Alaska ✓

6 | Ruptured

6 | Ruptured
❝She wasn't looking for a knight. She was looking for a sword.❞

The next two battles flew past like a fleeting falcon diving through the sky. I had swiftly beaten both of my previous opponents, who were luckily smaller and more fragile than the monster William. I had not killed them either. It was wrong, and I did not want the other werewolves to portray me more as a murderer than I already was.

But the truth is that I am a killer, no matter what. It's as if I have a giant arrow over my head, signalling the horrific deaths I have caused over the past few days, because everyone stares at me intently and quizzically when I walk past. None of them smile, with the exception of Josh and Azra.

And sad thing is I want to kill Titus. He destroyed my life, slaughtered my parents, and tainted me. The mental consequences I never thought possible, were something I thought I could withstand. Now, I realise taking a life haunts you forever. I will never be ok with it, but I have to live with my terrible decisions for the rest of my life, carrying them like a crushing rock weighed on my shoulders. If I lose my balance, I will fall.

I scan the stands circling me, spotting the glaring azure eyes I was so used to. There, in the swarm of onlookers, stood my friend with a black eye and bruising around her neck.

Yesterday, Chase had beaten Azra in no more than two minutes. He had strangled her until she went unconscious, but he had luckily let her go before her life disappeared altogether.

Despite her anger after waking up, Azra had settled for defeat. She accepted the fact that she had lost to the strongest opponent left in the competition.

As the wind howls past my face, pushing the loose strands of my brunette hair behind me eyes, I look across the vast expanse of the battlefield towards my opponent. Whereas I had hoped to come up against Josh or Azra once during the competition, luck had not been on my side. It was as if we were repelling opposites.

With the ancient sword nestled in my grip, the brittle metal touching my skin, I squint my eyes at my opponent. Of all people, they had to pair me with Titus, the deliverer of all my pain. The one who single handily ruined my life by uttering a few words. The one who killed my parents.

With all the suffering and resentment boiling in my veins, one thing was clear: one of us had to die. And it wouldn't be me.

Apart from Azra being violently barged out of the Alpha Trials, Josh had managed to succeed and win his previous two battle to face Chase in the semi-final. I hoped with all my soul that he won, because going up against Chase would break me. I had fought him once, and even that one time was too much for my body to handle.

I blink away my trance, the battlefield drowning in a dull, hazy yellow regaining my attention. The meters between me and my opponent span out into kilometres, both of us at different ends of the universe. He was down in hell while I was on the ground, determined to slay my demons one by one, starting with Titus.

"You afraid, Rogue?" Titus snarls, the harsh whisper blowing across the hundreds of thousands of yards until it reaches my ears.

Everyone seriously had to stop calling me rogue. I had told them my name, and I did not appreciate being associated with the true bloodthirsty beast. I was a rogue, but I wasn't a true rogue. I thought that I had made that clear already.

I raise my chin, sword clenched so tightly in my grip, I'm afraid that I'm going to leave an imprint of my hand. "No," I say to my opponent defiantly, feet apart as I try to prove to him that I was strong. Hadn't the defeat of William shown that?

I was a little bit scared that I would not win, but my vengeance was bone deep, and I was sure that the raw emotions buried inside me wouldn't let me die by the hand of the devil.