The room went completely silent. No one spoke or even moved. Lola couldn’t believe what she’d just seen herself, and she came from Alcroft. She was one of the kingdom’s citizens. She’d had no idea, not even a small one, that King Harrison was developing such a weapon. To be able to kill so easily was terrifying. Seeing what Hank Palsvig showed off made her question her entire reality even more so than the acts of violence she’d been forced to witness. Those, despite being horrific, made sense within her worldview. Werewolves were creatures of violence and hunger. A pack of werewolves had slaughtered and murdered her village. That fit within her perception of the creatures.

She thought her country was a peaceful one full of people working hard to meet the needs of their families or working to fulfill some other dream they had. Seeing the weapon, the gun as Hank called it, was like getting slapped in the face with yet another difficult truth. It made her understand that the world she thought she lived in was a much more savage place than she ever wished to realize.

She wondered what else she’d been wrong about.

“Time draws short, Your Majesty,” Hank said, his booming voice carrying all throughout the throne room. “I need an answer. Surrender or war? Which will it be? And in case you’ve forgotten my demonstration already, I’d be more than happy to repeat it. I’ll even let you pick my target this time. Will it be one of your brothers? Maybe a fair and innocent maiden? Although, judging from the vicious snarls and bared teeth, a fair and innocent maiden might not be in this bunch.”

His eyes swept across the room until they happened, by pure coincidence, on Lola. As soon as their gazes met, his eyes seemed to light up with some inner glee.

“Well, well. What do we have here?” He took a few steps forward as if to get a better view of Lola. Then he beckoned with a hand. “Sir Thomas, please step forward.”

The knight marched forward and came to stand next to Hank. He stood there in stiff military posture, both arms clasped behind his back and his stern face looking forward at seemingly nothing.

“Does this woman look a bit out of place amongst all these other women?” Hank asked. “She is human and yet seems to be wearing such expensive, posh clothing.”

Lola felt her heart start to beat a bit quicker. The man was observant, there was no question about that. Looking around the room, all the other humans there were dressed in clothing that was of unquestioningly poorer quality than the werewolves.

Sir Thomas took one look at her and instantly recognized her from Wrexon.

“This is the woman that I saw with King Russel Polver while they were in Wrexon. At the time, I did not realize who he was. If I had, I would not have let them leave so easily. Of course, the same mistake will never be made again, as you know, Sir.” There was something weird that passed between the two when he said that. Some hidden knowledge only they shared.

“Yes, of course. But you are sure this is the human woman you saw with him?” He gestured for Lola to come forward but she didn’t budge. Exasperated, he pointed the gun lazily at a random person. “I said come forward. Unless you want me to shoot some more of your new friends, traitorous cunt.”

Lola was not expecting that kind of insult.

“Speak that way about her again and I will shove that gun so far up your ass, you’ll taste it every day for the rest of your days,” Russel snarled. “Ms. Lola Tarnvol is an honored guest of mine. Do not threaten or insult her again.”

“You are not grasping the situation again, Your Majesty,” Hank said. He lifted one hand into the air and immediately brought it back down again. As soon as he did, every knight drew out a gun of their own that had been hidden on them, out of sight. They didn’t point them at anyone specifically but held them at their sides with the barrels directed at the ground. The statement was enough however. It was a clear show of force and an undeniable one at that.

Hank took a breath.

“Now, once again, traitorous cunt, get over here.”

Lola watched with anger as fury imbued nearly every cell of Russel’s body but in the end, there was nothing he could do. If he retaliated now, especially at the behest of a human girl, then he would be condemning so many of his werewolves to death. They would more than likely overwhelm the humans but at what cost?

“Put down your weapons,” Lola said, her voice bitter. She walked out of the gallery Russel placed her in and went over to stand about three feet from Hank. “What is it you want?”

“I want to know what you are doing here instead of being back in Alcroft where you belong?” Hank asked. “To be whoring yourself out to a werewolf king makes me physically ill.”

He leaned forward and actually made a show of sniffing her, his face recoiling in disgust as he did.

“Just as I thought. You smell like wet dog,” he said. “How long did it take for you to spread your legs for that one, eh? Twenty minutes? More?”

“You can insult me all you want, you ignorant, pathetic little man, but the simple fact is King Russel Polver has done nothing but go out of his way to protect me since I met him. That’s more than I can say for any of you impudent assholes. My entire village was burned to the ground. I would have been next if…” She stopped herself before she could say anything incriminating. “I was lucky to get out of there alive. And when I point all of you right at the person responsible, what do you do? You use it as an excuse to invade all three kingdoms.”

She resisted an urge to slap the man across the face and instead, settled for spitting on him.

“You make me sick. I wrote that to get justice for those I lost. To let my own king, someone I had looked up to, know exactly what happened. Of how an entire village of his people, people he was sworn to protect as a sacred duty of his title, was overrun and slaughtered. I may be a traitorous cunt, but Russel has shown me time and time again that I can trust him. That I can depend on him. What has King Harrison ever done for me besides letting my parents and all my family and friends die?”

“What a compelling statement.” Hank said. Then he did something Lola didn’t expect. He bowed to her. “I offer my apologies to you, Ms. Tarnvol. Of course, King Harrison was devastated to learn of what happened to Gloucester. As you can see, this is his response. I was sent here to take stock of the situation and to remove you directly if there was any evidence that you were being held against your will.”

Lola blinked, confused.

“Uh…what?”

“I do offer my sincerest apology for the way I spoke to you but it was the only way to truly know your feelings.”

She stepped back from him, still confused. What was this? Some kind of test?

“I don’t understand,” she muttered.

Russel came to stand next to her, his own face twisted with rage.

“You come in here, kill my wolf, all as some elaborate way to figure out if Lola has been coerced to stay here?” Russel’s face started to hump and change, wolfish features beginning to show.

Hank’s glance shifted and glared at Russel.

“I killed your spy because he was found to be illegally within our borders. And I came here for the exact reasons I have stated. We will occupy your kingdom as well as Harvenk. Sarchi has already fallen to us. Think about that, King Russel, before you continue to threaten me.”

“We will not surrender to the likes of you!”

Russel’s head whirled toward the sound. It had come from Roland, of course. His brother’s face was mostly wolf now. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, every barrel of every gun the knights had swung toward him. He didn’t back down though.

“Go ahead and do it!” he screamed. “I’ll not cower before the likes of you.”

“Your brother seems to be doing a lot of the speaking,” Hank said. “The question is, does he speak for you, Your Majesty? Is Prince Roland your mouthpiece?”

“Shut him the hell up, now,” Russel roared, not bothering to look to see if his brothers were obeying his commands or not, just trusting that they would. Roland didn’t say another word after that. “And you can take your ultimatum and shove it up your ass right along with that gun I’ll be shoving up there first.”

“I see,” Hank said. “And that is your final answer then?”

“Do you see me saying anything to contradict it?” Russel asked.

“Excuse me,” Lola jumped in. “You can’t just completely change your tune with me and then gloss over the whole thing like it never happened. What the hell are you really doing here?”

“A good question, Ms. Tarnvol,” Hank said. His posture exuded pure arrogance still but it had relaxed somewhat. “You see, we have our network of information gathering, you might say. We’ve learned of you and knew you would be here. What we didn’t know was if you were actually safe or being held against your will. My attitude toward you was a test. It was to simply gain more insight into your state of mind. If you had immediately denied accusations of being a traitor and even begged for us to take you back, it would have been a sure sign of abduction. However, you defended King Russel and under no duress did you do this. I beg your forgiveness for my rude behavior but we had to be sure.”

“Why? Why does it matter?” Russel asked.

“It’s simple really,” Hank said. “King Harrison would like to express his gratitude to you personally for keeping one of his citizens safe and guarded against those that would harm her.”

“Your king has a funny way of expressing gratitude,” Russel snarled.

“You don’t get to be king of Alcroft with three werewolf kingdoms surrounding you by being overly cautious or showing weakness of any kind,” Hank explained. “And besides, my threats were completely valid. We will occupy your lands.”

“You need to get to the point,” Russel declared. “All this going around and around is doing nothing but wasting all of our time.”

“Agreed,” Hank said. “My king offers you this third option but only to you and only because of your efforts to continually protect Lola. Travel to Harvenk and bring back the head of Prince Drake Wittam, the one truly responsible for what happened in Gloucester. If you accomplish this feat, then the treaty will stand and everything will go back to normal.”

He paused, his eyes searching Russel and even Lola.

“What say you?”