Mated to Two Lycan Heirs

Chapter 1: Yakai

Petra’s POV

THE GUARDS were gone. Marcus had dusted himself off the floor while the small crowd by the entrance had dispersed. Behind me was Liam. He nodded ahead and I quickly adjusted my open-top apron when I noticed that the bald con man by the left was still staring lustfully at my chest.

You p*****t. I snickered.

“I belong here and no one would make me feel like I do not,” Marcus squalled from a distance. Liam shuffled backward and chuckled when our eyes met. I bottled up the chuckle that had already gripped the corners of my lips when I spotted Marcus charging towards the counter.

“Get me the gear by the rack stand,” he ordered Liam, undoing his shirt button.

“You mean the…” Liam stammered.

“Don’t strut like a c**k, you i***t. Get me the damn gear,” he thundered, his voice startling the men on the nearby tables.

“That won't be necessary,” a hoarse masculine voice grumbled behind Marcus. It's Rowlin. He's Marcus’s age-long friend. He docked his hand on Marcus's shoulder and led him to the empty booth by the left.

“And what's necessary? Disrupting my business and treating me like some piece of s**t? Huh?” Marcus roared, his temple draped with protruded veins.

Rowlin had his way around his friend. Before the next batch of drinkers could stagger through the wooden entrance, Marcus was already talking in murmurs.

Marcus owns the tavern I work at. In his loud brags, he says it's more than an inheritance from his warrior grandfather but a heritage he took an oath to pass down to his children even if he was yet to have one at age thirty-two. While he owns and manages the tavern, Liam heads the rest of the workers including myself.

Liam? He's cool and possesses a pair of blue eyeballs that make him quite charming. However, all

of us at Hoppin know that he's a jerk who makes fun of Marcus at every chance he gets. Of course, behind his back.

Business was smooth until the border guards began their raids in search of rumored humans. It was never a new thing but it only started to become a concern after Oman ordered his men to dismantle pots of beer, claiming that we might have human spies hidden in them. Even on the least raids of the tavern, tons of beer are either wasted or drunk without being paid for.

It's become a routine and when Marcus went ballistic and confronted Oman, the King Guard who supervises all the reckless raids, he got browbeaten to the ground like a pauper. Rowlin led him out of the danger and while he kept pelting the laughing Army General with ruffled curses, Liam and I knew that Marcus would never say a word to the general nor try stopping him or his men again. He was too plumpy and weak for that. He just had to put up a show to save face.

The chaos faded and the tavern began to swell with people like nothing ever happened. His gloves fully on, Liam passed me a jar of lager and made for the brewery. Marcus needed enough tons to fill in for the ones lost to the last raid.

“Can I have four goblets of ale, please?” a familiar voice ordered.

I chuckled as I surrendered the order to the counter. “Fresh and hoppy, just…”

“...the way I like it,” the voice completed my sentence.

His name is Umnar. He's the most famous grain collector in West Gate. Despite living in the slums of Crimlot, Umnar had a voice only a few residents of West Gate had. Only he could address King Ragnar on behalf of the people. If West Gate were to have a king, he'd be chosen unopposed.

Umnar staggered to the booth by the right with his ale-filled goblets while I mixed another spirit for the con man who spent more time staring lustfully at me than tending to his fading con skills. Marcus had sworn to stop hiring him. Customers never stop murmuring while he performs. They say his tricks had long become stale and boring.

“A mug of stout, please,” a sharp tenor requested from across the counter.

“Two more silvercrest for a mug,” I responded without looking back.

I filled a mug and swiveled in his direction. He inched closer and docked his bulky hands on the counter, watching me in silence as he dropped three silvercrest on the counter. “Two more silvercrest for a mug of stout you say?”

“Yes,” I nodded to Marcus who was lost in a conversation. By now, it wasn't just Rowlin. More

men had joined their table. “He instructed a couple of changes to the price list.”

The figure spun in Marcus's direction. “You mean he knows about this?”

“You can confirm it yourself,” I said, poking the price list pinned to the wooden winery right behind me.

The man pulled a frown and stared over his shoulders as if trying to say or do something he wouldn't want somebody else to notice. “The extra two silvercrests are your tavern’s illegal cut. Huh?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” I said, fighting to keep my tone as low as possible even though ignoring him was getting tougher by the second.

“Where in Crimlot does a mug of stout go for five silvercrests?” he asked, his voice starting to become loud.

I watched in silence, praying that Marcus look in our direction or at least, overhear the man's harsh tone. He was too lost to even lift his face.

Sharply, the man nodded to Marcus again. “I’ve always known he's a fool. Isn't he?”

Why can't he just go away?

I kept mute while he went on and on. “I had no idea he'd grow into a coward who wants to make up for the raids by milking villagers.”

“This is no milking. The Yakai knows about this,” I defended, my face contorted in a frown. He was slowly nudging me to the brink of losing it.

He chuckled after retrieving the silvercrests he dropped on the counter earlier. “The Yakai knows this. Are you sure about that?” he asked.

“I’ve worked here since I got old enough to tell the differences between a good and bad full moon. I know what I say before I say it,” I shrieked, forcing the fury in my tone back in.

“I doubt you know what you're saying, Petra! Are you sure about the Yakai knowing about your current price?”

He even knows my name?

I faked a smile and leaned closer. “How about you tell me how sure you are that you don't need

some trouble here tonight?” I grumbled, my lips bared and fists clenched.

“I won’t bite,” he shrugged, throwing his filthy hands into the air. “You could equally tell me if that's what you want?” he insisted, taking off his dirty timber gloves.

Marcus finally looked in my direction but I brushed the tension off with a sly smile. I leaned further, ditching the filled mug closer to the man. I wanted him to settle for something: pay for the stout and find himself a seat or guard his guts out of the door.

“I want no violence. I only want you to understand that he,” I nodded to Marcus, “has lost a lot to the raids but he can't get back up with a raise in price. How's that even possible with the Yakai’s strict price control campaign?”

“I see his tricks are getting to all of you. Huh? What makes you think he can't buy off the greedy Yakai spies so his adulteration can thrive.”

Adulteration?

“What did you just say?” I chipped in, my countenance completely different from what he had been looking at.

He arched his brows and feigned a grin. “You heard me and I can say it over and over…”

I don't know how but it happened. I emptied the mug, even to the last drop of stout in it, right on his horrifying face. After hankering for balance, he shot himself back to the counter like a recoiling rattler and launched a strike with the back of his palm. It was sleek and calculated but yet to get to me when a faster hand caught it mid-air.

Our faces etched with surprise, we both turned in the direction of the hand that seized his blow. It's some strange figure covered in a black flowing robe. His head was concealed with a hoodie attached to the robe while his face was enveloped by a black neck gaiter that exposed just his thick bushy brows and narrow eyes.

The man grabbed a bottle from the counter and drifted backward. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he barked, finally drawing the attention of everyone in the tavern.

The figure bent his head to the left. “Just someone who doesn't let cowards ply their trades in the wrong place,” he responded carelessly and then grabbed a mug from the nearest table and emptied its content down his throat like he'd been starved of anything liquid.

Cutting sharp glances across the tavern. “Call me a coward one more time and we,” he nodded to the small stage where evening performances take place, “go up there and show what we've got.”

The figure giggled. “I’d have called you something else if I could. I mean, only cowards hit women and you just…”

The figure was as fast as the claws of an alpha. He dodged the first hit that went right for his lower jaw and leaned to the side in the split of a second, yanking the man forward and forcing stars into his eyes with a hard kick to his forehead. The mugs on the nearest table vibrated as he fell to the ground in a loud stud.

Before he could lift any part of his body, another man from the entrance raised an alarm with a loud whistle. It's a familiar alarm. Even kids strawing donkeys could recognize it from miles away.

Damn!

Yakai spies.

King Ragnar controls everything in Crimlot. That includes the prices of grains and alcohol. When tariffs and taxes hit the roof during the building of the Pentra chamber, merchants devised means to sell commodities at an extra quotation. Ragnar blew the plan and set up the Yakai; a weirdly powerful sect of price control spies who maintain uniformity in price across the entire city.

They are every business’s nightmare as a breach of the pricing policy could lead to the severest of things. On bad days, it could earn one an execution at the Moon Feast.

With the gesture from Liam, who just snuck out of the brewery, things grew quite plain before my very before. The man who just got beaten to a pulp by the strange guy from nowhere is a Yakai Chief spy and in Crimlot, nobody touches a Yakai spy let alone their Chief.

One minute, my eyes darted for Marcus and then the next, it came back to the strange man but he was nowhere to be found. My terrified eyes razed down the entire tavern but saw no sign of him.

Where is he?

With a loud gong sound, tension gripped my chest as the shadows at the entrance darkened. Marcus furrowed his brows when we both saw what was pumping up against us.

There's no way I'd not get fired this time.