Forged in the Flames by Karima Sa'ad Usman

I gave my father a minute and did not trouble him to speak. I planned to listen to him and not interrupt to get the whole story. He took a couple of deep breaths and continued to talk.

“One day, Gamma Giles told me that he had overheard Leon planning to usurp power. He wanted to murder Mathias. I could not say he was lying because he had no reason.

We decided to investigate and found out he wasn’t Lying.

Leon wanted to be King; he had a grudge that he was to be King had his mother not been a mistress.

He also hated werewolves because his brother made me his beta and second in command, giving me and Giles more power than him.

He was envious.

I tried to tell the King subtly, but Mathias refused to listen. He loved his half-brother dearly.

We let it rest and kept an eye on Leon and his group. The other Lycans on the rank supported Leon’s agenda, and we knew all of them.

We managed to spoil most of their plans, but they finally planned a bold move to murder the King.

We told Mathias about it, and he promised to s*tri*p us of our rights and power if we continued trying to poison his mind against his brother simply because his brother did not like us.

We should have left it alone, but we were afraid that if Leon succeeded, it would doom the werewolves of Forest.

Forest would not be a haven for our kind anymore. Gile then decided to sacrifice himself for the cause.

I was to round up the traitors while he would go after Leon on the night they chose to murder the King,” he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. My father was crying. I guess it was a demon of his past.

“It didn’t go as planned. Princess, and what was supposed to be a simple arrest turned to a battle, and Giles killed Leon,” He said, crying bitterly. “Mathias went crazy. I tried to explain to him that it wasn’t intentional and that we were trying to arrest the traitors. He did not believe me, but he did not act immediately.

Isabelle said we were trying to usurp power, but Mathias was wise enough to think that if that was what we planned, we would have come after him and not Leon.

while the investigation was ongoing. That made us look more suspicious because Werewolves were responsible for food,

we were removed from the ranks. I do not know what happened, Princess, but

were turned into

were not allowed to see the King or complain to him. Things got complicated,

our kind. Even though they had removed us from the ranks, they left us in the army so we could

and we were sent to battle with nothing but our

anonymous attacks, and we were used to fend

several letters to Mathias to inform him of our dwindling number. Still, he made it more complex instead of making things a little easier. Then we learned that he was going into partnership with Fedrick and that Fedrick would be

condition was terrible, Werewolves still came to Forest to survive. This agreement was going

would no longer have a haven. With all the hardship in our world, it would

able-bodied men of the werewolf community had a meeting, and we all decided that Mathias had gone

Leon’s death, and the werewolves in the kitchen had been slaughtered for the poisoning. The crimes had been paid for; what

the King. We requested he allows us to settle in Woodland, away from his riches and his people. We did not want him as

want to say or do anything

request twenty times, and when he finally responded, he said he would

what we were planning and would never let us take over Forest. He said he regretted being friends with our kind. Our treasonous behaviour would never

he did not wipe us out. The letter was long,

had killed half our population because of his brother and the officers who were trying to kill him.

knew we would have no future under a mad king, so we decided to fight for our

were doing and gathered ourselves to leave for Woodland. King Mathias

he spoke as if he had not spoken to us

or sent us a letter. He kept saying, ‘How dare you plan to attack me after everything I did for your kind? How dare you try to attack me? Leon was

and how he expected us to continue living under such circumstances. He said he had been lenient enough,

but Mathias won’t stop fighting. He said he rather die than let us usurp power from

something exceptional. But I had lost a friend. I could not handle the praises and knew our days would not be pleasant. We just wanted a settlement in Forest, not the entire thing, but Mathias was too arrogant to