Chapter 24

Neil's POV

All I could see was a sea of fire, and the cries and shouts filled my ears.

"...Neil, Neil!" someone yelled my name, yanking my soul back.

"A wolf pack is attacking!" Gordon shouted towards me. "Where's your father?"

I shook my head blankly. "Get to the door and help, they can't hold it much longer." Gordon left me behind and walked away. He was going to find my father, our Alpha.

I made my way through the chaos of the crowd where the fire had started burning brightly in the dark night. I had barely reached the door when I heard the howling of werewolves. Some of our warriors saw me, and they waited hopefully for me to save the situation. Was this what Alpha had to be responsible for? I felt a heaviness rise in my chest, which made me almost impossible to breathe. I shifted and joined the fight, but the scene was so chaotic that all I could hear was a million noises.

This was nothing like when we faced the rouge group. They had come prepared. The warriors and I resisted as hard as we could, the screams of the warriors kept ringing in my ears as searing blood splashed onto my body. My stomach began to convulse, I couldn't take it anymore.

At that moment, I didn't know who flashed up behind me and sliced my left leg with his claws. The excruciating pain made me lie on the ground and I couldn't get up at all. I thought I was going to die. My father finally appeared.

The next day, I woke up from my hospital bed. Although my injury was already healing, my left leg still hurt like hell. I limped into the war center, where it was a mess. I learned from their bickering that last night my father had gathered all the werewolves of our entire pack to hold off the other side's attack.

Just like the information Isaac brought back before, it was indeed the White Claw pack that had attacked us. After being defeated by my father, they had amassed many years of resources to declare war on our pack.

Some people had suggested that we needed to let Isaac come back to help. He was strong and experienced in war. But my father rejected it without thinking. "No need, we already succeeded last night. Now you just need to figure out how to defeat them completely."

Because of those words, our war went on for another month or so. Under Alpha's orders, Isaac got nothing about our situation. But we all knew that we had almost reached the bottom line. Both two packs had lost many men, and it was no good for us to fight.

Our Beta spoke up, "Or else, negotiate with them."

The commanders all looked at my father and he pondered for a moment, "Yes, we can pretend to negotiate with them. Food, metal... We'll agree to give them whatever resources they want. When the negotiations are over, we will be prepared for war and then we will attack their pack immediately."

Everyone here acquiesced to this view. It sounded pretty despicable, but that was the tactic. And no one would dare question my father.

We offered to negotiate with the White Claw pack and they accepted quickly. Sure enough, they also lost a lot of money. Tomorrow the negotiator representing the White Claw pack would come to our pack, and they would surely send a witty and powerful negotiator. My father had put us on alert for this negotiator.

The next day came quickly and we waited at the gate. The man with the cloak on him in the distance would be the negotiator, and he was surrounded by the men of their pack in the middle. They all seemed to have great respect for this negotiator, and when he raised his hand, the rest of them stopped. He walked up to us, and no one could see his face under his cloak.

Suddenly, he reached up and flicked the hood of his cloak back, and his hands made me feel surprised, a pair of slender, white hands with ruby rings on them. The moment he revealed his face, shock and admiration escaped our lips. It turned out to be "she" and not "he". The negotiator was a beauty I had never seen before.

Her face was somewhere between girlish and mature. Naive and sexy could really show on the same face at the same time. The complexion was wheat. Those green eyes were like the surface of a lake in moonlight, reflecting pure light. Long, silky silvery-white hair had grown to the back of her waist. Her lips were like they were tinted with wine with a beautiful red color. The sensual lips were parting and closing, and everyone's attention was not on the words she uttered.

"I am the negotiator of the White Claw pack and I was entrusted by our Alpha to negotiate with you." She untied her cloak and handed it to the assistant next to her.

There was a reason I hadn't been able to tell her gender based on her height earlier. She was tall and had high-heeled boots of calfskin on her feet. A pair of long, healthy legs with a tight skirt wrapped around the top of her thighs. A belt was loosely wrapped around the skirt with a silver dagger on it.

She wore a witch's costume. The strapless upper body with elaborate decorations of fur and gems that represented this witch's faction. Her long, slightly curly hair rested casually on her round, smooth shoulders, and a platinum necklace glittered on her ample chest. The leather corseted waist outlined the wonderful lines of her waist.

I swore I could see the admiration of everyone in the room. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. The negotiator's face was calm amidst our admiration. Yeah, a woman like this should be used to hearing compliments.

The witch pointed to the werewolf beside her, "He is my assistant, Toby, and I will be making decisions with him during the negotiations. Please prepare two rooms for us."

I knew at first glance that Toby was a very strong werewolf. It must be their Alpha who let him protect the witch's safety.

My father told me to take the negotiator to rest first, and we had already prepared a nice room for her. Now it seemed that there should be no room to please this so beautiful witch.

As the witch walked into the pack, I once again heard the exclamations of everyone. The witch was still expressionless until I heard Fiona's noise. She pointed at the witch. "I can't be mistaken, those eyes! You're the traitor's daughter!"

Claudia' POV

Two years later, I was finally back here again. The Alpha of the Crimson Shadow pack and his commanders came to greet me personally. When I took off my cloak, the surprised look on their faces made me disdainful. It also made me look forward even more to the wonderful expressions on their faces when they found out that I was the slave girl.

Neil offered to take me to the resting place. He didn't recognize me at all, which wasn't surprising. But the way he looked at me had changed completely; once upon a time, when I was a poor slave, he looked at me with a permanent look of pity. I didn't hate him though. I was grateful. He had helped me so many times.

As I walked into the pack again, I could hear their thoughts. Like the man from the factory, 'Wow, that pretty witch is looking at me. Good thing I shaved today.' And the girl who once hit me hard, 'She's so pretty, is that silver hair dyed? I'm going to try it too.'

Humph, I sneered inwardly. In all the years I had cooked for them, and I had never gotten as much goodwill as I had got today. I was incredibly glad to have left these shallow people. But the most superficial one was still waiting for me up ahead. Fiona's shouting was incredibly familiar to me, and she managed to anger everyone.

"How is that possible? Where is her resemblance to that traitor's daughter?"

"Yeah, the traitor's daughter disappeared a long time ago."

The crowd retorted as if they had suffered some great indignity if the person they had just praised was me. But there was a slow sound of skepticism in the murmur.

"She does look like the traitor's daughter, if I look carefully."

"What is the daughter of a traitor doing back here? Is she the enemy's negotiator?"

It was as if the crowd had given Fiona strength. She swung over to me but couldn't look down at me anymore because I was already taller than her. "You have the nerve to come back!" She looked me up and down. "And what are those clothes you're wearing? A witch. After all, you're still a wolf-less piece of shit."

"Claudia doesn't have a wolf? That's the funniest joke I've ever heard." Toby couldn't stand people offending me. "Who are you? This is no place for you to talk!" He wanted to fight with her.

"Calm down, this is someone else's pack." I stopped him.

"But..."

I gave Toby a smile to reassure him. I knew people like Fiona very well, and the best way to shut her up was to... I straightly reached for Fiona's neck with my claws out and yanked her, then let her look at my eyes. "Are you still to say, I'm a loser without a wolf?"

The aura emanating from me made Fiona's teeth chatter at the shock. "No... Not anymore." I flung her aside and she stumbled away.

Looking at Fiona's back, of course, I remembered how she abused me and hurt me. Back then she had beaten me so badly that almost none of my ribs were intact. Yet I had to survive in the dangerous wilderness.

Two years ago, I had covered myself in mud then slept in the bushes to escape the rouges in the wild. If it weren't for the summer, I would have frozen to death in my sleep. These were just a small part of my suffering. But it wasn't time for revenge yet. I had business to handle.

If it weren't for the investigation into the true cause of my parents' death, I would never have taken another step into this pack. Two years ago, through mind reading, I read Beta's guilt towards me, which was definitely related to my parents' tragic death. But I was banished from the pack before I could find out the truth. After I grew up in the coven, I tried every way to join the Crimson Shadow pack again, but I didn't have a chance. Until one day, the Alpha of the White Claw pack declared war on the Crimson Shadow pack, and the White Claw pack needed a strong witch, so I joined them successfully. And I also met Toby at that time.

I was called to the meeting room early the next morning. Alpha Andre was in a hurry, it seemed that he had heard about Fiona's suspicions yesterday and now was eager to find me to verify it.

Sure enough, as I sat in the chair, he asked without a moment's hesitation, " Are you Claudia? Are you the child of Calvin?" He remembered my father's name.

I had nothing to hide. "Yes, I am the slave girl."

I looked into his eyes and easily read his thoughts, 'I thought she was dead, but now she's become so powerful. No, I have to get rid of her.'

Andre wanted to kill me? When he saw me yesterday, he didn't have such strong hostility. I thought carefully, this must have something to do with my parents.

But Andrei still put a kind smile on his face, "We all thought you were missing, and I'm glad to see you be so good now."

I sneered "Don't you know it was Luna who expelled me from the pack? But I do need to thank you for that. Otherwise, I didn't know how much potential I had until I left."

'It was Luna?'

'Luna drove a girl out of the pack.'

I listened to their thoughts. Just a little more suspicious, seeing their ugly faces.

But Andre just played dumb. "Luna? She never said that to me. Let's not mention the past anymore, let's discuss the negotiations." He immediately changed the subject. Before he could say anything again, someone barged into the conference room.

I knew I would see him again when I returned, but I didn't expect it to be so sudden. Isaac was frozen in place the moment he saw me, and he must have recognized me immediately. But his eyes didn't linger on me for too long, he was blaming Andre for not informing him about the war.

No wonder the Crimson Shadow pack was defeated so quickly, their most powerful weapon simply didn't make it to the battlefield. I looked at Isaac out of the corner of my eye, he was more mature than ever. He looked like he'd just gotten back, his military boots still thick with dust. He had a Damascus steel knife and a nine-millimeter Kroger hanging from a belt around his waist.

My God, was he out fighting the army?

The black turtleneck tights outlined his tight chest and abdominal muscles, and he was leaner and stronger than ever. The blood on his coat was not sure if it was his or someone else's. Although his face was as handsome as before, and he even looked better than before because of the shadowy in his eyes. But he didn't look like the sunny boy from school anymore; he had become a steely man with an aura of danger emanating from him. I didn't know what had happened to him in the last two years, but his eyes were cold and somber. I could tell that he didn't think much of anyone, including the Alpha, whom he used to respect.

After a big fight with Andre, Isaac left the conference room without a care in the world. He seemed to glance at me before he left, a glance so brief that I thought it was a hallucination. After he left, I suddenly relaxed. I didn't know why, but I was so tense just now. But then I remembered how cold he looked just now, and I was a little disappointed. Didn't overthink it, I reminded myself. Now, we were supposed to be two people who had nothing to do with each other, nothing would happen.