Chapter 4
Marcus's POV
The moonlight was bright, as bright as the sharp motion when the girl lifted her hand and forcefully wiped her face—bright enough to make my heart clench tight.
"She's wiping away tears, I'd guess."
"Marcus." Felix, sitting in the passenger seat, tossed a piece of popcorn into his mouth and nudged my arm with his elbow, grinning. "Not going to do something about it? Just going to watch our precious heir cry her eyes out over there?"
"Over a wolf pup who hasn't even grown his full coat yet?"
Felix was deliberately trying to provoke me.
As one of the team members, when he was serious, he was meticulous and attentive—like back at Ella's house, when he'd pointed out gravely that my behavior had frightened her and urged me to put away the Mithril Rod.
But when he wasn't being serious—and to be honest, those times were far more frequent—he was an insufferable troublemaker who loved watching drama unfold.
I sighed.
"That wolf pup you're talking about is the Alpha heir of the Haven pack, the most powerful monsters occupying this hunter jurisdiction."
I shrugged, lowered the binoculars, and touched the Mithril Rod in the weapon pouch at my waist.
"I'm not a hunter. I can't unleash the true power of hunter weapons, so I can't deal with him."
"Besides," I thought for a moment, "young people should cry a few times for love. It's one of youth's gifts, isn't it?"
Though I had to admit, for Ella, this particular gift—especially today—was proving to be a bit too heavy a burden.
I raised the binoculars again and watched Ella covering her face, sobbing, and found myself sighing once more as I recalled the hardships she'd endured today because of the wolf pack.
[Earlier]
Very suddenly, like a fully drawn bowstring snapping in an instant, Ella was grabbed by the throat by Conan.
I could clearly see the shock on Ella's face, and the terror that hadn't yet had time to surface.
And in the next second, the veins on Conan's arm bulged violently!
His amber pupils gradually deepened into a richer dark gold with his rage, fierce to the point of almost turning black.
He was applying force.
Gripping Ella's throat tightly, he was lifting her bit by bit from the grass.
Her worn white sneakers were gradually leaving the ground.
The pain of suffocation and a terror like a sudden storm instantly swept away everything else in Ella's expression.
Her features twisted together in agony, and her hands shot up, clawing desperately at Conan's arm.
"Let... go... of me!"
I gripped the binoculars tighter in my hands.
Beside me, the smile had long since vanished from Felix's face, replaced by a gravity that matched the expression on mine.
And behind us, Vance—perpetually taciturn, perpetually silent, but always reliable—pulled out our weapons case and, with a series of sharp clicks, loaded every gun.
Though they were only tranquilizer darts, they'd still be enough to teach those wolf pups a lesson.
Vance's cool voice came from behind. "Boss, are we moving?"
Take action against the pack's cubs in broad daylight on the school field—and not just any cubs, but those led by the Alpha heir?
As team leader, and in the absence of hunter management in this jurisdiction, I had to consider more factors. For instance—would this cause trouble for the Hunter Alliance? Would it make the situation here in Haven more complicated?
Click, click.
On my wrist, the second hand on my watch ticked twice, then three more times.
I made my decision, looked up, and was about to give my teammates the order to move when I heard Felix suddenly exclaim beside me.
What happened?
I quickly pressed my eye back to the binoculars. And then I saw—
Ella's face, fierce with clenched teeth.
Both her hands gripped Conan's forearm and upper arm, one in front and one behind, with such force that her fingers seemed ready to embed themselves into the werewolf's solid muscle.
Every wolf around Conan stood with mouths agape, staring at her in stunned disbelief.
Watching as Ella, enduring the pain, steadied herself using the arm choking her, then lifted her legs and kicked hard—!
Both feet struck Conan square in the waist.
The most vulnerable spot on any canine's body.
"Conan!" The little she-wolf named Bianca let out a shriek and rushed over to help Conan, who'd been kicked down onto the grass by Ella and was now clutching his stomach with a frown.
Meanwhile, the rest of the pack circled around, baring their teeth at Ella as she lay on the ground coughing and clutching her throat, growls of warning rumbling from their throats.
I stared, stunned.
Beside me, Felix was laughing with delight.
"Hunter bloodline, ha! Boss! No need for testing—I'd bet anything the Mithril Rod will recognize her! Look at those moves! She's absolutely a hunter descendant—"
"Whoa!"
Felix let out another exaggerated exclamation.
This time I knew what he was reacting to.
Before her coughing had even stopped, Ella was glaring and gritting her teeth as she charged toward Conan, and for some reason, none of the wolves moved to stop her from approaching him.
Without hesitation, Ella delivered a slap across Conan's face!
Smack!
Though we couldn't hear the crisp sound of the slap, it still made all three of us wince in unison.
"Conan, you bastard!"
Reading her lips, that's what Ella cursed, her eyes red.
Then, just as unhesitatingly, she delivered another slap to the other side of Conan's face.
This time the pack absolutely exploded, every one of them glaring at Ella like predators, practically waiting for just one word from Conan before they'd tear her apart.
My teammates and I tensed up again.
But Conan, the young Alpha heir, only covered his face, head lowered, sitting on the ground without moving.
Ella stood there with clenched fists, shot Conan one cold glare, then turned and walked away, dragging along the bullied Omega from the ground.
I patted my teammates on the shoulder, stopped paying attention to the wolves on the field, and followed as Ella and the other person left.
The pack's Omega said to Ella, "You shouldn't have interfered."
Ella was indignant. "So you just let them bully you like that?"
"You don't understand! You're just... an ordinary person. This is pack business!" As he spoke, the Omega pulled out an envelope, scratching his head in distress.
"And you can't always help me anyway. If I don't complete the task, they'll still..."
"Still bully you?"
It seemed Ella was a bit confused by his words.
"What pack? What do you mean ordinary person or not ordinary person?" Ella crossed her arms impatiently, looked the Omega up and down a few times, then suddenly reached out and snatched the letter from his hand.
"This is the task Conan gave you? Delivering a letter? To whom?"
"Bianca only said to deliver it to the swimming pool..."
Ella sighed. "Fine, I'll see this good deed through to the end and deliver it for you. In exchange, you pull yourself together and fight back the next time you're bullied, okay?"
The Omega was deeply shocked.
He practically jumped. "Really? Why would you help me?"
"To spite that bastard Conan. I need allies."
"How can I thank you?"
At those words, I saw Ella visibly freeze, as if remembering something.
She lowered her head first, then smiled with a touch of melancholy.
"Wish me a happy birthday."
The wolf was obviously taken aback.
"Today is my birthday."
Just like the three of us were.
I thought of the birth date in Ella's file with mixed feelings.
She was having a truly terrible birthday.
And neither she nor I realized at the time that everything that had just happened was only the beginning of how terrible today would be.
[Present Moment]
I sat in the car, sighing again as I recalled those events.
Just then, Felix seemed to notice something wrong and told me to look at a rustling patch of bushes.
A head was crouching there, slowly lifting up.
Wasn't this our little Alpha Conan?
So he'd never left.
And at this moment, Ella saw him too.
One person and one wolf, standing upstairs and in the bushes, gazing at each other across the moonlit street—quite the aesthetic of Romeo and Juliet.
I watched as Ella's hand, which had been wiping tears, lowered.
Felix's tone was subtle. "Boss, you don't think they're going to embrace in the next second, do you?"
That would be too...
"Whoa!"
Once again, the three of us were startled in perfect unison—
Ella grabbed that medicine bottle and, without even blinking, hurled it straight at Conan's face!
I couldn't help but laugh.
A hunter. This girl was absolutely a hunter.
