I woke up to the sounds of raised voices but I didn't have the effort to pay attention, I was still trying to recall my dreams, for some reason, they are all insanely vivid and make no sense whatsoever, people always say that if you remember your dreams, they mean something, I'm not sure riding in a bathtub with a hyperactive cat in the back and the teenage mutant ninja turtles in the background count as a meaningful dream.
While I was half asleep, certain parts of the conversation started becoming more detailed and easier to hear.
"Welcome back Alpha Koi, we are ready for you."
Alpha Koi, I'm in his territory, it's about time. I willed myself to open my eyes but closed them again due to the brightness of midday.
"Someone kill this monster!" Someone screamed, it was much further away, I still shot up, clearly panicked.
I looked around and saw absolute chaos being unleashed, Carlos was attacking people, but only certain ones for some odd reason. I looked up and saw Koi looking down at me with a sincere expression on his face. He leaned down and kissed my forehead.
"Hello, did you sleep well?" he softly cooed. I gave him a deadpan look, I was so close to slapping him fair across the face.
"Why aren't you doing anything? They're going to think Carlos is a monster!" He looked at me confused.
"What do you-" His head snapped up when he heard a loud, shrill and bone chilling scream. Once he spotted the devastation though, he smiled. I swear my mouth hit the floor.
"He's just doing as I asked, like I said love, the unfaithful will be executed, it was only a tiny minority of them, look he's finished."
I looked over to see Carlos snarling, covered in blood. He looked truly feral, but to me, he looked kinda cool. Carlos spun around looking through the crowd who, surprisingly, weren't screaming or running away, they were looking at him in awe. Carlos turned to look at me with slight confusion, the crowd edged forward slowly and he spun around again, probably panicked.
"Koi, they're scaring him." I whispered, he looked down and I realised that he was wearing clothes, oh my goddess, please don't tell me he walked in here naked, with me in his arms. He turned to the crowd and without saying a word, they all turned to look back at him, I felt like I was in a horror movie.
"Please back away from him, he's clearly panicked." That wasn't Koi, it was one of his guards, he was holding on to Carlos tightly, at that moment I realised that Carlos was growling, ferociously, then out of nowhere, he turned around and slashed at the guard's face. He flinched, but didn't back away, Carlos snarled at him and was about to attack when Koi's voice boomed across the whole scene.
"Come here now Carlos!" I almost whimpered. Carlos' head snapped towards him and reluctantly, he flew towards us, landing soundlessly with his head bowed. He was scared.
"Oh Carlos, don't be scared." I said softly stroking his cheek. Koi placed me in Carlos' arms carefully and at the same time, lifted Carlos' chin to look at him.
"You haven't done anything wrong Carlos, you did as you were told and acted upon fear which you cannot control, but I will help you, you controlled yourself and the monster, which was an amazement in itself." He paused, smiling softly.
"Please take Charlotte to my room, the guards will go with you, do not attack, well at least try your best, once you are done, return to me."
He then looked at me, and smiled, leaning down.
"Make sure he doesn't do anything, you have a special control over him that I don't quite have, you don't have to use words, just comfort him if he starts to get antsy."
With that he turned to the crowd and motioned for the guards who surrounded us in a semicircle. It seemed a bit pointless until I saw the crowd trying to get to me, grabbing my sleeve and parts of my hair, the guards quickly pushed them off.
"This way." One of the guards directed Carlos with his hand held out, pointing to the large door that led into one hell of a house. I couldn't see where the roof was supposed to start from the angle I was at but it must be massive nonetheless.
We walked through corridor after corridor until we came across a room with incredibly large doors. The door frame was covered with intricate patterns and carvings, some in the shapes of wolves and others in the shapes of winged beasts like Gryphons, Phoenix's and devils. One of the guards pulled out a key, golden and shiny. He put it in the door and it unlocked with a small click. The guard then turned to Carlos.
"We are not allowed to view the contents of the room, the Alpha has put an enchantment on the room that brings terrible misfortune and in some cases incredible amounts of pain upon looking into the room, only Charlotte and the Alpha himself are allowed to view and or enter the room." The guard explained rather calmly, considering the costs of looking into the room without permission. Carlos growled, probably not understanding what the guard said but hating his voice either way. This guard was not as fearless as the one Carlos practically bitch slapped. I looked up at Carlos and pulled his face towards me.
"Hey it's ok, can you please put me down?" I asked sweetly, Carlos frowned but carried out my request.
"Ok, thank you. Now, remember you need to go to Koi, he asked you to return once I was in the room, please follow these lovely gentlemen outside ok?"
Carlos nodded, at least he understood Koi and I. I stepped forward to give him a hug and then watched him leave.
I turned to the large doors, running my hands along the carvings and patterns, they were so beautiful, each having some meaning to them. I was interrupted when two of the guards were making their way towards me, I really hope Koi hadn't assigned guards to me, I thought we were over the whole running away idea. I turned my full attention to the guards.
"Is something wrong?"
The guards looked at me for a brief second, stopping about 3 feet away from me.
"The Alpha has asked that we protect you, due to the large crowd, they are incredibly curious, they could pose a danger to you." One of the guards replied formally. At least Koi wasn't expecting me to run away.
"Oh ok, thank you." I replied a bit awkwardly, I turned around and decided to enter the room. I might look and feel a bit weird standing here running my hands over the carvings. I gave a nod to both of the guards before pushing open the large doors, they quickly darted their eyes from the entrance, I thought they were joking about the enchantment.
I closed the doors behind me and took a look at the room, it was stylish, a kind of modern and boyish look. There were more carvings on the roof when I looked up, as well as scratch marks, for some reasons it gave me shivers. There were also specifically designed tables and furniture, all with carvings. The difference was that the carvings outside the room were somewhat for show, the ones in here each had a story to tell. One of them had a depiction of what looked like the devil rising and casting a spell? The spell was aimed at a newborn, Koi. It was a little story of how Koi came to be what he is now. Well not like exactly, the devil didn't come out of the ground to do that but you get the gist of it.
I spun around the room, jumping when I noticed a figure behind me.
"Fuck! Koi don't do that to me." I screamed, watching Koi chuckle. He smiled at me and then looked up at the roof just as I was a minute ago.
"Cool isn't it? My parents got it made for me before I had the enchantment, it lets me know that they didn't think I was a monster, they called it a gift, a gift given to make me stronger, powerful."
He was looking at the carvings with adoration, it warmed my heart, his parents were immediately in my good books. They made this for him, they cared about him, he wasn't a monster and they helped him to see that.
"They aren't wrong, you're not a monster, you're a blessing, a very handsome one."
He smiled when I said that, he smiled like the goofball he is. I walked over to his bed and threw myself in the middle, enjoying the softness of it. Koi followed me soon after, making the bed dip, flinging me in the air, I giggled with delight.
"So, what were you doing out there?"
He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
"I talked to my pack, stating my authority and making it very clear that if they defy my rules and go against the pack, they will be very painfully tortured and executed, I have to get my pack behind my cause, that was the first step, now." He paused nuzzling into the crook of my neck.
"The second step is stating my authority to the rest of the werewolf community, I will make this safe place happen, I will rid our world of the fear created by the outside world, we will, together."
He placed his huge arm over me, pulling me on top of him and rubbing soothing circles on my back. His pack accepted the idea, we had a lot more people behind our cause now, but it was only a pack, even though his is the largest, there is still every other pack in the world, the rest of the werewolf population, that was going to be a lot tougher, but, it's happening, one little step at a time.