[TAMIKO]
"You can't stop me f—" Tamiko began but Sadako just sighed before interrupting the kid.
He had been studying Tamiko and there was something in Tamiko's eyes, something that got Sadako intrigued and angry at the same time. A sudden haunting realization stared right at Sadako and the Lord considered his options.
"Let him leave," Sadako began, making his warriors look at him with skeptical eyes. It wasn't daily that anyone who Sadako had set his eyes on, left freely without a long and hard interrogation.
And this kid right here was the blazing red flag of the lycan community.
They knew Tamiko wasn't from Kawai, and they had questions for him. Sadako knew that too.
"Well, that's new. I thought you'd be d—" Tamiko said and Sadako raised a curious brow, making Tamiko hold back the remainder of his words. He wasn't sure they were words that a lycan Lord would ever be pleased to hear.
It was all a little too crazy and if there was something Tamiko had grown up learning about those in power, was that the powerful could easily destroy and get away with it.
And a lycan lord known to be the closest confidant of the dark and dangerous king Zaffuto was the warning Tamiko needed to shut up.
"Dragging you with us back to a place you've never set foot into?" Sadako added with a laugh, and Tamiko felt stiff. He was in trouble, and instinctively, he looked around them for the easiest way out of this.
Thinking back to the distance they had walked from the time he came out of the woods to the moment he had walked into the house at the borders, Tamiko knew he was fucked.
'I should have stayed silent, fuck,' Tamiko internally cursed as he stared at the bunch of lycans who were now staring at him and Sadako.
"Let him leave. He seems to have more pressing issues to deal with," Sadako said finally, and Tamiko looked at him like he had gone bonkers.
Surely the lycan lord was bluffing, right?
Well, Tamiko wasn't going to wait and hear the rest of it, because the moment Sadako spoke, the young lycan just made a run for the woods.
He made sure not to use the same exit he had used when he came to the unclaimed lands, because that would direct the lycans to Grealor.
As much as the whole idea of Grealor burning was a good thing for Tamiko, Tamiko knew that death was too good a mercy for the suffering that Grealor owed him.
He would do everything to make sure that damn pack went to hell, even if it was the last thing he did with his life. And with that, Tamiko chose the woods that led to the Reynard pack.
He knew he would be in worse pain then. But it was better than getting his vengeance stolen from him.
If anything, he had grown up in pain, so what was a little more, right?
"Hold it, right there," a voice said to Tamiko and he just sighed in relief, ready to face whatever was coming for him.
Tamiko had entered the Reynard lands without permission. It was only right that he faced the consequences of it all. He was ready for it, and any other thing that would come, as long as no one stole the suffering he owed Grealor.
'At least my scent is still masked,' Tamiko sighed internally as he stopped in his tracks, not daring to turn around, because he knew that he could easily be shot down, and he wasn't planning on dying today. Then again, weren't lycans immortal anyway?
"State your name and the pack you come from. And turn around, very slowly, or we will empty our weapons into you," the voice from earlier said and Tamiko just smirked.
Pain was a non-issue for him in every stage he went to, because frankly, there was nothing and no one that could hurt and damage him worse than what Grealor had done.
"I'm Tamiko, the outcast of the Grealor pack. I'm sorry I stumbled into your woods. I was just looking for logs to make my shelter," Tamiko said in a sincere voice.
He didn't care much about his cabin, but right now, that seemed more rational than the possibility that he had been to Kawai and intentionally detoured here to mislead the lycan Lord, Sadako.
"You have quite the name. Now turn around," the voice said and Tamiko did as was commanded, in the hope that the person wouldn't be as cruel to hurt him this late in the evening.
"Okh bozhe, fuck" the voice that had been talking to Tamiko suddenly said and that made the young lycan arch a brow at the source.
// Okh bozhe = Oh My God in Russian [GT]
He was a man in his early thirties, who looked so good that if Tamiko was looking for an erasthai to live with, he could have chosen the man.
Maybe it was a wild thought, but what else could he do when he was just an outcast who didn't know pretty much what people wanted of him each time, other than the usual slavery?
"Sorry… Hello there, my name is Igor Kostantine, a warrior of Reynard," Igor stated a little too calmly, and Tamiko instinctively took a step back from the man.
"Ahh I see you've heard of me, and clearly not in good light," Igor said and Tamiko just stood there stiffly as he watched Igor look at him with soft eyes.
'Strange man,' Tamiko thought to himself.
Igor Konstantin was a killing machine.
He was the warrior who was ranked among the deadliest people to ever exist in the realm. He was easily in the top ten of the list of people to never cross, a list that was graciously topped by King Zaffuto.
He was dangerous, he was the kind of man no one wanted to cross, and compared to Igor, Lord Sadako of Kawai was easily a saint, and Sadako was the devil himself alongside Zaffuto.
"Leave us,'' Igor said to the people who had been with him, and without questioning, they left.
"I thought they would be a nuisance. Pardon me, Tamiko. But can I make a step towards you without you running?" Igor asked and Tamiko looked at the man like he had some loose screws in his head.
"Why, so you could lie about how you love seeing me and then chop my head off while I let my guard down for you? No thanks. If you want to kill me, please be quick about it.
"If you're not going to kill me, then I assume you'll take me to your alpha so he can punish me for trespassing. If you're going to do neither, then I guess I can leave and go back to my slave home. I've been gone long enough and they might already be seeking me out.
"So which is it going to be, Igor Konstantin?" Tamiko asked, his voice so cold that Igor himself was curious to know who Tamiko was, but again, Igor loved hearing his name from Tamiko's lips, he suddenly wanted to know his name over and over, but only from Tamiko.
Tamiko's voice had been steady, either from being hurt one too many times, or because he just didn't give two shits about life itself anymore. Such were the moments when people would run and tremble at the feet of the great Igor and yet Tamiko hadn't run.
He had just moved a few steps back, like he was ready to try his best to defend himself against the man. Besides, he wasn't in Grealor anymore, so he didn't have to pretend to be weak when he was as strong as the best warriors out there.
Well, just not at the level of Igor though. But with a little training, Tamiko knew he could be more brutal than the lycan king himself; but was that his aspiration at the moment anyway?
"That's sort of funny and hurtful, young lycan. I'll let you know, I couldn't hurt you, or even think of hurting a beautiful soul like yours. Hearing what Grealor does to you, makes me want to burn down the pack myself," Igor said and this time, Tamiko didn't flinch.
Instead, Tamiko let out a hearty laugh like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"You laugh so beautifully, moya krushka," Igor said, instantly shutting Tamiko up.
**
// moya krushka = my crush