CHAPTER EIGHT
Drake was furious!
He was furious at himself for letting Ashina kick him out of her house so easily. He was also furious at her for being so damn sneaky and shady. Everything about her was screaming lies and cover-ups, he knew she was lying about everything that happened in the woods and the fact that he couldn't prove anything was infuriating.
As he walked down the semi-empty road, his boots ate up the distance with surprising agility, he thought about his last encounter with Ashina. The final moment when she had finally snapped, just as he wanted her to. She had allowed that wall of control to crack a little and she showed him some emotion. He thought he had been ready for that, but he was wrong. That made him even more furious.
He had allowed her vulnerability to get to him. He had gone to her house to get answers but the only thing he accomplished was getting riled up by the foolish Luke and getting shoved at by Ashina, but he had no more answers than he did when he walked into that house.
With a sigh, he slammed his fist into his palm, trying to contain his anger. The road branched off into a T-junction and he took his left, walking on purposefully. As he walked, he saw other wolves who were busy in their homes, they were still struggling to process the tragic news of Ulva's passing. Sadly, unlike them, Luke didn't have the time or luxury to grieve. He had to keep the pack together, he had to keep them safe. And the only way he could do that was by knowing what the hell had happened in the woods.
Soon, he stopped before a house. It was a small house, shaped almost like a hut. However, Drake knew that while the house itself was small, everything about it was big. It was the Basement, Agnes's home. He walked into the yard, between the flowers of the garden where a path had been cleared. Drake had been to the Basement many times, but still, he was yet to be comfortable in its yard.
Agnes had a garden full of flowers, many of them were extremely poisonous and could kill a supernatural being within seconds. Then there were those who were beautiful and simply for aesthetics, others were for magical healing and some were just for tea. Agnes kept them all in the garden, she didn't separate them or group them, they were all clumped together growing together.
Agnes once told him that she loved it that way, she knew every flower in her garden, so she didn't need to group them. Grouping them would only encourage people to steal them from her, she couldn't allow that. She wanted to be the only person who could fully utilize the wonders of the garden. Considering how deadly the flowers could be in the wrong hands, Drake agreed with her wholeheartedly.
As he got to the door, it swung open without him knocking or touching it, letting him know that Agnes had sensed the second he walked into her yard. From outside, the interior of the house looked dark, but the instant he stepped in, tongues of fire appeared, lighting up the room.
He made his way through the small living room into an empty room where there was a staircase that led downward, into the ground. The Basement was underground. The Basement was a magical plane powered by the magic of the Borough witch. It held so much secret and power that could be dangerous not just to the Borough, or wolves, but to the world at large. So, a lot of care was taken to make sure that not just anyone could come in. But then, Drake wasn't just anyone.
Following the staircase, he walked down the flight of steps until he got to where Agnes was. There were tongues of fire floating eerily in the air surrounding her, they followed her about as she moved, and when she bent down, as if to see something clearer, they lowered with her. Sometimes, they burned brighter or dimmed a bit, depending on how intense she wanted them to be.
Agnes belonged to a long line of witches called the Cray'on. Her mother had served in the Borough and she had taken over once her mother died, and her daughter would also take over from her. Every pack had a witch dedicated to protecting it from magical threats within and without. For the witches, it was a sacred duty to have a community to protect. It was unheard of for witches to simply be on their own. The gift of magic came with a hefty price and to wield it, the witches had to dedicate their lives to a cause. For Agnes, it was the Borough.
Now, as Drake stood there, he stared at her from behind, she was slowly washing Ulva's naked body with dirty water. Drake knew though that was a magic solution and it was far from ordinary water. He said nothing for a while, just watching as she slowly ran the sponge over the dead alpha's body.
"Please, tell me you're not staring at my ass," Agnes said after a while.
He chuckled at that as he walked up to the table that carried Ulva. He stopped beside her, "Far be it from me."
"Come on," she replied with a smile of her own. "You know I don't mind, least of all your eyes."
He nodded sullenly as he glanced at her, allowing his gaze to rest on her face. Agnes was beautiful, she had a chiseled face that seemed like it was molded by the very best of clay. She had startling eyes, they were always misty and sparkling when there was light in the area, giving her the look of someone who was up to something. A trait that fit her to a tee.
The rest of her was just as beautiful, she had a long slender neck that tapered down to a beautiful body. Drake knew just how beautiful and perfect her body was, he had seen it naked many times in the past, back when they were lovers.
"What's up with you tonight?" She muttered with a chuckle, "First it was my ass, now you're staring at my face. What's next? My boobs?"
He cleared his throat and looked down at Ulva's body, "don't mind me, please."
"Come on, you can tell me. What's on your mind? Are you reminiscing about our past?" Agnes asked as she squeezed the concoction out of the sponge and dropped it into a container at the foot of the table. She walked up to Drake and slowly placed her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his.
"What are you doing, Agnes?" Drake rolled his eyes as he slowly disentangled himself from her embrace. This was something he was used to already with Agnes, she was such a tease and he knew better than to read meanings into her actions. "Ulva's body is right beside us."
She shrugged, "Nothing we do is gonna change that." But she took the concoction and poured it into a sink.
"What was that for?" Drake asked her.
"You'll find out later," she told him, as she returned to the table. When she walked past him, she slapped him playfully on the butt.
"Okay, well, what do you have so far?"
She shrugged again, gesturing at the body. He looked down at it. Seeing Ulva in such a state was humbling. The former alpha had been such a force to be reckoned with, he had been larger than life, to the point that even looking up to him had been a daunting task. With Ulva at the helm, the Borough had been able to grow exponentially, and also protect themselves from attacks. He had been a legend. Now, he was nothing more than a corpse.
As he studied the body further, he saw that there was a bite mark on his neck. He wondered if that was indeed the bite of a hybrid as Ashina had mentioned. Then, Agnes came up beside Drake and gently placed her palm over the back of his. She raised it and began to hover it over the body.
"Courtesy of that concoction…" she muttered as she slowly hovered the hand over Ulva's chest. "What do you feel?"
"It's like electricity, but mild and cool."
"Yeah, that's wolf magic." Next, she slowly led his hand to the bite mark on Ulva's neck and they hovered over it as well. "Now, what do you feel?"
"Wow…" Drake's eyes widened in shock, "still electricity, but sharper. Meaner. There is nothing mild and cool about it."
"Well, that's hybrid magic for you. They're poisonous and their magic is just like them, dark. They're an abomination and they're not supposed to exist. They're the worst things to happen to the magical world."
Agnes wasn't wrong, becoming a hybrid was the worst thing that could happen to a wolf. Wolves were mostly purebloods and they became hybrids when they got bitten by vampires. This taints their blood, thereby reducing its power and the magic in their veins. It was for this reason that hybrids could never be as strong as wolves. They were slower and less coordinated. However, they had their deadly arsenal on their side; their venom.
They also hunted in packs, and something as basic as a single bite could kill any wolf, no matter how strong they were. These were part of the reasons hybrids were like a pariahs to the magical world. No one wanted anything to do with them, not even the vampires that turned them. Becoming a hybrid was dropping to the very bottom of the food chain.
As he thought about the hybrids, Drake closed his eyes for a few seconds. It was bringing in old memories that he would rather keep buried. He felt Agnes's hand close tightly against his, "It's alright." She told him.
He smiled weakly at her, she was the only one who could guess what was going on with him even without him saying anything.
"Thank you," he muttered before looking back at the body. "So, Ashina was telling the truth about the hybrids?"
"Truth-ish…" Agnes said, she let go of his hands and moved to where Ulva's head was on the table. "There's something off about the injury, something about the magic it's giving off. It's weird, but I'll figure it out soon. But meanwhile, there is a more pressing issue at hand; Ashina lied to you, baby boy."
"I knew it! How?"
"The hybrid venom would have killed Ulva eventually, that goes without saying. However, he wasn't killed by the venom. He died of a broken neck."
"Hybrids are not strong enough to do that, venom or not."
Agnes nodded, "that's correct. Besides having a broken neck, he also has a broken arm."
"Oh fuck…" Drake gasped as he pinched the bridge of his nose, "are you saying Ashina killed him?"
"I'm not saying that. I'm only saying that they were the only wolves in the woods at the time with a bunch of hybrids. It's possible that the bite weakened Ulva enough for him to be so easily beaten."
Drake punched the table angrily, turning away from the body, "This is Ashina you're talking about! Ulva was like a father to her! He took her in after her father died, why the fuck would she turn around and kill him?"
"I don't know, my love." Agnes said as she walked to stand in front of him, she gently took his face in her hands and cradled it, "I'm not saying Ashina killed him, just as I'm not saying she didn't kill him. That's for you to figure out. But I am telling you that the hybrid didn't kill Ulva, so the Mandate of the Alpha that you're so desperately after would be in someone else."
Slowly, Drake's breath came out in a sigh as he realized; "and only Ashina can tell us who that is."
"That's my boy," she said as she gave him a peck on the cheek. "Only Ashina can tell us what happened in the woods tonight."