The Werewolf King's Bride

"Order anything you want," he said.

There was a lot to choose from, so I chose whatever piqued my interest the most. I did not even bother to ask him the names of the foods since they were too weird and hard to remember.

"You took the shrimp soup," he said as we settled down at a spare table around a corner.

"Yup. It\'s called Tom Yum soup in my world. There are two types of Tom Yum soups- clear one and creamy one. This is the creamy one. I had the clear one before, but not the creamy one. And I got spicy grilled salmon kabobs.

I don\'t what this is called here. But that\'s what it\'s called in my world," I said. "Oh, I talk a lot, don\'t I?"

"Well, it\'s good to be yourself," he said as he took a bite of his omelet. He told the chef to make it as spicy as possible. "Besides, I don\'t hate it."

I was wondering if he truly would be able to eat it. That moment, Dem came to my mind. He had done the same on our date and then had to drink lots of milk to calm down. He wanted to challenge me. Even though we could not finish the date since my back started hurting, I had a good time.

As soon as he got into my mind, I was once again reminded of the dream. I could not get it off my mind no matter how much I tried. For that reason, I was kind of scared and ashamed to face him. He gave me so many things, yet I was thinking like that.

I thought it would be okay as long as I accepted him as he was and I was trying to do so as well. I knew what kind of person he was, but he never crossed the line, so I thought it was fine. But that was until that dream. Since then, I was scared and could not think straight.

Sometimes it felt like someone was trying to control me as if I was tied down by someone and that person was playing with my mind.

\'What am I thinking? It can\'t be true. How can someone play with my mind? It isn\'t possible, right? Or, is it?\'

"Ezekiel... can I ask you something?"

"Yes. You can ask me anything," he said.

"Well, it might sound crazy, but can someone manipulate your mind? Like play with your thoughts and make you dream weird things?" I asked.

"It\'s not impossible."

"What???" I yelled and jumped out of the chair so suddenly that it fell backward.

"Calm down. People are staring," he said.

"Oh, sorry," I said as Ezekiel helped me sit down.

"Why are you acting like that? Did you have a weird dream?" he asked.

"No!"

"Your reactions are strange."

"Right, I am sorry. I actually came across to something like that while talking to a maid," I said. It was too hard to lie, especially in front of someone who was almost always with me. I was worried that he might see through me. As per I knew, Ezekiel was not dumb. And I was perhaps in trouble because he was not dumb.

"Oh?"

I was right. He saw through me. He knew I was lying. I tried to smile casually and tried to change the mood.

"Well, who can do it?" I asked.

"Dark mages."

"Dark mages?" I repeated. I did not know about them. I just knew that there were magicians in this world just like Luc. But who knew there were diversions between them as well?

"Yes. I guess you can understand from the name what they do," he said while taking another bite. "They use black magic."

"Black magic?" I mumbled. For some weird reason, I suddenly remembered the song \'Black Magic\'. It was not the time to think about something like that and I felt dumb because of it.

"Yes. Black magic is forbidden in all kingdoms. But as you can see, there are mages who still use dark magic. They need to keep hidden since it\'s forbidden."

"Can any mage use it?"

"No," he said. "Well, let me explain from the beginning."

"Just like there are humans in your world, there are werewolves in our world. But among the werewolves, 0.000001% of the population is born with magical powers."

"That less?"

"Yeah. It\'s like 70 werewolves."

\'The hell...\'

"By magical powers, I mean mana. The stronger a werewolf\'s mana is, the more powerful mage they become. There are very less werewolves born with mana. That\'s why magicians are very rare."

"The strongest magician in each kingdom becomes the master of the magic tower. Just like Luc. He is the strongest magician in the kingdom and that\'s why he is the master of the Querencia magic tower," he said.

"There are two types of mages. Ones who are born with normal mana and others that are born with black mana. Black mages are rarer than anything else. That\'s why they are hard to find. They have to live like normal werewolves if they want to survive since they can\'t be a normal magician because of their black mana. Black mages are more powerful than normal mages.

One black mage can compete against four of the masters of the magic towers."

"There are other factors to consider as well. Let me tell you clearly. In the beginning, there were the moon goddess and the black lord. The black lord was called the demon. He had dark powers. He fell in love with the moon goddess and then tricked her to be with him.

They gave birth to werewolves."

Actually, it was their decision to make werewolves, a different breed since there was already a world where there were humans. But the black lord grew hungry for power and decided to kill the moon goddess. It seems like he did not actually fall in love with the moon goddess. Rather, he was after her power," he said.

"There was a fight between them. None of them won and none of them lost. The moon goddess went back to her home, the moon and the black lord went back underground. It is said that because of the war, some of the black lord\'s power was freed in the world and because of that, some werewolves obtained black mana. Since then, their descendants were born with black mana.

The amount of black mana kept decreasing as the generations passed by. That\'s why, now even if there are black mages, they are not too powerful."

"So you mean the direct descendant of the black lord was the most powerful black mage?" I asked.

"That\'s right. Don\'t worry. No matter how powerful a mage is, they can\'t live forever. They are mortal just like us," he said. "But just because a werewolf is born with mana doesn\'t mean they can be a mage. It needs practice.

But firstly, it needs the unleashing of the power."

"Is it like turning the power on?"

"Yeah, kind of like that," he nodded. "It needs another magician to do so since they can sense the mana within someone."

\'A black mage is rare. But can there be someone around us? Should I bring Luc to check it out?\'

"Can Luc sense mana within someone as well?" I asked.

"Of course. He can do it better than anyone else," he said. "He can even sense if there is any magical power used around."

"Like he can track it down?"

"Yes."

I bit my lips fiercely as I tried to come up with a plan. In this world, there were a lot of strange things going on. It was not impossible for a black mage to be around us. I would just bring Luc to take a look around the palace. Perhaps he could just spend the day with me. It would be easier for him to examine then.

But what troubled me was who it could be. Dem was very protective, so he did not let many people near me. That was why only Ruby took care of me even though a queen was supposed to have lots of maids. Other maids helped me, but it was Ruby who did the main thing. Then I had Ezekiel, my personal guard.

Luc was Dem\'s friend and of course, he was not the black mage since he was the master of the magic tower. As per Ezekiel said, black mages could not live like normal mages. And there was Mother. He was Dem\'s mother and a very nice person. She would be bad as well. But then who could it be?