From The Ashes 3

"Where are the elixirs?"

A tall shadow on the floor crossed Adeline's barely open eyes. The shadow was of a bulky man, his frame strong and sturdy, and on his hand was a whip.

When his deep voice reached Adeline's faraway consciousness, the hairs at the back of her neck stood up. She clenched her fist in anger, despite losing every inch of her being.

"We... don't have... such thing," Adeline replied in a hoarse voice, gritting her teeth. 

Five slashes of the whip landed on her back, tearing open her already bleeding wounds a lot wider. Her ragged clothes had turned bloody red, as though it was its original color, and yet she couldn't feel the pain anymore. 

She had gone numb.

"Do you know what happens to those who lie?"

The man's shadow left her narrow periphery, but he later returned with another equipment in hand. Adeline could only vaguely make out what it was, and she knew it ought to be painful, but just as he raised his hand, the last string holding her consciousnes together finally snapped.

Everything turned black.

THE POCKET watch dangled from a feeble hand the moment its locket was closed with a tick. The person holding it impatiently looked out the window of the railway train, their free hand tapping against the sill and their leg bouncing up and down. 

They tried to calm their anxiety, but the longer it took for them try, the harder it was to calm. In the end, they couldn't control the urge and opened the pocketwatch once more. 

However, seeing that it was only but a minute that passed, they closed it in dismay and sighed in frustration. 

"Getting late for work?" 

The person looked to their right and met the warm smile of an elderly. They paused for a second, processing the situation, then they smiled. 

"Seems like it," they, no—she replied. 

The elderly sighed and shook his head. "The days sure are fast, but the trains much too slow to keep up."

"The ways of the world." She smiled bitterly beneath her gray panama. Just then, the train had its stop, and she immediately sprang up to her feet. 

She tipped her hat and bid her farewell to the elderly then made her way out, almost jumping off had the conductor not warn her about safety. 

The sun had already risen at about one-sixteenth from the horizon. She checked her pocket watch then inhales deeply before putting it back inside her jean pocket. 

As if her pause was worth a kilometer marathon, she immediately resumed on her way and ran to the main road where she hailed a cab and asked the coachman to drive faster than usual and even went as far as to charge him thrice the amount to make sure he agreed.

Fortunately, he did, and her anxiety had decreased by a lot. 

Her destination was in another hotel, although much livelier and much known than the past inns she entered. 

She had almost thrown her whole purse in haste to the coachman when she got off, but the good gentlemen kept up with her pace and immediately returned the extra money she tried to tip him with. 

Touched, she made a formal curtsy before running off to a direction far from the hotel. She didn't care anymore if the coachman had seen her and found her suspicious. 

Nothing mattered if anyone marked her as suspicious. 

All that mattered was that she wouldn't be later than she already was. 

A ROUND of growling and frustrated pacing happened in the prison cell the moment Adeline was thrown back into her cell. 

She couldn't even feel embarassed anymore. She was halfway in and out of consciousness; she couldn't hear their calling. 

Still, her deeply rooted instincts for her people enabled her to uncosnciously voice out: "Don't worry about me."

Although her people only got more worried. 

Idaliah's cry surfaced above the rest, and she couldn't even bear to look up from her crying position. 

This was helpless.

This was helpless.

This was helpless. 

It was just... hopeless.

A day passed, and another, then another—and Adeline still couldn't lift her eyelids. It had been quiet outside, the tortures temporarily stopping. No one came to drag anyone out nor in, and yet she couldn't get herself to think of it as something to be thankful for. 

She was tired, hungry, in pain. She just wanted rest. But even in her rest, she had to drown in the blood of her dead people. 

One night, when Adeline finally regained a bit of clarity of her consciousness, she left her gaze trained on their only source of little light: the only window in her cell. 

"He asked for the elixir," she murmured, her voice bouncing across the more advanced hearing of her pack.

"How—" Idaliah's eyes snapped open, and her sleepiness was washed away by the sudden rage in her. A growl erupted from her chest, and her sharp eyes raked all over the prison cell. "Who would mention such thing!"

"Liah," Adeline cut in. "It's not them. Don't worry."

"By all due respect, Lady Idaliah," an older female wolf said. "The very first day we were chosen to be a part of our pack was the day we gave our life and loyalty to it and its people." 

"Yes," another female agreed. "None of our people would betray their spoken oath."

Idaliah paused then slumped down her bed with a frustrated sigh. 

"I know, so it's alright, Liah," Adeline assured. "The Night Pack is just powerful."

Indeed, they were powerful. Too powerful they could easily unearth secrets after secrets. They were just fools.

No—Their Alpha was a fool. 

"I pity them," she said. "Their power is useless with a ruler like him."

Who didn't know Night Pack? 

It had an irrefutable reputation, not only in the werewolf community, but in the whole supernatural world. Their population was probably more than a quarter of the whole werewolf population. Their people were all well-trained to fight from a very young age. And their resources were unlimited. After all, their Alpha built a large business empire in the human community. 

But nothing about its size was more impressive than the fact that everything was done in a short span of years. 

Night Pack used to be just a pack among all the other pack until their current Alpha took over. Since then, everyone praised him, looked up to him, respected him, feared him—all but the Gray Pack. 

"After long years of pack history, and they still have not moved on." Idaliah kicked the ground and shook her head. "We're almost nothing now, and they still have the audacity to ask for the elixir? They really want to leave us with nothing, do they? But whatever have we done to them?" 

She stood up and grabbed her hair, and in a fit of unsuppressed anger, she shouted at no one, "What the fuck did we do to them!"

No one stopped her. 

No one silenced her... because they had the same question. 

Gray Pack knew very well why the Night Pack was thirsty of power, and it disgusted them. 

"Pack history..." Adeline chuckled softly.

The former Alphas of both had been in a duel over a single woman—Alpha Xavier's mother. 

The former Luna of the Gray Pack was mates with the former Alpha of the Night Pack, but she had fallen in love with Alpha Xavier Night's father first, so she chose him and firmly stood by his side.

Heartbroken, the former Alpha of the Night Pack, Alpha Calyx, forced himself to wed another woman for a heir. They had a son, indeed, but their relationship never worked. 

Rumors had it that Alpha Calyx was a cruel husband, so the woman ran away. And when he had seen that the former Alpha and Luna of the Gray Pack were happy, his long suppressed jealousy grew, so he attacked them. He died in his own revenge, but so did the Gray Pack's leaders.

It was that time when Adeline was only twelve and Xavier was only fifteen. Young Xavier was forced to step to his position and led the pack despite his minimal knowledge. He managed, however, and they lived in peace, but the other pack had never moved on. 

Alpha Hale, the current Alpha of the Night Pack, was really his father's son. He worked hard to grow his pack, just so he could avenge something he had no rights of: In what part had the Gray Pack done them any wrong? 

Their pack leaders fell in love, and Alpha Calyx just couldn't move on because he was ruthless. And then he finally got his revenge, although at the cost of his life. He had brought anger within himself and caused his own death. The two pack leaders he killed—didn't he just drag them with him? They broke the mating tradition, but where in the word of the written law of the wolves did they ever make a mistake to die for falling in love and being happy? 

Night Pack deprived the Gray Pack of two great leaders. They deprived two children of their parents. 

So they should be doing the revenge and not the other way around!

"Ready yourselves," Adeline said after much thinking. "Be strong when it's your turn."

She was sure that the Night Pack would attempt to destroy them one by one to search for the elixir. 

"We are ready, Alpha," they replied in unison. "Always ready."

For no matter what the enemy could do, as long as they were not deserving, the elixir would never exist in front of them. 

HER BLOOD was pumping deep inside her as she pushed a slightly ajar door. The door swung and crashed against the wall, earning her a few terrified looks. 

"M—Miss Lily!" 

A group of statled nuns rushed to her, although were stopped by the eldest of them.

"Miss Lily Alston," she greeted, wearing an amicable smile despite the creases on her brows. "May we help you with your troubles?"

Lily Alston breathed heavily and frantically looked around. Seeing none of the familiar small figure she needed to see, she quickly pushed past the nuns and entered the convent's backyard. 

"Miss!" the Mother Superior ran after her in distress, ignoring all propriety, but her skirt hadn't allowed her to catch up. 

This gave way to Lily Alston, allowing her to freely enter another gate straight to an old-looking building. 

She wasted no time and ran inside, not minding the sister behind a counter. She ran up a set of stairs then turned corners after corners, until she finally reached a door numbered 78.

She pushed the door open with a kick, and she was greeted by a quiet and empty space. The lack of response made her heart drop as she backed out.

"Miss Alston!" 

Hearing the call, she quickly turned and ran back down from where she came from. The Mother Superior was waiting below the stairs, out of breathe, but Lily Alston's mind was nowhere else other than what she was looking for. 

She ran back down and past the elderly then stumbled outside biting her lip. 

"Miss Alston, please calm down!"

She frantically looked around, but her face only grew increasingly pale. She saw buildings after buildings, swingsets after swingsets, statues after statues, trees after trees—all of which were now what she was looking for. 

It was dizzying trying to make out a face she longed to see. She felt as if the world was about to close in on her.

And then—

"Mom!"

As though a light, a small figure from a distance outshined everything else. Everything revolved around the figure as it slowly zoomed in Lily Alston's vision. 

And when it finally outlined the chubby face of a smiling boy, her pale expression brightened. Her frown slowly transformed into an unconscious smile, and with a sigh, she whispered,

"Euros."