"How do you fight against fate?"
The screams were deafening even in the room that was located in the farthest corner. A man sat in there silently rocking in the chair.
He closed his eyes as he revelled in the sound of the screams filled with agony. With a deep and gruff sigh, he closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair, giving in to the darkness, and going back all those years, to the beginning of it all.
He was merely thirteen years old when he had met that lady in the woods while on his way home from school. The lady had beautiful platinum blonde hair and was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. So much so, that he remembered thinking to himself if he had lost his mind and if she was a Fairy queen.
The grown man scoffed in the dark room. If only the thirteen years old version of him had any idea how painfully right he was.
That was the first day that Max saw Irene. She had come to him saying that she wanted to make him aware of the impending dangers so that he could keep his family safe.
Under the veil of the invisibility charm, Irene had taken Max into the land of a small pack far away from there. Irene showed the flabbergasted boy how men could change into wolves.
The old Max now opened his eyes. A small ray of light fell over his hand on the armrest of the chair. He turned his hand over and looked at the scar on his forearm glistening against the sun.
Irene had played a wonderful game with him. She took advantage of the gullible thirteen year old human, made him think he had to enter this world to end those creatures to keep his little siblings and family safe. Unable of talking to anyone about it, Max believed her.
That was then Max's training started.
Then one day, she approached Max when he was with his little brother Leon. Leon was different from the others. He had no empathy, no concern for anything, which was immensely worrying for his family. But it was only after they found him mutilating two puppies that his parents started to pay more attention to him. There were visits to a psychologist and several constant counselling sessions which had proven to be very helpful for him, at least till then.
Since that day, Irene had been feeding Leon's hunger for violence and blood, and Max had no way of protecting his brother from this. This brainwashing, making them believe that the werewolves are the tormentors of the humans, by the mere example of rogue wolves, continued until Max had turned twenty-three and Leon seventeen.
Max could see the glow in his brother's eyes every time Irene promised to teach him how to kill the beasts. Yet, there was nothing he could do. Irene was very convincing with her theories of how the brothers were meant for this world. Just like that, Max lost his reasons and actually believed her.
However, one day when Max came home from his girlfriend's house, he found Leon standing outside their house, the house which was then engulfed in flames. Leon face only held curiosity.
"Leon, what the hell?!" Max screamed as he pulled Leon back slightly.
Leon stumbled back but his eyes were still on the flames devouring his house. The lack of expressions on his face made him scarier than a seventeen year old is supposed to look. "Do you think they are screaming?" he asked.
Max looked at him bewildered, "Did you do this?"
Leon scoffed and shook his head, "When I came home from school it was already burning." With a shrug, he continued, "I saw Olivia banging against the glass for only a few seconds but she fell, so I guess everyone was inside."
"No," Max whispered, "No, no, no!" he rushed towards the burning house but there were a few others there from the neighbouring houses who pulled him back. He screamed and cried and struggled hard to be able to go to his family, his baby sister, but it was of no use.
Later that evening, when both the brothers were still outside, Irene had come to them. She took the brothers in and allowed them to stay in her huge castle.
That night, while sitting in the open veranda of the castle, Irene revealed to them that it was a pack of werewolves who had entered the house, mauled their parents and sister, and burned the house to remove any evidence.
That was the moment that marked the beginning of Max and Leon's servitude to Irene. Leon, the one without feelings, carried out the plans of the kingdom to murder rogues and other lone wolves and Max, on the other hand, was made to study the way the Lunar Eclipse pack worked. According to Irene, that is the pack that housed the wolves who killed his family.
Max and Leon had both stuck to doing the dirty works of Irene. That was their source of income, and it was their joy, to rid of the world of these unnatural creatures.
Initially, when they learnt about it, they were scared. Or Max was, Leon didn't care. How could they, just mere humans, fight against these powerful things? But Irene assured them that they could, that they were born for it.
Max knew that Irene wanted to ruin that pack, but he had no idea why, until one day, Leon heard the queen witch talking to one of her trusted individuals.
"I needed them to be completely devoted to me and for that their family had to die. Max's tactical planning and Leon's lack of empathy makes them the perfect pair to carry it out. For that, I needed them to hate the wolves and not just be afraid of them."
"But, my queen, killing their whole family..."
"Sometimes, for the greater good, we have to take harsh decisions."
Leon had informed Max about this. Max, at first was terrified.
What was he stuck in between?
That night, he had fled from the castle and had hidden with his brother in his girlfriend's house.
"But..." Max thought out loud as his eyes turned glassy and he took out a ring from his pocket and stared at it, "How do you fight against fate?"
Irene had soon sought them out. The time of niceties was over and she had started blackmailing Max, warning him to carry out her work or she will kill both Leon and his girlfriend, Melissa.
So that's how it was then. Max and Leon reported to the queen's palace and worked there, in order to keep Melissa out of it. He had also started growing his own army, taking in orphans as well as anyone interested.
However, everything changed when one day Max came home to find Melissa crying.
"Darling, what's wrong?" Max had asked as he sat beside his partner.
But she showed no signs of stopping. Scared and shaken up, Max embraced her tightly but she pushed him off.
"No, don't touch me..." she sobbed, "Just... don't."
She sniffled. Max's heart broke, all he could do was stare at her, "You... you killed him. you guys took him away from me!"
"Who?" Max asked confused, "What are you talking about?!"
"Benjamin!" She screamed, "You killed him. You... you and Leon, with your sick campaign," she gritted through her tears.
Max's eyes widened in recognition as he stared at his lover stunned.
"Benjamin? Alpha Benjamin Parker from that little pack?" he asked with disgust.
"Yes," Melissa growled, "Parker, my Parker," she fell on her knees.
"How do you even know that mutt?!" He raised his voice, his anger rising along with the feeling of betrayal.
"He was my mate..." she answered in a broken voice.
Max stared at her for a few seconds, as if to understand what she just said, and then he started laughing. It started as a chuckled but turned into a loud and full-blown belly laugh. It was so terrorizing, that Melissa backed up against the wall.
Max laughed until he ran out of breath and then within a blink, smashed his fist against the mirror on the wall. He screamed, all of his anger, betrayal, pain, all the emotions, filled into that scream that shook through the house.
Melissa had closed her eyes, but then she opened them again and slid down the wall, her hand on her stomach, "What do I do? What do we do?" she kept muttering to herself.
Max eyes her hand before his eyes hardened. He walked to her and pulled her up by her forearms, making her flinch and stand against the wall. He leaned in so that there were only a few centimetres between their faces, "Say it."
Scared and angry tears filled her confused eyes as Melissa whispered, "Say what?"
"Say it to my face," he gritted, "Say, Max, I cheated on you with a mutt, I am carrying the baby of that fleabag."
Melissa's eyes widened. All the pain and anger now gone, she looked plain terrified.
"Max..."
"I did everything, I gave you everything," he whispered with fire in his eyes, "Why then?"
"I couldn't..." she shook her head and pressed her lips into a thin line, "He was my soul mate."
Max tilted his head slightly, "Wolves don't have human mates,"
"I... I come from a line of dormant werewolves."
Max stilled. The only thread to sanity he had was Melissa and she too is actually a werewolf? He laughed and shook his head.
"Pity..." he whispered, "I can't kill you, Melissa, I am in love with you. I can't hurt you; neither can I let you go," Max sighed.
When Max let her arms go, her legs gave up and she slid down the wall again, tears streaming down her face. Melissa knew Max was a werewolf hunter, she also knew that she was in no condition to outrun the man who worked out three to five hours a day, so she stayed still. Moreover, with Parker gone, so was her will to live.
"Fucking pathetic," Max had muttered.
Since then, Melissa had been locked up in the house, until a few months later, when she gave birth to her son, in that house, in her room, with one lady who barely qualified as a nurse. Max hadn't let her go out.
They had then shifted from the house into a cave which he had made into the hunter's office, Melissa was forced to stay there along with the boy she named Elijah. They had the bare minimum of food and clothes.
Max's condition had worsened after the birth of Elijah, by then, he had gotten Asteria under his control and Irene had lost her control over him. Max's only outlet for his anger was Melissa. It was during one such beating session that Melissa had lost her life.
That day was the last time Max had shed a tear. He cried his heart out followed by which, no emotion was ever seen in him other than anger and hatred, and very rarely, concern for Leon.
Another loud scream and Max sighed, "So freaking loud," he muttered and threw the ring on his hand into the wall.
"Brother," said a voice, "I didn't know you still held on to that."
"I did," he said and stood up.
Max walked out of the room and Leon followed behind him. They kept walking until they both entered the place Leon likes to call the red room. No, there was no red light, the name was given because the first time Leon walked in, the floor was flooded in the blood of a wolf.
Both the men looked up to find the boy hanging from the ceiling, by his hands that were tied together. He was only wearing a pair of boxers, his whole abdomen was decorated with cuts.
"You're quite loud, you know that?" Leon said.
Elijah remained quiet, barely breathing.
Leon sighed, he took a step forward and pressed on the cut on Elijah's lower back, making the boy groan in pain, still barely audible.
"Somebody get him down and get him checked up," Max ordered, "He should live to see the end of the girl he let go, and know that he's responsible for the torture she has to go through."
A man came from the side instantly and took Elijah down. Max turned around to leave but stopped when Leon spoke, "Don't you think I have waited long enough?"
"Leon..." he sighed tiredly.
"We have been sitting idly!" he screamed, making the men around them take a step back, "All the while, she has been enjoying her time with that piece of shit alpha. I want her with me at my feet, Max," he thundered, "Get me her."
Max rubbed his forehead with his palm, true it had been really long that things have been silent. Maybe it was time for them to remind the wolves of their presence.
"Very well, take a group of hunters with you. Enter their land and bring out the werewolf working as our informer in the pack."
Leon scoffed, "That bitch is useless."
"She is. But our aim is to show them how easy it is for us to infiltrate into their pack, take her, bring her here. Dead or alive."
"Do we need her alive?"
"She might be useful during the war and for torture later if you want to."
"Fun..." Leon grinned, "I'll be heading into the pack tomorrow then."
"Take the potion that witch makes. You might need it."
"Sure," Leon shrugged and walked off.
Maxremained there staring at Leon's back. Leon was reckless, and Max had no way ofstopping him.
Just as Leon started whistling a tone a shiver ran down Max's spine. It's true they have the upper hand, yet he couldn't shake off this unnerving feeling.
He could only hope that he won't lose his little brother too.