MIA: A WEREWOLF'S CURSE

A FRUSTRATED FEELING

Mia's eyes slowly fluttered open once more and this time she was met with Aaron's very stern face. His facial features were so hard that if looks could kill in that moment, then she'd be dead.

His brows were very furrowed and stress lines had appeared around his face and under his eyes.

She groaned as her entire body ached with every single movement she made. She felt so weightless, as though she could be swept away by even the slightest torrent of an ocean.

Her head felt very heavy, weighed by the thought of everything negative that had defined her life in recent times.

"What— what am I—"

"You're in the alchemist's room. You fainted." He wanted to say more but held himself back.

Mia turned around where she lay on the bed, ignoring the ache that shot up to her head and threatened to split her skull open.

"But how?" She asked with a low voice that was empty and completely weak.

Her stomach grumbled loudly and she instinctively wrapped her hands around it, as embarrassment crawled up her face, leaving behind a bright red tinge that decorated the sides of her lips.

Aaron sighed with frustration, "listen up here, I am done with all your acting. Do you know what's at stake? You have gone nowhere in the task you accepted to take on, upon which I risked my throne and my position as Alpha." He paused, his eyes flashing with anger and his lips pursed in anger.

"I was wrong to have thought that you were the same Mia who I knew. You're no good for me anymore. Here," he said and stretched a bowl of soup which was filled to the brim and gave it to her.

Mia collected it with hesitation. As much as she wanted to keep her pride and ego, she couldn't. Not in the face of the immense hunger she was feeling inside her.

Even her hesitation was getting Aaron even more pissed than he already was.

"Look, you have less than a few days to bring your drawing to life." He said through gritted teeth.

He lowered his body and sat on the bed beside her, it dipped with his weight and Mia could feel her heart race increase tremendously.

Was it fear she felt? Well, he certainly looked very intimidating at that moment.

He leaned in closer to her, their faces were barely inches apart and Mia's heartbeat resounded even louder in her ears.

"The council is getting very impatient. I—" he paused, his silence, laying a lot of emphasis on the 'I', "—am getting very impatient and I promise you Mia, you don't want to see me get angry."

Mia swallowed hard. All that he was saying was barely going into her ears. It was as though he was speaking to a brick wall because all she could concentrate on was the way his pink lips moved as he dished out threats to Mia.

And also the hunger that was gnawing on the walls in her stomach. Each second she spent listening to him was becoming very excruciating. His words were always very harsh and she needed in that moment, to get that soup down her throat.

"I am no longer the little Aaron you once knew. I have changed. Don't EVER forget that." He said and stood up.

Mia felt cold with his absence and it made her skin crawl with goosebumps.

He made his way to the door but stopped momentarily to speak with the craftsman. He whispered to him. Mia could not hear what it was he said to him but she saw the craft's man turn to her and nod to Aaron's demands.

Her stomach grumbled once more, reminding her of the hunger she had been feeling. She placed the bowl in her mouth and didn't even care about how it tasted. She slurped down the bowl of soup.

In the twinkling of an eye, the bowl was empty and she seemed half full at least. Miram had starved her whilst she had her locked up.

"Well, hand you had your fill?" Donald asked.

Mia looked up at him and blinked in confusion. Then he used his head to gesture to the now empty bowl in her hands.

"Oh, yes. I think I'm okay." She lied, she was only half full and would have appreciated it if another bowl was brought.

"Good, now stand. You have a lot of work to do." He said.

The alchemist put up his hand to try to say something but Donald turned back to him.

"You don't need to say anything else, like perhaps giving her more time to rest because as you can see, she doesn't have any more time."

Then he turned back to the door in a very arrogant and haughty manner. The alchemist turned back to Mia and flashed her a sympathetic look.

She sighed and dragged herself up from the bed. The world around her spun a bit but she caught herself before she would fall.

She followed him until they got to the mines. They walked into the mine and he led her to a pit.

"Get to work." He ordered sternly.

Mia couldn't complain. After all, it was what she decided to do to save her kind. But the truth is that they weren't worth saving, at least, some of them.

Clara, her best friend, was worth saving and that was what she thought to herself as she slid into the pit carefully.

After some hours of digging, she was extremely spent. Her bones were weak and laden with the burden of having to dig through the hard soil with her fingers for  many hours in spite of being given only one bowl of soup after being starved.

She emptied the last tray of gems into the tram. She had to pick another kind of mineral that shimmered like silver but wasn't because it didn't burn like silver however it had the same silvery–white like appearance just like silver.

She was breathing very hard and sweat had adorned every part of her body and even wet her clothes from top to bottom, literally every part of it like she had been dipped in a stream. Her dress had become brown and dirty from toiling in the sand.

She used the back of her dirty palm to wipe the beads of sweat that rested on her forehead and the rest of her face.

He stretched his neck and peered into the tram,

"You might need to—"

Mia rolled her eyes with frustration, "oh for the love of the goddess!" She exclaimed with a mix of anger and frustration.

"We don't need that many. Can't you see I am exhausted from working too hard?" She asked him with a shaky voice and a shaky breath, trying to fight off the lump that was growing in her throat.

It was so unfair and cruel, the way she was being treated. Even by Aaron.

Why did she have to think of him now? She was going to deal with his matter later.

"Well, that's not my fault. I told you severally that you should use your claws but you wouldn't listen. I just can't understand why you won't listen. Besides, the Alpha put me in charge of you and said I had to keep a close watch on you so you would do the job faster. He is getting anxious and trust me—" he paused and let his eyes roam over her body,

"I, as well, would be worried if I were him."

Mia bit her lower lip to hold back the tears that were forming in her eyes.

"Well, come up and get it all packed up. It's time to move to the next stage." He said and stood up from where he had been sitting above the pit on a small stool.

Mia's eyes stung with tears as she climbed back up the pit and moved behind the tram and began pushing it while he walked ahead of her.