started turning back, stomping through the path.

"Don’t go back, Claire. He’d kill you."

"Not before I kill him first."

"Stop being a child, Claire! You can’t possibly harm a wolf, you’re as good as a human."

She stopped walking.

"Thank you for reminding me how helpless I am when it comes to protecting my little sister."

Aurora squeezed tighter.

"You’re protecting me by taking me back to the castle, Claire. I’ve never asked you to do anything you can’t do."

Tears burned behind her eyes.

The monster would go free...

All because she didn’t have claws to rip him apart.

She started walking back, her face contorted with anger.

When they got to the end of the road, the castle was nowhere in sight.

"I can’t carry you any longer. We have to rest here."

Where in the world were they?

And where was Terrence and Rory’s guard?