Daegelus | Volume Two: Vengeance

Chapter Sixteen | Risks

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| Haru |

Everything that the tutor standing in front of Haru told him went in one ear and out the other. He couldn't concentrate. All he could think about was what Elijah's text messages told him. His father's—no...Kaiichiro's ancestor was a founding member of Lyca Corp.; he might have organized his kidnapping because he didn't want to raise a child that wasn't his, and he was actively working for Lyca Corp. right now.

His heart hadn't stopped racing, it hadn't stopped aching. Fear and dismay had him in a tight grip, but he tried his best to hide it. He couldn't give away that he knew something. Kaiichiro might send him to another lab if he found out that he knew. What use would he be if he was locked up again? He didn't want to put Elijah through everything he'd gone through to find him again, nor did he want to spend another second on an operating table or in an arena fighting other kids.

He glanced around the lounge, his eyes always finding their way back to the security camera in the corner. Would the time to text Elijah back ever come? Was he going to be stuck in this room forever? How long was he going to have to act like everything was okay? How long was he going to have to tread lightly and avoid Kaiichiro's suspicion?

"Um..." the tutor drawled and then said something in Samayōnese.

Haru didn't remember the language well enough to understand. "Sorry, I don't...I don't really—"

"My apologies, Haru-sama," she said in Deiganish. "Are you okay? You seem miles away."

He shook his head and lied, "No, I'm fine. Sorry, I'm just still a little, uh...jet...whatever my mom said about the time change."

"Jetlagged?"

Haru nodded. "Yeah, that."

His tutor smiled. "I understand. Would you prefer we touch upon something lighter? Perhaps...okami otoko ways?"

That might be easier than trying to learn a whole language, and he'd need to know about the laws and rules of his people, right? Whether he stayed in Samayō-Akuma or went back to Elijah's family—which he planned to do as soon as possible—he'd always be an okami otoko, and he'd need to know what he was capable of, what his people believed, and how he was supposed to approach his life.

So, he nodded again and said, "Yeah, that sounds good."

She clicked a few keys on her laptop. The Samayōnse symbols disappeared from the projector screen, and in their place came images of okami otoko wolves.

Haru hadn't actually ever seen another of his kind, and seeing what an adult okami otoko looked like made him feel a little intimidated. They looked massive, standing taller than any man on all fours—taller than him. Their eyes were glowing red, yellow, blue, or green, their teeth were monstrous, and they all looked like killers.

And Haru would know. He saw that look in the eyes of every kid that surrounded him in the lab. Everyone had killed. He had killed.

"The first thing we must understand, Haru-sama, is that okami otoko are royalty. Your family come from the very pure Okaminoou bloodline, directly descended from Yuki Okaminoou, the first okami otoko. She was born of the great creator, Aegis Kardos."

Haru had heard that word before, Aegis. "What's an Aegis?"

"Children of the gods, Haru-sama."

Did that mean Elijah was an—

"Well, the children of Numen Letholdus," his tutor corrected.

"Oh...and...who's Kardos?"

"The seventh child of Letholdus."