To Kill a Werewolf King

Maybe I'm Obsessed

Hawke

Oh, did you think he was gonna take me under his wing?

Ha! That bastard wouldn’t raise a child if his Godhood depended on it.

No, he swooped in and then dropped me off, leaving me with a few parting words before he went.

‘Love, you’re young, and you may not fully understand now, but know that you cannot always call on me to protect you. I will watch, I will wait, and one day, you will either burn or rise. Make the best choices you can and let Akira guide you. Don’t ever shut her out, or you’ll lose her forever. She is the only one who can help you choose your destiny.’

F.ucking Gods and their bulls.hit prophecies.

I am not saving the motherf.ucking world for anything, so let’s stop that thought right now.

F.uck that.

Let it burn.

I’ll burn too, and I’m perfectly okay with that.

So then, I became your typical orphan. Bullied, beaten, starved and touched inappropriately by boys in the group home who thought I was an easy target. They learned quickly I did not give a rat's ass who came at me, I would always do my damndest to come out on top.

And Tommy, the head f.ucking bully and Alpha Wolf to boot, became my best friend out of it. Tommy received his wolf on time, but he hadn’t completed his first shift yet. That was the moment I decided I would be his friend, not his enemy.

He had had his wolf for four years already, and hadn't been able to get away long enough to experience a true shift. Not only that, but he knew the first shift was excruciating and that the next few were not much better and he was terrified of going through it alone.

His wolf, Brutus, told him he could wait until Tommy turned eighteen and left the group home, but I couldn't let him keep living like that. He got to experience his first shift with me the following week, under the full moon, after I dosed our group house dinner with sedatives I had jacked from our ‘foster mom's’ cupboard.

Within a few more weeks, I knew we needed more for when he left here. He would leave before me but stay close by, finding an apartment and a job. And that was a good plan. It was the best plan. But we were young, and a good plan wasn't the most convenient plan.

We became street rats and then so much more. And the two of us were happy little street rats at first, let me tell you. We learned how to pickpocket, getting caught numerous times and having to make a run for it taught us a lot about what not to do. We learned how to jailbreak phones, jack vehicles, break into houses with alarms, and steal en masse from department stores. You name it, we jacked it and flipped it.

It helped that one of the other boys’ cousins was already gang affiliated and could help us get jobs to hone our skills. Then Tommy kicked it up a notch. He decided he wanted to learn how to race motorcycles. I told him he was a f.ucking i.diot, that he’d get himself killed, but he was so confident in Brutus, his wolf, that he did it anyway.

He raced for six months before a dumb choice on a rainy night ended with him and his bike rolling down the side of a f.ucking mountain. I loved that boy. I was seventeen when he died. He was my first kiss, the first boy to tell me I was pretty, the first boy to beat me in an all-out brawl, the first boy to apologize to me and show my changed behavior, the first boy to never lie to me, and never keep secrets from me.

I loved that boy with every fiber of my being. I never told him that. I couldn’t. I couldn’t handle it if he didn’t love me back. Not as much as I loved him. I never would have left him. No matter the fights, the arguments, the issues, internal or external, I would have stayed by his side as long as he stayed by mine, f.ucking mate or not.

I knew that from the moment he threw the first punch at my face two weeks after I had entered the group home and filled his sandwich with literal sand for calling me stupid earlier in the week.

All the girls I had as friends were drawn to me. They didn’t like that the boys didn’t like me. Some of them were their brothers or friends too. They didn’t mind that I didn’t like to do the super girly things like make-up and hair. Instead, they did the rougher things with me. I liked being their leader and teaching them things, like how to safely climb trees or make flower crowns. It made me feel good and useful.

All the boys, except Tommy, were different. At one point or another, they all told me I was too aggressive, too violent. Tommy did too, but when he said it, he had seemed to approve of it. They didn’t like me because I didn’t act like other girls. Tommy didn’t mind though. He’d always had this secret smirk plastered on his face when he was bullying me. Like he liked what he saw, but not in a bully type sense, in a testing type of sense. After a few butt-whoopings he tried to get his little minions to give me, I challenged him myself in front of his friends. Then I won.

Did I cheat?

Sure.

But I’m part animal.

I’ll do whatever it takes to survive.

It was weeks after that we revealed to each other our true natures, then went on our first run together. I stayed by his side the whole night, rubbing his back and shoulders and head, wherever I could that was the least painful for him in that moment.

Brutus tore through him within hours, and I was thankful for that because I had heard some shifts lasted a whole day. Then we ran, under the light of Selene's palace. We ran and chased and nipped and drank from a stream. Brutus even got to hunt Akira, and Akira couldn't have been more ecstatic to have met her chosen mate for the first time. After that night, Tommy and I were inseparable, never without each other.

Two years went by before I asked him why. I couldn't let him leave the group home without me, without knowing why first. Why couldn't he just be kind to me from day one? Why did he spend two whole months tormenting me, from pulling my hair to cutting my clothes to ‘borrowing and returning’ my stuff to having random boys try to fight me? Why did it take me challenging him and winning for him to be my friend instead of my enemy?

“I would never have respected you if you hadn’t challenged me. From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were more than you appeared to be. I had to push you to come out of your shell. I never put you in harm’s way. I knew you’d take those boys on and win, easily. I just dropped a few hints to them here and there about how much I didn’t like you. I made it clear I didn’t want to hurt you, just scare you a bit. I wanted to see how far you’d let things go before you started fighting back. Before you’d decided to not let the s.hit the world throws at you keep you down.” He said to me, looking me directly in my eyes.

His beautiful dark blue orbs that I saw the whole galaxy in when I closed my own. I had thought it was going to be about his wolf, and his need to be the Alpha in every room. His response genuinely shocked me.

“I’m sorry if I did it in the wrong way from your perspective. I don’t know any other way to be other than aggressive, violent. And… if I’m being totally honest, I was jealous at first too. I saw how you’d shut everything off, just completely numbed yourself down, and I wanted to do that so badly. I just wanted to be able to pretend like nothing f.ucking effected me, but I couldn’t. I was too angry all the time. Hell, I’m still too angry all the time. I’ve just figured out how to manage it better. Because you’re by my side.” He’d finished, grabbing both my hands and staring at me with a genuine smile on his face as he did.

“I’m sorry that you felt that way. I can tell you, it wasn’t a good feeling. I wanted to be angry, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to do or feel anything. You…” I trailed off, my cheeks heating like a f.ucking toaster oven. His eyes bounced between mine and his brows furrowed a bit. He tilts his head to the side just a bit as he waits.

“You saved me, Tommy. You gave me a reason to fight. I might sometimes hate that we met the way we did, and yeah, the way you went about it was wrong for sure, T, but I… I don’t honestly feel shame, or humiliation. I never did. And somehow, I never thought you were out to make me feel that way. The things you did, although they were annoying and sometimes mean, weren’t harmful, as you said. None of those boys you asked to fight me felt like a threat to me, at all. Just annoying little pests doing your bidding. And they were never really in public, when I think about it.” We both chuckled at ‘the pests’ piece, but then our silence surrounded us once again.

He’d come into my room, the room I share with three other girls, as he always did at 3 am. He’d started this a few weeks before this conversation. He’d come in, tuck himself under my covers, position me on his chest and slowly wake me up, so we could chat while cuddling. There was never any kissing, or s.exual moves. Just a midnight chat.

Sometimes he’d bring snacks he’d stolen and hidden away, or I would, and we’d eat or slip around the four-bedroom house, dropping snacks off with the other kids and then cuddle and chat. No matter what, Tommy always insisted on a cuddle and conversation for at least half an hour before he would leave.

‘It’s best we meet at the start of the witching hour. It’ll give us enough time to not worry.’ he’d reasoned the very first night he’d come to my room and woke me up to chat. I was fifteen then, he was seventeen. We’d continued doing it for a year, until just after I turned sixteen, because then he turned eighteen and was immediately booted from the group home by our crappy guardian.

So I had to sneak out to meet him instead. That’s around the time he first brought up racing to me, and I prayed to Apollo he wouldn’t do it. But I didn’t ask him to prevent Tommy either. I wouldn’t take anything away from him that he could grow to love.

Tommy knew about Apollo. He knew because he’d seen the shining man, as he’d first called him, bring me to the doorsteps of the group home. Apparently, he’d shown a light above my head that was a signal of some sort to Brutus that made the wolf insist that Tommy test me to begin with. He personally wasn’t even going to bother me.

F.ucking wolves.

I’ve lost a lot of other people in my life in the last ten years since Tommy died.

I just recently turned 27, and Tommy’s 29th birthday is just around the corner. I’d reach out to Apollo again to see if he could help me talk to either Hel or Hades, to see if I could search the Underworld and Niflheim for his soul. But I know Apollo is dead set against me visiting either place. He wishes for me to move on.

If Tommy had believed in the Christian God, I had no chance. That man was not someone to f***k around with, and he didn’t f***k around with bringing people back from the dead. Well, except Jesus. But he’s an exception and every deity knows it, and me, apparently.

Apollo.

Insert shrug here.

And not something I’m going to get into. That’s a whole other story all on its own, and we’re talking about my opinions and beliefs as a werewolf with celestial ties. Besides, I don't think Tommy followed the Christian God. That was one topic in five years I could never get him to become open about: his religion. I just have to hope and pray that his Gods and Goddesses were the same as the ones I had renounced.

I think maybe I've summed it all up. There might be more later, we'll see.

Did you catch where we’re headed yet?

Yeah, I’m bringing Tommy back, b.itch. It’s been ten long, grueling, blood, sweat and tears filled years without him by my side. I’m pretty sure the f.ucker was my mate at this point. I have sacrificed, killed, and bathed in the blood of my King’s enemies for ten f.ucking years without him by my side. I won’t have anyone less.

Maybe I’m obsessed.

But I have only had two goals for the last ten years, and by the end of this year, I will have completed those goals. I’ve cheated, stolen, f.ucked and killed my way to my position. I’ve been everywhere, to every continent, to every pack under the Northern Wolf King.

I’ve gained allies among all the Lycanthrope peoples, friends among the Coven of the Black Rose, and debtors among the Vampire Kingdom.

As the Royal Spy, I know everything.

As the Royal Assassin, I’ve made my bed a thousand times over.

I am prepared to die to get what I want.

I have no qualms with the Reaper.

I’ll pay my dues and enter Hades, or I’ll get picked up by the hounds of Hel.

Either way, I’ll get my f.ucking Prince Charming back if it’s the last thing I do.

And I have a feeling it will be.

After I kill the blessed North King.

Now all I have to do, is convince Apollo to back me against the King, and I’m f.ucking golden, pony boy.