The Assassin's Flame

Introduction

The moon is shining brightly tonight and its light reached a cliff overlooking a small town. Upon looking closely, the town seems to be celebrating. If you listen closely, a faint sound of laughter and music can be heard and the smell of delicious foods can be found in the air. This atmosphere gives a good impression that the celebration is going well and the people are really happy for the celebrant.

While the town is happy and celebrating, a lone white wolf can be seen standing on the edge of the cliff looking at the celebrating town. On the wolf's eyes can be seen a trace of sadness, so heartbreaking that if you saw it you'd want to offer a hug so that the wolf can ebb out the pain that it is feeling. While staring at the town, the wind blew and it ruffled the wolf's thick and shiny fur.

While the wind is blowing, it also carried over a huge cloud that temporarily hid the beautiful moon. After the wind stopped blowing and the moon showed itself again, a beautiful woman can be seen standing where the beautiful white wolf was standing before. She has a heart-shaped face with nicely arched brows, and expressive eyes that shows the same pain the wolf previously has. She also has a cute nose and pink rosy lips. She has a slender body that if you take a closer look, you'll find that it is full of bruises and scratches. The beautiful woman looks weary and tired.

After some time of looking at the celebrating town, she lift her head and looked at the moon. She stared at the moon for a few minutes then she opened her mouth and a hoarse voice was heard, "Moon goddess, it seems that it is time for me to go. I don't have any reason to stay here anymore. They are happy now, I don't want to cause them any trouble by showing myself in front of them. I don't want to ruin their mood by showing up unexpectedly. I have been hurt a lot when they did that to me but I don't want to be a vengeful woman."

She shed the tears that she had been holding back ever since she arrived on the cliff and saw the celebrating town. After shedding her tears, she turned her back on the town and walked away from the cliff. She walked away without having anything in mind not knowing where her feet would take her. She walked aimlessly until she found herself at the entrance of the town. She can now clearly see, hear and smell the things that she faintly experienced while she was at the top of the cliff that overlooked the town. She saw how the people are busy celebrating and congratulating the celebrants.

She turned her head to see the celebrants and saw how happiness can be seen fully on their faces. She smiled a bitter smile and said to herself, "It should have been me celebrating with you. It should have been me who is standing next to you. Unfortunately, it seems like I was the only one who thinks that way. You seem to have never wanted to be with me in the first place. I was just too blinded by the kindness that you've shown me when I was by your side and assumed that you love me the way I do to you. But now, I can clearly see that you love her so much that you seem to even forget that I still exist. That I'm still breathing and existing. I wonder if you even thought of me or even looked for me when I disappeared."

After a few moments, she decided to enter the town. She left the entrance of the town and went to a secluded area that is covered with weeds. Upon looking closely, there seems to be a hidden path buried under the weeds that you won't be able to see if you are not familiar with the way. This path is a secret path that she used when she was a kid to escape the town and see the world outside of the town and experience new things that have been out of her reach. She doesn't know whether it was a good or bad thing that she never get caught but she is happy that no one knows about this secret path of hers. After disappearing on the secret path, the male celebrant seems to sense that someone has been standing by the entrance of the town so he asked one of the townsfolk to check. The person went to check the entrance of the town but didn't find anything so he went back and reported. "Alpha Reese, there is nothing on the town's entrance," the person reported. " Thank you, Albert. I might have just sensed it wrong due to the wind blowing," Reese replied.

Albert went back to his table and continued to celebrate with the other townsfolk. Reese looked back at the entrance sensing that something seems to be amiss but he couldn't put his finger on it. His attention was called by the person beside him who is also the other celebrant, his Luna, Bridgette. He and Bridgette have been together since they were teens. They have loved each other but they almost got separated when he learned that he was betrothed to the previous Alpha's daughter. They wanted to create a strong next generation to lead the pack so it has been decided that the next Alpha needs to marry a Luna from the previous Alpha's bloodline. It has been a tradition in their pack so Reese and Bridgette have no say when it comes to their relationship as one is the next-in-line leader while the other is a woman who came from an ordinary pack.

Today is the day that he was crowned as the new Alpha of the Delta Hounds while Bridgette has become his consort. Unfortunately, due to her coming from an ordinary pack she was not given the title of Luna. Whether the title is given or not, for him Bridgette is his Luna especially when everyone learned that his fiancé Fallon, the only daughter among the previous Alpha's five children, cannot transform ever since she came of age. If he would be honest, he was secretly happy to learn about this fact as it means that he could be with the one and only person that he'd consider as his Luna, the love of his life, Bridgette. He also felt sorry for the previous Alpha as his only daughter wasn't able to transform, she would have been a very good and strong Luna for their pack. But it seems that she is not fated to be as she hasn't transformed and she also disappeared for a how many weeks now. Everyone has assumed that she already died as she is only a human who might have been taken by their enemies.

When Fallon went missing, the pack sent their abled men to have a search party but unfortunately, they only found her clothes stained with her blood and nothing else. Upon seeing the such sight, it has been reported that Fallon has died and the transfer of title has been set aside for a few weeks to mourn for her and share the grief of her loved ones. Reese shook his head so that he could stop thinking about her ex-fiancé. He wants to focus on the celebration for him and his consort. He went back to celebrating with everyone.

If only he noticed how the woman he loves secretly smirked as she was treated as the Luna even without the title. Unknown to everyone's knowledge, Bridgette has a secret that would shock a lot of people. She has been hiding this secret for a long time and she can't wait for the day that she could shout to everyone about this secret and be successful in her plans. She has been holding herself back so that her plans would be a huge success and no one would ever be able to know better as everyone in the pack has bought her nice acts. She has been able to cast her net very carefully and no one has ever had any suspicions about her and her secret activities. She turned her head and looked at everyone who are celebrating and thought, 'Just a little bit more and I'll be unstoppable.'

While she continued celebrating with everyone, Fallon, the woman who owned the secret path continued on her way and managed to enter the town without anyone knowing. She decided to have one last look at her beloved town where she grew up and all the memories that she had with everyone. She slowly traversed the familiar roads reminiscing the times when she was younger and happy, without having to worry about anything. She has been a happy child and her parents and brothers doted on her since she was a little girl. But ever since her coming of age, everything has changed. Everyone changed their treatment since they learned that she cannot transform into her wolf form.

The way everyone changed their way of communicating and looking at her made her feel that she does not belong in their pack anymore. Even her own fiancé breathed a sigh of relief upon learning that she cannot transform. That's when she woke up from her fantasy of having a happy ever after with Reese. She feels like she has been poured cold water when she saw her fiancé's relief. She also saw how her parents and brothers made a lot of effort to make her feel that she is still part of the pack. Even with their efforts, she still felt burdened because she felt that she humiliated her whole family because she is a daughter of an Alpha but she cannot transform when she came of age. Because of this, she decided to leave the town of the pack to think about what she should do next.

While she was reminiscing, she didn't notice that she was walking near the back forest that is under their pack. When she stopped walking, she got surprised to see that she is now in front of a small cave. She doesn't know what made her stop in that place suddenly but she felt something was calling for her attention. After a few moments of indecisiveness, she went inside the small cave to find what caught her attention. Upon entering the cave, she immediately noticed that the inside of the cave is bigger than the entrance and you wouldn't think that a small entrance would have a big space inside. What's weird is that the cave may be big inside but there is only a queen-sized bed, a bedside table and chair, and a small fountain in the right corner of the cave.

She walked nearer the bed while she kept looking around the dark cave. While looking around, the floor caught her attention. She crouched down to take a closer look at what is on the floor. Upon closer look, she noticed that there is blood on the floor and it formed a magic circle. What the magic circle is for, she doesn't know. While checking the magic circle on the floor, she heard a light moan of pain coming from the bed. She stood and went near the bed and saw something she never thought she'd ever see. She was very surprised that she stared at the person lying on the bed for a long time until she noticed that the person on the bed called her attention by moving her arm and trying to reach out to her. When she noticed what the person on the bed was doing, she reached out her hand and grab the other person's hand while looking at the other person's eyes and time seems to have stopped while they were looking at each other's eyes. Both of them seem to be entranced by seeing and touching each other.

The silence was broken when they heard someone shout from the entrance. The person on the bed closed her eyes filled with pain and hopelessness while Fallon looked toward the entrance and stared very hard at the person who arrived. The intruder was so angry upon seeing them touching each other that she ran towards them and lunged at Fallon. Fallon dodged the intruder and managed to escape from the intruder's clutches. She was followed by the intruder and they end up fighting inside the cave which caused the cave to start collapsing. Unfortunately while fighting, a big chunk of the ceiling fell down and it would drop on the person lying on the bed. It was too late to change the trajectory of the collapsed ceiling so Fallon decided to use her body to protect the person on the bed. She was racing against time as she used all of her speed to reach the person and pull the person out of the bed. She managed to save the other person but unfortunately due to the collapsed ceiling being so big, Fallon wasn't able to escape. She was buried under the ceiling and only the person she saved was able to see how she slowly lost her life. Before fully losing her consciousness, she faintly saw the other person throw something her way and it ended up rolling on her hand. She closed her hands on the thing the other person threw at her.

She also heard the intruder laugh at her and the person who was previously lying on the bed. She seems very happy to see about their sorry conditions and kept on rambling about her plans. Fallon couldn't believe what she heard coming from the intruder's mouth. She never would have thought that such things have been very well planned. Every detail has been well-crafted and no one even noticed any discrepancies, not even her father, who is the previous Alpha, or Reese, who is the newly crowned Alpha of their pack. While listening to the intruder and fighting to keep her life, Fallon kept on thinking that she had disappointed her father and her brothers. She knows that she won't be able to live for long anymore as she can feel that she's starting to lose too much blood and even if she has already managed to transform into her wolf form, she can't do anything anymore as she doesn't have any strength to fight anymore. The last thing she thought before losing consciousness was if she could only turn back time, then she'd be able to save the whole pack from suffering any calamity this intruder created and save the person who she just saved from the collapsed ceiling if only she can but she knows that it is impossible. A few moments after, Fallon never noticed that the full moon has shone brightly compared to when she was still standing by the cliff. The moon's rays hit the thing that she held in her hand and it shone brightly that the intruder and the sick person had to close their eyes due to its brightness.