25: Best Answered By Raguel

Lyra

I didn’t leave my room because I didn’t know where I would go if I left.

And every time I tried to think clearly, everything circled back to the same thing.

This wasn’t my life.

A soft knock came at the door, breaking the silence of the room.

I didn’t answer immediately.

“Lyra?” Emily’s muffled voice followed, firm but clearly edged with concern. “May I come in?”

I hesitated, then answered, “Yes.”

The door creaked open, and Emily stepped in, her eyes scanning the room before settling on me. She looked like someone genuinely troubled by my wilted posture.

“Lyra, it’s past noon. You’ve been in here all day,” she said. “I was worried you’d decided to lock yourself away forever.”

“Maybe I have,” I replied, my voice sounding hollow to my own ears. “There’s nothing else for me to do, is there?”

Her brows drew together slightly.

“That’s not true.”

“It is,” I said, my voice flatter than I intended. “I’m just… waiting for my next set of orders from the ‘Alpha King’.”

I made sure that the words sounded as bitter as I felt. I was a pawn on a board I couldn’t even see, and I wanted her to know that I wasn’t under any illusions about my status.

Emily’s expression shifted. “That’s not what this is.”

“It feels like it,” I said quietly.

Silence stretched between us.

Then she stepped further into the room.

“It isn’t that bad, Lyra. You aren’t a prisoner here. You can do anything you want here.”

“Anything?” I looked up, a bitter smile tugging at my lips. “Then let me leave. Let me walk out the front gate, find a car, and disappear.”

Emily’s expression softened into that pitying look I was beginning to loathe. “You know that isn’t an option. Not yet.”

“Then I’m exactly what I thought I was,” I muttered, standing up and smoothing out the silk gown.

“Come with me,” she said after a moment.

I frowned. “Where?”

“Let me show you around.”

“I’m not really in the mood for a tour.”

“You’ll come to enjoy this place, Lyra. I promise,” Emily said, stepping back into the hallway and gesturing for me to follow. “Let me give you a proper tour of the mansion. Ask me anything. No more sitting in the dark.”

I hesitated and let out a sigh. “Fine.”

Because sitting in my room all day wasn’t helping either.

I followed her, my heels clicking against the stone floors that had seen centuries of history I was only just beginning to grasp. As we walked through the sprawling corridors, past portraits of stern men and beautiful women, the question that had been burning in the back of my mind finally slipped out.

“How did all of this even start?”

She glanced at me. “What do you mean?”

“Werewolves,” I said. “You. Him. All of this. How did it begin? How did your kind... come to be?”

Emily paused by a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the mist-covered valley. She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t actually have an idea.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Yeah,” she said simply. “I was born into this world, just like my mother and her mother before her. We just... are.”

“You never queried it?” I asked, leaning against the cold stone. “You never wondered where you came from, why you have two natures while the rest of the world only has one?”

Emily let out a soft, melodic laugh. “That’s a very ‘human’ question, Lyra. No, I haven’t.”

“How? Why?”

“Because to me,” she said, “this is normal. The thing is I don’t see myself or my race as special. It’s just our biology. You’re only thinking that way because you aren’t used to the system yet.”

I stared at her. “So you’ve never questioned it?”

She shook her head.

We turned down another hallway with my mind still racing.

“Do you… do you actually shift? All of you?” I asked suddenly.

She glanced at me.

“Yes.”

My steps slowed.

“Can I see it?”

She paused for a few seconds before lifting her hand.

“For a moment,” she said.

I watched closely.

At first, nothing happened.

And then, her fingers shifted slightly but unmistakable.

I watched, my breath hitching, as her fingers thickened, her nails elongated into sharp, dark points, and fine, tawny fur sprouted from her pores until her hand was more paw than human.

I stared wide-eyed, awed by the mild transformation despite myself.

“That’s…”

I didn’t even have the words.

Emily watched my reaction carefully.

“You’re not scared,” she noted.

“I should be,” I said.

“But you’re not.”

I shook my head slowly.

“Raguel owes you your first experience of a full transformation,” Emily said, her hand shifting back to its human form as if she had simply closed and opened a fist. “But for now, little glimpses will have to do.”

I exhaled, still staring at where it had been.

“That was… actually kind of amazing.”

We kept walking and my thoughts kept spinning again.

“The mayor,” I said suddenly. “Omar.”

Emily nodded.

“He’s one of you.”

“Yes.”

“Are there… more?” I asked. “Like him?”

She glanced at me.

“You mean in positions of power?”

“Yes.”

A small smile curved her lips.

I let out a slow breath.

“So when Raguel said you’re the government…”

“He wasn’t exaggerating.”

That settled heavily in my chest.

“It was only a few years ago,” she continued, “after he became Alpha King, that he enforced stricter boundaries.”

“Like what?”

“Werewolves were banned from competing in certain areas,” she said. “Sports and other activities that rely heavily on physical strength. Anything that would give us an unfair advantage over humans.”

I frowned.

“That sounds… fair.”

“It is,” she said. “But not everyone agreed.”

“I can imagine.”

“He’s made a lot of changes,” she added. “Some welcomed. Some not.”

I absorbed that quietly.

Trying to piece together a world I still didn’t understand.

“And now,” I said slowly, “I’m supposed to be part of that.”

“Yes.”

We were on our way back toward my wing of the house when the most terrifying thought of all occurred to me—one I hadn’t dared to voice until now.

“Emily,” I said, stopping in the middle of the hallway. “Becoming this… queen... does that mean becoming Raguel’s wife in a literal sense, too?”

Emily stopped and looked at me, a cryptic, soft smile playing on her lips. She didn’t answer immediately.

“That,” she said finally, “is a question best answered by Raguel.”