SPLASH!
A bucket of foul-smelling water woke Kellam and Marvin with a start. The two new Werewolves subconsciously sniffed the air and a foul smell of urine assaulted their senses, causing them to retch. The smell was so awful that Marvin almost fainted again.
The Dwilde thought grimly, 'Am I dreaming or did they pour a chamber pot on us?'
A slight throbbing headache still itched where he had knocked himself out with the pommel of his weapon, but the pain was negligible. The vitality of a lycan lived up to its reputation.
Reining in the anger that had bubbled up inside him from the humiliating treatment, Kellam's expression lightened and he took the time to study his surroundings. He and Marvin were tied back to back in a dark wooden room that reeked of rotting meat. They had no way of determining if it was day or night.
There were several bloodstained poles, and several workshops and cutting tools hanging on old rusty nails. This place could just as easily be a butcher shop as a torture chamber. He was leaning toward the latter.
Obviously, they had not been promoted after their poor performance as patrolmen. Soon, Dwilde's pupils narrowed as he detected movement.
"Finally awake? That sickening stench is all incompetent apes like you deserve." A skinny man with a poodle face even under his human guise scornfully laughed at them as soon as they woke up. He stank almost as bad as they did.
He was still holding the empty chamber pot that had been used to wake them up, and one didn't have to think very hard to guess who was the generous provider of all that piss. Kellam had known hundreds of such individuals and knew them for what they were: weak.
Weakness was not a sin, but it was the breeding ground for all sorts of negative emotions and impulses. Especially when they lived in a society where the law of the fittest reigned supreme.
A weakling was instinctively cowardly and law-abiding, and perhaps even kind. Sometimes they really were. But often they harbored pent-up desires and jealousy commensurate with their frustration. Just by the way he looked like a pipsqueak compared to the average lycan, Kellam knew that his life must have been miserable before they arrived.
At that moment, he thought he understood why this jerk was so adverse to them. As soon as they arrived in the Hellhound Pack the Alpha had given them a guard job. It was a rather prized position and rarely given to new members.
Kellam had thought it was normal at the time of his assignment, but in retrospect it was strange. Did this Alpha Werewolf really have such absolute confidence in their loyalty?
Then the residual headache subsided completely and he finally noticed the clothes of the small man.
The poodle man wore a white silk pourpoint, ludicrous red tights, a long pair of suede boots pointed at the ends and an overcoat adorned with ermine fur. A silver ceremonial sword that had probably never been used in legitimate combat except to torture and abuse prisoners hung from his leather belt. A cherry fragrance covered the filthy wet dog smell of the individual, betraying that the man perfumed himself a lot, but washed much more infrequently.
Kellam was shocked when he realized that he had been mistaken about their torturer. The weakling was certainly a weakling, but a frustrated weakling with power!
'Fuck... What kind of shitting mess have we just gotten ourselves into...' He cursed inwardly.
Secretly, he tested his bonds and concluded that to free himself would not be too difficult with the help of his Divine Spark. If the situation was really desperate he would take the risk.
With Kellam and Marvin continuing to ignore him instead of responding to his insults, the pipsqueak's resentment exploded and he started kicking them. The two men being tied up they could only passively endure by grunting. Dwilde hesitated to free himself, but he gritted his teeth and resisted the urge.
"Damn it! Don't look at me like you pity me!" Their torturer ranted angrily like a madman. "Tonight I will rape the women of your village one by one. Maybe I will be lucky and your wife or sisters will be among them?"
The out of breath man winced in pain as he felt the pang in his swollen big toe and decided to beat them with his fists instead, oblivious to the killing intent that had just flashed in the Dwilde's eyes. Even Marvin was staring at him coldly.
Just as he was about to throw his best uppercut at them, the door of the hut was slammed open and a dark-haired somewhat handsome, abnormally muscular, hairy and virile man about two meters tall stepped inside. The Hellhound Pack's leader.
Seeing the aggressive posture of the pipsqueak, the empty chamber pot on the floor and the urine-soaked hair of the two prisoners, the man immediately understood what had transpired. His desire to smash the head of this scum crossed his mind, but reality caught up with him very quickly. Taking a short breath, he cleared his throat and said,
"Envoy, dealing with these prisoners is not your prerogative."
"I am the emissary appointed by the Oxixcrest Pride." The weakling retorted pompously. "Absolutely everything is in my prerogative. And if I ask you to wipe my ass, you'll have to do it too. Do you want me to give you such an order? If you refuse, I will faithfully report your disobedience to my King. I will tell him that Liam, the Alpha of the Hellhound Pack has decided to rebel and is conspiring against Oxyxcrest Pride and dreams of overthrowing it. How about that, huh?"
Liam clenched his fists, his long canines protruding intimidatingly from his mouth as his lips curled. The pipsqueak wasn't completely unaffected, and he broke out in a cold sweat as the yellow glow in the Alpha's frigid eyes turned red. Before he realized it, he had already crawled back against the wall.
"The two women sharing your bed tonight have already been selected." The Werewolf Alpha calmly informed him with undisguised contempt. "They are waiting for you in your quarters."
The weakling momentarily forgot his fright, an ecstatic smile plastered on his face.
"Two new women? Are they pretty? Yesterday's elf was a little too old for my taste, and the female human was just thrashing and screaming. They break too easily. Tonight, I want the two most beautiful lycans in your village."
The two most beautiful lycans in the Hellhound Pack were none other than Liam's two daughters. The rogue emissary had been trying to lure them into his bed ever since he arrived here. He courted them in good faith at first, but since Liam and his tribe were no longer able to pay the annual tribute he had become unreasonably pushy.
He knew that Liam needed him to make his case to the King. If the envoy felt that the pack had legitimate reasons for not being able to pay the tribute, it could be reduced, waived or postponed to the next year.
In the case of the Hellhound Pack they had been exempt from tributes for three years and that was probably the limit. They needed the emissary's cooperation to survive another year.
"Stop joking, emissary." Liam replied with a deadpan face. "I've already promised you that if you manage to seduce my daughters, I won't object."
The skinny man's lips twitched, but when he saw the stiff smile that was not a smile on the Alpha Werewolf's face he involuntarily swallowed and wisely decided to leave the hut and make do with the two prisoners picked for him.
Once the despicable emissary was gone, the door closed and Liam glared coldly at Kellam and Marvin.
"And now to us. Did you really think I wouldn't notice that you had staged your own ambush?" The leader sneered. "The new Werewolves personally transformed by me are inherently loyal, but that doesn't mean I trust them. Since I gave you this patrol position, I have kept you under my watch."
Kellam's eyes suddenly widened as he took in this revelation. He had not considered this scenario.
"That means that-"
"You guessed right." Liam nodded. "I saw that man free that Fae prisoner and I let him go."
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