I carefully look him up and down and wriggle my nose. “And you look like a pampered prince with a silver stick stuck high up his ass. I hope you die first, must be painful walking around like that.”
“Is that a threat?” he snarls, a vicious growl ripping out of his throat, and I shiver in fear. Pretty much everyone I have ever known has tried to teach me to think before I throw insults, but it has never worked. Iwishit had right at this moment. “I should break your legs right here and now, and make you kneel for me. You’re pretty enough that I might let you suck my cock while you’re down there.”
Disgust rolls in my stomach, and I pretend to heave. “Would I even be able to find it? With all that arrogance and male pride”—I wave a hand over his face—“and you shout so much that I just know you have small-dick energy.”
Blackfire finally decides to step in before the pretty wolf actually kills me. “Orion, eat a leaf or something and fuck off. You can’t kill her; she is one of the chosen, and she talks endlessly without a fear for her life if you let her.”
Aw, he is getting to know me.
Orion goes still. “What the fuck did you just tell me to do, fire pet?”
Blackfire’s whole body presses against my back, and he possessively wraps a hand around my neck. I gasp as he yanks my neck to the side, showing the mark from his uncle on my neck. “Mine.She belongs to the Crone Pack and is branded by fire. Fuck. Off.”
“I don’t see any marks burned on the middle of her forehead like most of the slaves.” Orion picks at a bit of fur on his brown shirt, which is ridiculously tight against the bulge of muscles on his chest and arms. “Seems like she is fair game, Blackfire.”
Blackfire stills, and I feel how tense he is at my back. I glance at the shiny daggers sticking out of a belt at his waist, and I try to reach for one while the males do their penis-measuring contest as they growl at each other. Blackfire must see what I’m doing, as he lets go of my neck and pushes me to his side, standing slightly in front of me. “Orion, how is your mother? The Mother Packalpha heiress must be devastated that her only remaining—less-favoured—son is in the Folkland. Will she need to be bred like a bitch in heat when you die and there is no one to rule now that your father is dead?”
Orion growls, his eyes glowing vibrantly green, and the air shimmers around us. “You’re fucking dead, Blackfire.”
“Try it,” Blackfire cockily laughs.
“Heir Blackfire and Heir Orion, it is always a pleasure to meet the royals of the great packs of Crone and Mother.” We all turn at the clicking noises. Cloaked in white, a man steps between the two wolves without a touch of fear for his life. I was planning on running for the door if they started fighting. “It’s unusual to have so much royalty in one room, and tensions may be high, but I will remind you that fighting between each other before the Folkland is against the goddesses’ rules, and they will cast an extreme amount of bad luck your way in the Folkland if you disrespect them by fighting. The three are always watching, young heirs.”
The man who spoke is small, barely coming up to the middle of Orion’s and Blackfire’s chests. A priest of the goddesses. His kind brown eyes find mine, and I take in his features. He’s pale like ice, and there’s a hood that stops on his forehead. Expensive metal is warped into two silver birds that are linked together around his forehead, the wings cupping underneath his eyes and stopping by his ears. The rest of him is hidden under a sparkling white cloak. His face is wrinkled, far older than my recent prison mate, and he clings to a cane, which is a white stick covered in markings that glow gold, and an orb sits on the top of it. He looks between the three of us. “If you would like to join us, chosen, we can finally begin.”
Blackfire grabs my arm and starts yanking me with him. I feel Orion staring, but I refuse to look back at the psychotic,pretty wolf. Tannith whispers softly to me so only I can hear, “He was hot. Shame he wants you dead.”
“All the wolves are psychotic,” I hiss back.
“And hot. That bit is important.”
I groan at her. Even cursed to be a drake, she is focusing on hot men. I mean, they are both very attractive to look at and far more impressive than any human I’ve met before but, and I can’t stress this enough, they are deranged.
We stand away from the rest of the group, to the left, and I look over quickly, finding most of them are openly staring at me and Blackfire. Most of the looks are outright damning. Some look like they are thinking of killing me, and the others all look confused about why a human was chosen.
As my eyes drift down the group, I lock onto a pair of sea-blue eyes staring right at me. White, almost silver locks fall over his head, braided at the back of his neck, and the tips almost look blue. He raises a single perfect blond eyebrow, and I quickly look forward before taking any more of him in. I’ve seen enough pretty and crazy male wolves to last me a lifetime. I need to stop attracting attention.
Blackfire doesn’t say a word, standing still at my side, his gloved hand tightly gripped around my wrist like I might run for it. His broody ass is somewhat calming as I stand still and wait. I’m tempted to make a joke about us holding hands, but I have a feeling he wouldn’t take it very well.
The priest from earlier steps in front of all of us in the plain domed room. Behind him are four massive doors, and one door is held open by royal guards in their shiny red armour. I pull my eyes from the guards back to the priest as he begins. “Welcome, contestants of the Folkland. The fifteen chosen.” He pauses and bows his head low at us all. It’s weird to see anyone bow at me, but it’s worse when it’s a human who has the life I was aiming for. “I am a priest, given immortal life to oversee the goddesses’wishes. My instructor was the one who guided the last chosen, and I’ve been taught everything there is about this holy path of fate in order to guide you. It is a great honour to be standing in front of such an unusual selection of chosen in our known history. The realm is unlikely to forget this Folkland for many generations of wolves. In the many Folkland that have been recorded, this one has the true chance to change the destiny of our great packs.”
Whispers burst through the chosen, but I stand still and ignore them all. The priest pounds his cane on the floor, and they all go silent. “Quiet. I am not done, and you will show respect or face the wrath of the goddesses.” There isn’t even a whisper. “As you know, as you would have been taught as young children…” His eyes flicker to mine, like this explanation is for my benefit, and I’m grateful because I was not taught much about the Folkland as a child. It is for wolves, after all. “The Folkland is an ancient test that is designed to break you, both physically and spiritually.”
Too late, I’m already broken as fuck.I need a contest designed to fix and heal broken souls. Can I change courses?
“We must break to become the leader that is needed to rule this realm. A good leader is born in fire, drowned in water, smothered in earth, as is spoken by our triple goddesses. You will be reborn in the Folkland into something more, something better, and the goddesses will be leading your way throughout all of it. If they see you as worthy, you will come out of the Folkland in six months’ time when the highest moon reaches the highest point in the sky. You will be named a champion of the goddesses, but if you don’t, your death will be in the Folkland, and you will be wiped from our history books. No one will remember you.”
Growls echo at that point. For me, it doesn’t matter, only Tannith knows me anyway.
“That is the curse that comes with this honour. Glory or nothing. Part of being a good leader in our realm is building a pack, a pack of people that you can trust, who have your back, and you have theirs. A bond made in blood and shared until the end of days. The selection is a second chance for the most dangerous of our kind and a chance for you each to prove your skills. If you can make one of these into an honourable person, if the goddesses wish to be at their champion’s side, then you will show them that you are a leader.”
He clicks his fingers, and people start being dragged out in chains by the guards. Not people, wolves. Most of them are covered in blood, barely recognizable, and all of them are in glowing silver chains. I know that whatever they have done, it must have been bad, to be bound like this and beaten. Even the prison friend I made wasn’t bound with chains like these and wasn’t beaten this badly. Most of them are unrecognizable from how badly they have been hurt. Twenty-five options exactly, by my count. I try not to focus on the smell of blood that’s slowly seeping into the room.
Orion is glaring at the prisoners and growling low. “What the fuck? Is this a joke?—”
Someone thankfully shuts him up from his temper tantrum.
The priest continues on like he didn’t hear Orion’s outburst. “We will make a mark today, bound by the goddess of water herself, on your wrist. As it is known, the Maiden oversees all marks. You will be bonded to one of these criminals, who have done something so grievous that they found themselves ready for execution tomorrow. Each of them has been chosen by the high priest, and I’m sure I do not have to warn you that he is the favoured of the goddesses. His choice is theirs.”
