Chapter 285

285 Unbroken

The Rogue king sat in the carelessly crafted wooden chair delving deep into the different memories and plans that he had for the world as he always did when he was bored and in need of some destructive thoughts.

Every once in a while he slammed his fist on the table before him, riddling it with cracks, angry at the recent plan that had been foiled.

He knew he’d done a number on the kingdom and that the number of hunters that threatened him had greatly reduced. However, he was also at a loss as he had lost far too many rogues, not to mention the fact that he couldn’t just make more anymore, ‘Weaklings, all of them...’

“Your majesty...”

“WHAT IS IT?” he yelled at the voice that interrupted his thoughts. Looking back, he saw Thane bowing to him. The beta alpha was barely fazed by his outburst and merely rose to proceed with his report.

“I only bear bad news with me, not that it’s a surprise with recent developments,” the bulky man started, taking a seat on the other side of the table.

“It’s not like I can force you to turn in good news alone, so tell me what you’ve found out,” the rogue king grumbled. The presence of the beta alpha and his calmer demeanour were enough to keep him grounded. He was also the only person allowed to see him in such a state.

“Well, the rain has made it hard to move through the forests, so I have ordered a few operations carried out at a time. Our first priority was to see if all sources of more forces were done for.

General Samson checked out one of our breeding farms. He was only meant to check if there are candidates that can join the rogues as a whole, but he came back with worse news than I’d asked him to get,” the man started.

.....

“Let me take a wild guess here. He found out that the females couldn’t conceive now that the goddess’s chosen have been united, isn’t that right?” the king rubbed his temples.

“Yes, sire. How did... ?”

“It was all in that damn prophecy. Part of the spell would restrict females from conceiving unless they’d mated with their mates.

Whether it’s the goddess’s will or not, rogues have never been able to find their mates. I wouldn’t imagine that as a possibility now,” the king explained.

“Can’t we have the woman we have in the dungeon reveal to us the mates of all the rogues we throw at her and have those females abducted instead?” Thane offered.

The king was quiet for a moment, thinking through the man’s suggestion. It tore at his curiosities far more than he wanted it to. It meant he would get to know who his mate was as well, but he also knew why he’d kept away from the idea.

'

Having the rogues find their mates would lead to catastrophic outcomes. If their mates were strong-willed, they would be able to cause an uprising, one of the things he couldn’t afford to have at the moment, “It’s a tempting idea and a good strategy, however...” he stopped, trying to think over his next words.

“Well, if the fear of rule remains absolute, I don’t see how anyone would go against you. A death penalty for any traitor. Besides, we could take the rogues through a screening process before they were taken to the Seeker,” Thane continued. Debates like this were not uncommon between the king and his beta alphas or sometimes even his generals.

“Your idea is very tempting indeed, but not one we’ll be carrying out. The power of a mate goes against so much. There are many ways for them to rise against us if we go down that path.

Consider a situation where one of the rogues realises their mate is an alpha of a pack and wants to be with them, but because it’s too dangerous to get alphas involved, we end up denying him that luxury, what then?” the king waited for a flash of understanding to appear in his beta alpha’s eyes before continuing.

Leaning back in the uncomfortable wooden abomination of a seat, he asked, “What about that other thing I asked you to look into?”

“Well, the search for that has still led us to a dead end. And not to mention the rain. We can’t seem to get far with this downpour,” Thane replied solemnly.

“Honestly, how long does this rain plan on falling? Let’s pay our prisoner another visit,” the king stood up finally, paying the beta alpha’s expression of defeat no attention as he headed deeper into the compound.

Thane followed his alpha to the room they were keeping the woman in and opened it, letting the king in.

.....

Held up by chains attached to her wrists. Covered in cuts stained purple, oozing with pus caused by her body fighting the toxins of the wolfsbane.

The strange purple poison emitted an odour that the king had grown used to. After using it for torturing prisoners so many times, he didn’t mind the smell anymore, having grown numb to the stinging pain in his nostrils, “You’re one resilient woman, I’ll give you that. Stubborn too. I would never have thought an old woman like you would cause me this much trouble and one that doesn’t look her age. I saw some of your papers when we searched the house, you definitely know how to keep your looks.”

The woman lifted her head weakly and looked the king in his eyes, shrugging the twisted compliment, “Nothing a little beauty treatment can’t do for you. You’d be surprised how young one can look with a little surgery.” With a scornful look, “So you finally decided to come here yourself. Did you get tired of letting your lackeys do your dirty work?”

“Do not forget who you’re talking to, woman. I’m the rogue king. A name like that is built on mountains of bodies. I have put down hunters more than you can think of counting. I’ve tortured souls much more powerful than you...”

“Trust me on this, ‘your majesty’,” the woman chuckled, lending him her gaze and cutting him off, “You won’t find another soul as strong as I. I promised you this while we were still in that house.

The only way you could have gotten any information out of me was if you had followed the required procedures while we were having that cup of tea.

Believe me when I tell you that you’d be better off killing me,” raspy laughter filled the little room as she spoke to the rogue king, “I hoped you would pick a hint while we were there. You lost your chance to earn my assistance. And to think I wasted such wonderful tea.” Her sadness towards the tea was almost genuine.

The woman barely noticed the king moved when his fist connected with her gut. She spat blood from the impact and gasped for air, but the cry of pain and plea for help never once left her lips.

His strength was incomprehensible, but the woman’s choice had already been made. Amidst her fits, she began to chuckle even more, “It’s futile, you know. I might as well be a punching bag for you to take out your frustrations.”

The king took the time to take in the woman’s appearance. It was clear that she was in a lot of pain. Cuts of wolfsbane, broken ribs and it seemed as though she was not healing at all.

She was ready to die. A wolf’s healing slowed down considerably when it lost the will to keep fighting. She was willing to die to keep whatever information she was keeping from him, “Find her daughter.”

“You’re majesty. Where do we even start with that?” Thane asked.

“Do I look like I care about that? Send a message to every last rogue out there and make sure they spread out. We can’t afford to attack anyone at the moment. We don’t have that much manpower.

It’s no doubt the hunters are going to start sweeping through no man’s land in search of the last remaining rogues. We can’t have them finding us. Until then, the rogues are to search for that girl until she’s found. She’s our closest link to making this woman say something if she in fact does know anything.”

“Your majesty, don’t you think this decision is a little bit too hasty? These changes are far too drastic,” Thane tried, however, the king was done listening to other suggestions.

“No, they aren’t. The Chase family can detect us because of our blood lust towards humans and the rest of the wolves that turned away from our goddess’ original commands.

If the rogues can get rid of that blood lust, the Chase family won’t be able to detect them even if they tried. They won’t be able to tell whether they are normal wolves or not. Until we find a way to reverse what the moon goddess did, we cannot afford to get sloppy,” the king explained his plan.

Thane was silent for a bit, clenching his fist, “I’ve never seen you taking the cautious means to overcome anything, your majesty. You crash all your enemies with your fist. No one has the power to oppose you, your majesty.”

The king smiled at the words his beta alpha said, “Believe it or not, Thane. Up until the last group of generals we had, I didn’t have that kind of power. I’ve always been powerful myself along with you and Aidan, but the three of us weren’t enough.

Those generals were going to lead an empire, unlike anything the world has ever seen. Our plans just happened to collide with the wrong generation of hunters as well. I’ve been playing it cautiously this entire time. Don’t make that misjudgment.”

“Understood, your majesty. Can I ask something?”

“What is it, Thane?”

“What are we going to do about my partner? Aidan stays in custody of the hunters,” the beta alpha asked.

“That’s part of the mission I’ll be giving the rogues. We don’t know where they are holding Aidan and they are no doubt holding him the best way they can.

They know that I’ll get another beta alpha if they kill him, so their best move would be to keep him alive and to also keep him from killing himself as I’m sure he would have already tried to do,” the king ordered.

Thane had kept one question for last. The king hadn’t said anything about what he was going to be doing during that entire time, “What about the two of us then, your majesty?”

The king smirked at the question, “Well, you and I, my dear Thane, have a special mission of our own. We shall be following the Great Sirius river... downstream,” the king smirked.

“You don’t mean?” a look of fear flashed across the beta alpha’s face.

“Yes, Thane. We shall journey beyond the known world and find the place of our Origin. It is said the two kings purged everything beyond the two rivers and that there isn’t a trace of humanity left there, but that’s where we are going. To find the Origin of werewolves,” the king announced.

The woman before him opened her eyes in shock as she heard the man’s plans, “Oh! Did you happen to hear what I said?”

“Oh, she did...” a voice interrupted them as someone walked into the cell, “And there is another power the Seeker is capable has and that happens to be the ability to find the Origin.”

A glint of excitement shone in the rogue king’s face as he looked at the woman’s face, “Would you look at that? You’re not so useless after all.”

“You know I won’t be saying anything,” the woman smirked in return. Even in her battered state, she didn’t seem to show any fear toward the rogue king. The king lifted her head by her chin and stared right into her eyes.

The cold gaze of the rogue king along with the power that radiated off him seemed to wipe the smirk right off her face. The king’s smirk got wider, satisfied by the result.

“Oh, we’ll see about that...”