VALORIA WILDEROSE
I am dragged to my room and tossed inside as punishment, the key turning with a hard click to lock me in for days without food or water—until I accept my new fate and "fix my attitude."
It is Father's way of handling the rare times I speak up, designed to crush every ounce of fight and resistance I can muster.
But being given away to the Lycan King is the cruelest punishment he has ever dealt me.
The Lycan King. The lord of the night. Azrael, the beast of beasts.
He is described by many as one of the great calamities to have befallen the world—he and his army of Lycans.
A demented figure who has lived for centuries without dying, he leads his kind to destroy everything in their path until the world itself is desolate.
He is cruel and unkind, and almost every woman taken into his harem winds up dead, butchered in the most inhumane ways.
Many even claim he feasts on their hearts to maintain his immortality and to satisfy his taste for werewolf flesh.
The few who survive become cold, mindless drones, poisoned by his darkness until they eventually turn cannibalistic.
The thought alone sends shivers down my spine. To be feasted on, or to become a mindless creature that does the feasting—I'd choose neither.
I pace back and forth, reeling from both the emotional and physical pain of my newly decided fate, and for the first time I resolve to do something about it.
That single thought drives me to grab the few belongings I own, wrapping them in a small sack.
I lift the window and throw myself through it without hesitation. The tree branches beyond the wall break my fall until I crash into the hard earth with a thud.
Next, I run. I don't stop, one leg flung ahead of the other.
The farther I get, the more memories flash through my mind—like Ronan.
Despite the hollow pain in my chest, my heart still yearns for him, for his love, conditional as it was. It's the only kind I've ever known.
I crave the impossible: to finally be loved by my family, by Father, by all my sisters. But my mind knows I'd sooner die than see that day.
This is my only chance to be free.
Eventually I stop. Minutes of running have set my chest aflame and my legs to stinging. The sack of old clothes drags at me, and with my poor stamina I cannot carry it further.
I take a short break, foolishly drinking in the night air, savoring the clean scent after years of the musty dampness of my room beneath the third-floor stairwell.
A force suddenly seizes me from behind, taking me off guard, a hand clamping over my mouth before I can scream.
The arm of my assailant rises high, silver blade flashing before it plunges into my side.
I groan in agony and struggle, barely managing to bite into their finger and force them to let go.
With fear and adrenaline surging, I stagger back, clutching my blood-soaked wound and staring at the cloaked figure before me, their face barely visible.
"W-Who are… who are—" I can barely form the words as my vision blurs. Still I fight the darkness pressing in.
They aren't finished.
They rush forward. I try to run, but they seize my hair and hurl me onto the cold grassy earth, back first, eyes to the sky.
Before I can speak again they stab me once, then again—blow after relentless blow, intent not merely to kill but to massacre.
Agonizing pain floods every inch of me before at last they stop. Leaning over, they seem to listen for breath that no longer fills my lungs.
I gasp, drowning in my own blood, vision spotted and dim, yet still able to see.
They bend closer, searching.
"Sister…" they whisper.
My blood turns to ice. I tremble, a million questions storming my mind, none I have the strength to ask.
"This is goodbye."
A soft, almost delighted chuckle follows. A golden necklace slips into view, gleaming with the family crest.
It is enough to confirm my worst fear. One of my own blood. My sister.
But which one? And why?
Darkness takes me, along with my chance to ever know.
I feel myself die.
My soul descends from my body into the depths of the earth, plunged into a fiery pit and a world of endless torture.
For my sins of being weak and complacent, I'm forced to relive every scorn, every moment of painful abuse, with the pain itself raised to an impossible scale.
I feel Father's boot against my face again. Ronan's cold eyes rejecting me again. The blade in my side again. Marcella's smug smile as she strokes her belly again.
Every moment is agonizing, forcing me to never forget, never forgive.
I face my death a million times over. Each time the pain is deeper, leaving another scar etched into my heart and adding to my growing resentment.
All I had wanted from them was a family. All I wished for was a home.
But all they ever gave was an abyss of brutal hatred and relentless abuse.
I fan the flames of my hatred until all I feel is regret for every moment I yearned for their love, and all I desire is revenge—for Father, for my sisters, for Ronan.
Yet my desires only fuel my torture as I waste away for an eternity, helpless beneath them.
Until, for the first time in millennia, as another circle ends and a new one begins, time seems to freeze.
The world around me goes black and quiet, a serenity I haven't felt in so many years, as something different finally happens.
"Hello, darling."
A voice other than mine blooms in my head.
I scream, startled by this new sound—so completely different from my cries of agony or the wicked taunts of my family. I turn around to see someone new.
Dressed in a flowing white dress like an ancient queen, silver hair flowing like water, her smooth skin is like milk and her eyes are made from the purest bright light, separate from the golden hue that emanates off her.
I'm stunned silent by her beauty before reminding myself that I should be terrified right now.
"W-W-Who are y-you?"
She smiles at me softly, enjoying my confusion.
"I have watched you for quite some time now. Your anguish in particular is… interesting." Her voice is like a soft melody.
She hovers around me, inspecting me from head to toe with interest.
"Betrayed by the ones closest to you and killed, now you're tormented by the pathetic life you lived as a doormat for never having a backbone. You lived your short life in so much fear that it was practically wasted."
Her harsh words cut into me like sharp razors.
I deduce that she might be a new means of torture, another hallucination conjured by my mind to remind me this will never end.
"What d-do you w-want with me? Have I n-n-not suff-fered enough?"
"No." Her response is suddenly cold as ice.
For the slightest moment her friendly demeanor turns distant and spiteful before turning sweet again.
"You still have more suffering to go through, but I have a deal for you. I'm here to give you a second chance and save you."
"N-no one can s-save me," I admit out loud.
It is something I have been forced to come to terms with.
The first few years I begged for mercy. Then I begged the depictions of my family for mercy, expecting all of this to be some kind of test.
And finally, along the line, I came to the final, true conclusion: this was no test.
It is the result of my entire life—of being a stuttering coward, running away rather than standing up for myself. And no one is coming to save me.
"That is true, but I'm not just anyone," she confesses with a playful smile.
I look at her, confused and tired, and then, in a split second, I feel information being breezed into my head. Like a memory pieced together in a breath.
I instantly know who she is—or rather, what she is.
I gasp, stepping away, shaking more from fear.
"G-Goddess Sel-lene?"
Her chuckle confirms it.
I fall on my knees instantly, too lowly to stare into her face. I grab the hem of her dress, bursting into tears, though they never fall, making it even more painful.
"P-please save me! M-make it stop, please, I beg of you!!" I grip tighter, knowing my existence depends on it.
I just want it to end. I want this suffering to be over. I want a death that is a void of nothing.
"You've done nothing but beg your whole life, my child. Begging will only get you so far. You must learn to grasp destiny by its reins and define what happens with your own hands."
Her cold words taunt me again—a harsh reminder that I've fallen back into my old habits of crying and begging, of relying on the goodness of another's heart to save me.
But life is transactional. It always has been.
I pull myself together, shaking but putting on an act. I summon what confidence looks like in my head—the perfect example I had when I was alive—and embody it.
I imagine Marcella, how defiant she would speak to Father, how she would demand and argue with him in ways I'd never dared, because he would kill me for it.
"W-What can I do? I will do a-anything for another chance to m-make them pay for what they d-did to me. I will get my revenge on the one who killed me."
"Perfect." She leans lower, raising my head by the chin. "I will grant your wish on the condition that you fulfill a request of mine, Valoria, daughter of Ottomar of the Wilderose house."
I swallow, the realness of everything hitting hard.
The fear isn't gone, but—dammit—the hate in my heart burns fiercer, matched only by my desperation to be free, to breathe a breath of air and taste a drop of water. I'd do anything.
"You will go to the Lycan King as destined by the hands of fate. You will tempt him, tame him, and then you will kill him—all within one hundred days."
And just like that, my burning resolve turns to ash.
"I can't do that," I blurt out honestly.
"You said you were desperate, that you'd do anything. Did I misunderstand?"
"No, you didn't. I mean—how could I? I was born a defective wolf, unable to fully transform. I'm weaker than most. How can I tempt or tame anything, much less kill the literal devil?"
"Valoria, you need to start thinking more about yourself. You're more than a defective wolf. You have been chosen by the Moon Goddess. I will guide you on this mission. When you meet him, lower his guard, make him trust you. Find his dagger with a golden hilt and a ruby gemstone embedded beneath it, and run it through his heart."
"O-Okay…" I nod with little resolve, trusting her words more than my own.
Her smile returns.
"This mark connects us now." She holds my hand, and a tattooed flower vine slithers down her arm and into mine, taking its place on my wrist before fading away into my skin.
"Remember, you have one hundred days to carry this out for your wish to be granted—lest you return here to face another millennia of suffering," she warns, a grin on her lips.
I nod slowly, unable to comprehend but going along with it.
"Now, close your eyes."
I do, feeling myself float into the air until my consciousness fades.