Chapter 5 Welcome to Cintra

Voices could be heard in the distance. The hooting and sounds of clanging knives were like a synchronized melody resounding in the mountains. A tall, lone figure sat on a rock and watched the training from afar. He had elegance and sharpness etched in his poise, a clash of crudity and refinement, yet it blended so well. His saber-like brows rose in strictness, the type that made his men revere him, and his enemies on the battlefield fell on their swords in fear. His long ravenous hair that fell neatly at his back could make him be mistaken for a beauty until his sharp and intense eyes broke.

Blake groaned as he stood beside the man on the rock. "They are training perfectly fine, you don't have to come up the mountain yourself to supervise their training, you know, I've got this covered."

"Hmm," The man on the rock hummed, still looking far ahead at the training field.

"Seriously, Lucian," Blake stressed. He was the Beta to the strong-headed piece of art of a man-wolf who had been sitting and still on a damn rock scrutinizing the new batch of warriors under his command train.

"They are too comfortable; the tall one at the left with a scar cannot fully control his chi; he will die with the flick of a hand in real battle circumstances; the female next to him, she leaves too many loopholes for her opponent. She is an attacker, not a defender. The bulky one at the extreme end..."

Blake stretched his head to see the training ground clearly and spot the flaws Lucian had picked, but how was that even possible? Up to fifty people practiced at once; how would he spot them? Such bare information was too hard to keep up.

"He is a brute with no strategy. Remove him from the field and substitute his lessons for war strategy. He would be a waste in a battle like this, then..."

Thump!!

A crashing thud was heard in the opposite direction. Lucian's eyes sharpened, and his senses heightened. "Wait here, do not move."

"But..." Blake began only to be met with an empty rock, and a sharp rush of wind blew past him toward the direction of the sound.

'Sigh, at the end, he only does what he feels like.' Blake shook his head in dejection.

Lucian hurried towards the sound of the noise. There was no way the mountain could have been intruded on; a force field covered it from the sight of plain eyes. This was their secret.

He pushed the palm leaves, obstructing his way to see a girl lying in the dirt, face flat. She groaned painfully and somewhat groggily.

He narrowed his eyes and carefully examined the person on the floor. She had just fallen from the sky. What sorcery was that?

He turned the body over, and though the face was covered in dirt, he could say for sure that she was a beauty. Her clothes were of good quality, so she was well-to-do, or her mate or parents were.

Whose trouble landed in his territory? Lucian scrunched his nose. He heard the girl mutter, 'Alexandros,' but before he could question her, her eyes had already rolled back. She was unconscious.

The obvious fact that she had landed with such an impact and had not shattered into pieces was more reason to be wary. On a closer look, unlike anything he had seen before, her wounds were healing and closing up before his very eyes.

Sorcery?

Lucian figured she was a ticking time bomb. She could be a spy, a banished mage, or a traitorous rogue, any of whom he couldn't afford to mingle with; he would have to eliminate her. She had found his secret, hidden away from the world, his hidden chess piece, and he was not planning on letting this slip.

With a swish, Lucian picked up the unconscious lady and took off.

*******

Freya opened her eyes and met with a calm and plain ceiling.

What was with her and waking up in strange places with body pain all over? The feeling of déjà vu was unrivaled.

All she could remember was being confronted by Garvin and her friend, pushing her into some magic vortex, and Garvin almost dragging her out. The next thing she knew, she had landed in a strange wood. That was all.

The fall sent shivers down her spine; now she thought of it. She was lucky for her unusual body constitution; if not, she was sure she would have blasted meat on the ground by the time she hit it.

This could only mean the teleporting had worked, and she had safely landed at Ophelia's family friend's territory.

She wasn't relieved yet. Her best friend would have to fend off her father alone; who knew what he could do to her? She understood that Garvin, in his right senses, wouldn't hurt the Beta's daughter, but She also didn't realize that her loving father, who had been another center of her world, was after her to kill her.

She had to figure out if her friend was safe or she would not be at peace.

"Finally, you are awake. Luc said the fall was ghastly here. I thought you had turned vegetables since you hadn't visited consciousness in a week." A voice spoke, making Freya jerk off the bed and into a defensive mode. She looked around the room, now aware that there was another presence. There the other person was, back turned towards her. The lady was looking out the window.

She had been asleep for a week? Goddamit! Even she would have thought she was dead.

Freya bit her lips to hold back a scream; her body hurt so bad, "Who are you?"

"Me? That's exactly my line," The lady drawled. She had a very tall structure for a woman, yet her body had slenderness etched in it, which spoke gracefully.

Freya had to give it to the lady because, contrary to the opinion, the Werewolves were uncouth and ill-mannered and would be shamed on the very spot.

The lady turned to face Freya. Her handsome beauty could make both men and women swoon. For a moment, Freya was thoroughly entranced, but then her life was on the line here. Who gives a flying dang about beauty? Who knows, her head might be chopped off tonight.

"I uhh, I am here to see Alexandros." Freya swallowed as perspiration filled her forehead. Her internal injuries must have been too dreadful from the rejection. She hadn't fully healed and had to go and get dropped from the sky by some vortex.

"Okay, you shall tell Luc," The Lady approached Freya.

Once again, she called the name 'Luc'. Who the hell was that? Was she at the wrong place? Goddess no! If there were any more mishaps, Freya was sure she was going to finally lose it.

"You need to clean up. I'll get you some lady stuff," the lady shook her head. Welcome to Cintra. That is if you will survive."

The lady winked at her before exiting the room; on a typical day, Freya would have swooned, but then, Cintra! She had only heard of the legendary Cintra from books and moon tales.

Damn that vortex, she had landed at the wrong place.