CHAPTER 166: ACT 1

Harriet walked pretty quickly, her feet clicking against the stone-paved path as she headed straight into her family house. Her steps were light, almost bouncing with excitement, the edges of her dress brushing along her legs as she hurried toward the familiar front door she hadn’t seen in a while.

A huge smile spread across her face, her cheeks flushed and eyes gleaming. She beamed, nearly glowing with joy, her breath catching slightly in her throat as she reached out and pushed open the wooden door with both hands.

The air inside was still, oddly still.

She gasped out loud, the sound sharp in the quiet.

"Mari!" she called, her voice hopeful but tinged with confusion as it echoed through the small sitting room. "Maria!" she shouted again, louder this time, her brows beginning to furrow.

"Mariana!" she screamed, calling one after the other, her voice rising with increasing urgency, eyes wide now—not from joy but from unease.

There was no response.

Not even the usual clatter of feet running down the hallway or the familiar creak of the backdoor hinges.

Her hands instinctively reached for the hood over her head, lowering it slowly, as if removing it might help her hear better, her gaze scanning the dim interior with suspicion. The silence wasn’t just eerie—it was wrong.

Her feet moved cautiously now, her earlier excitement dissipating like mist. She stepped across the wooden floorboards, her boots clicking softly, her expression tightening with each passing second.

Her eyes darted around, narrowing, calculating, searching for any sign of life—any hint of familiarity. Her ears strained, trying to pick up the littlest of noises, anything that might ease the growing discomfort in her chest.

Slowly, she headed straight towards the back of the house, her breath barely audible as she pressed forward, her fingers brushing against the walls for support, her heartbeat thudding louder in her own ears.

She wasn’t just searching anymore. She was hunting for something that didn’t feel quite right.

Moments before.

Harriet’s carriage had been spotted way before it got to the village. The sound of hooves and wheels against the earth had stirred more than dust—it stirred whispers, ripples of awareness passing from one watchful eye to the next.

By the time the horses came to a halt and the carriage door creaked open, the entire village already knew who she was.

Harriet.

The daughter returned.

And beside her... was King Jared.

He stepped down beside her with a slow, commanding grace, the strength in his frame impossible to miss. His presence exuded authority, yet it was the pair of furry, pointed ears perched atop his head that stole the breath from every villager watching.

A werewolf.

No mistaking it.

A real werewolf king had stepped into their humble little cursed village.

And the curse—unseen but ever-present—made things far worse.

The village had already been taken over by Zygons, monstrous creatures that wore the skins of the humans they killed. In a place where no one could be trusted, it was the easiest thing for information to travel. Not through word, but through something stranger.

Almost like what the first person saw, each and every one of the rest of them saw too.

No need for speech.

The moment Harriet stepped foot in the village, her family already knew she had arrived.

And they were waiting.

Inside the house, the sisters were already speaking, voices low and fast.

"We have to kill her!" Mari snapped, the youngest among them, her voice sharp like glass, cracking with impatience. Her fingers twitched in the weirdest of ways, curling and uncurling as if something beneath her skin was fighting to get out.

Almost like the Zygon beast that wore her skin found it hard to fully control the human shell it inhabited.

"I think it’s a good idea!" Maria spoke up next. Her tone was light, almost dainty, a soft smile resting on her lips. The epitome of grace. The calm in her voice was disturbing, eerie—too calculated.

It was clear the Zygon beast inside her had mastered how to mimic her. Flawless. Every movement smooth, every breath measured.

"It would be a great way to get into the castle! We’ll kill her and I’ll take over!" she said, her smile widening as her dark eyes gleamed. "I’m the best amongst us!"

Maria’s mouth moved with practiced elegance, but her eyes betrayed her—flickering from warm human brown to cold, pitch-black inhuman.

But she had just spoken when Mariana, the eldest, stepped forward and slammed her fist onto the wooden kitchen table.

The loud crack shook the floorboards and silenced the room.

A heavy dent marred the wood where her hand had struck, and for a moment, none of them dared to speak.

"Are you mad?!" Mariana hissed, her voice like boiling oil. Though rage crackled through her tone, she maintained terrifying control over her human façade. Not even a flinch or slip.

"You’re the strongest?" she repeated, scoffing with venom. "You must be mad!"

Her fury didn’t rise like wildfire—it simmered low and lethal, threatening to erupt.

"Do you not see me here?" she screeched now, her voice sharper than any blade as she advanced, nostrils flaring.

Her sisters took an instinctive step back.

"Kill her?" she seethed. "Are you all not aware of the fact that a king came with her?"

"A werewolf King, to be precise!"

Her words hung in the air like a guillotine, sharp and final.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Mari shot back, defiance in her eyes. "The entire village can kill him wher—"

But she never finished.

Mariana moved without warning, her fingernails stretching into claws mid-air as she slashed at Mari with lightning speed.

Mari ducked just in time, the claws grazing the air above her scalp. Her own hands twisted, claws emerging from her fingertips as she sprang backward, lips curling to bare her teeth.

Maria, still between them, raised both hands, stepping in.

"Enough!" she snapped, voice trembling with tension. Her eyes flickered again, a cold glint hidden behind her polished mask.

But before she could say more, a crackling sound tore through the air—a dry, broken, inhuman laugh that froze the room.

It wasn’t just sound.

It was a warning.

The three sisters instantly looked down, their gazes snapping toward the corner of the room.

Danny.

He sat crouched by the kitchen’s low wall, his body hunched awkwardly as though something inside it didn’t quite fit.

He was clearly struggling—fighting for control.

His eyes were completely black, no trace of brown. His teeth jutted out from his jaw in jagged rows, unnatural and horrifying. His fingers clawed at the floor, and his skin shivered as his form flickered in and out of human shape.

Like the shell of a boy with a beast bursting to come out.

Arms shaking, he opened his mouth to speak, his voice warped and broken, barely human.

"Ar—are to—you all for—forgotten our instructions!" he growled, his lips trembling from the effort of controlling the inhuman form clawing through him.

His words came in gasps, chattering like he was freezing, but it was not the cold that shook him.

It was restraint.

Holding on.

Barely.

"Killing the Werewolf king?" he rasped, the words twisted through a throat not meant to say them. "You overestimate yourselves!"

The black in his eyes deepened, and his limbs jerked like puppets.

He bit out each word like a curse, every syllable costing him control.

His image flickered again—his arms swelling then shrinking—his features warping before snapping back to the childlike face he wore.

"Moreover," he continued, his voice now low and harsh, "our instructions were to keep a low profile!"

Silence fell like a blade.

The sisters stood frozen in place, the madness dimming slightly from their eyes.

Maria swallowed hard, her lips pressing into a tight line. Mari slowly lowered her claws, the tension easing from her hunched back. Mariana stood last, her fists clenched, before she too nodded—barely.

The three of them backed off, slowly stepping away, heads dipping ever so slightly as they acknowledged the truth in Danny’s words.

They had nearly let the beast inside them ruin everything.

And Danny—barely clinging to his own human form—had just reminded them what they truly were.

And what they had been sent to do.

"No killing then!" Mari grumbled out loud even as the others shot her looks that could kill something she shrugged off with ease.

She was just about to speak again when they all heard footsteps and the sound of the door being opened yet instant of them sending warning gazes to Mari who seemed intent on killing Harriet.

They lowered and fixed their gaze on Danny instead. It was very clear and obvious that amongst them he was the one who’s struggled to keep his human skin on simply because of how small his human was and how undeveleoped the boys brain had been.

"If you fail we’ll have to kill her!" Mari reminded him with a sneer even as she squared her shoulders as she headed out out with a beautiful smile on her face.