Chapter 617: It Was You!
"What the hell just happened?" that drunk man looked in Joyce\'s direction but didn\'t see anything abnormal.
Joyce sighed in relief but kept on closing in towards them.
Just when she had thought that she had saved that possible \'she\' from getting killed, that black wolf got up on its feet and threateningly growled at that drunk man.
That man almost pissed his pants after witnessing those sharp fangs paired with angry glare from those amber eyes. He gulped and lifted his leg to take a step back.
But that wolf opened its mouth and growled even dangerously.
The drunkard stopped his foot in midair and begged that wolf, "S-S-Stop. I won\'t k-kill you. Leave me alone."
However, that wolf crouched on its front legs and got ready to pounce on that man for trying to kill it just a moment ago.
"What? No!" Joyce shouted again, hoping that the wolf would stop.
From the size of that wolf, she wasn\'t sure if it was a regular wolf or a werewolf. It looked bigger than a regular wolf but much smaller than the werewolves.
However, Joyce hoped that the wolf would give up on its idea to attack that man after hearing her screams.
She didn\'t immediately attack that wolf because she already felt bad for hitting it earlier and hurting it. It looked like it was already in great pain. Though it was trying to threaten that man, it was also shivering in pain and fear.
"Don\'t do it, I\'m telling you!" she shouted again.
Both wolf and that drunkard looked in Joyce\'s direction. The wolf had no change in reaction but that man felt like his soul just slipped out of his body.
He could hear the sound of footsteps approaching closer to him but he couldn\'t see anyone. He turned on his heels and then made a run for it.
That wolf focused its attention back on that man. And when it saw the man running away, it immediately took a huge leap forward.
Joyce abruptly stopped on her track and raised her palm to push that wolf down.
However, she heard a name echoing throughout the wood.
"Niylah!"
---
[A while ago in the Palace]
Crack!
Niylah woke up from her deep sleep after getting extreme pain in her index finger.
"Ow! What?" Niylah took out her hand from inside the blanket and looked at her finger.
"Ahhhh…" she screamed in fear more than in pain because her finger hung loosely as if it was attached to the hand with the help of outer skin only.
Crack!
"Arghhhh!" she let out a groan from her gut because now, her wrist had snapped.
She knew what was happening to her since she had already learned about the werewolves from Fenris as well as her parents.
"Why am I turning so early?" she grunted in extreme pain.
Her whole body was already covered in sweat.
"Joy?" she looked at the bed next to her hoping that Joy would ease her pain.
However, the bed was still empty. Even Ariel wasn\'t there.
She hurriedly got up from the bed hoping to run back to her quarter and seek help from her parents.
Crack!
This time her leg cracked.
"Arghhhhhhhhhhhh…"
She let out a scream that was loud enough to wake the boys in the adjacent room and almost everyone in this quarter.
Ramon was the first one to come dashing inside the room because he recognized his sister\'s scream.
"Niy– Oh no! Oh, my days! You-You\'re turning!" he stuttered while sliding towards the door. He knew better than to stay in the same room as a new turner.
"What\'s going on?" Zach rubbed his eyes and entered the room only to see Niylah in a scary position.
She looked like someone had wrongly reattached her body parts.
Zach kept on motionlessly staring at Niylah. He was too stunned to speak and too stunned to move.
Whoosh!
Fenris entered the room as if he was a gust of wind.
"Oh dear Niylah!" he took a deep breath in and tried to calm the girl down, "Niylah, don\'t try to resist. Give in to the feeling and the pain will fade away faster."
However, everyone knew it was easier said than done.
Niylah kept on screaming and panicking every time her bones broke. A few parts of the body were changing into parts of the wolf. It looked terrifying, the transformation process.
Fenris turned around and ordered Ramon, "Son, go and inform your parents that Niylah is going through her transformation." His eyes fell on his stunned little son and he asked Ramon, "Take Zach with you. Leave him with Aunt Nefriti."
"Okay, Zach, come. We need to go," Ramon picked \'frozen\' Zach in his arms and walked out of the room.
Fenris watched the two of them go and turned back to look at Niylah.
He had been so occupied with watching his scared son leave the room that he didn\'t even realize that Niylah had jumped out of the window.
"No!"
Fenris instantly jumped out of the window and when he landed, he was in his wolf form.
He ran following a strong new scent.
"How is she so fast? Did she completely transform?" he thought to himself because Niylah was nowhere in view even for his sharp eyes.
He tried to reach Niylah with telepathy but since she was a newly turned wolf, he could not communicate with her.
New wolves\' minds are filled with haywire thoughts. There\'s also a period of confusion that they go through when their minds try to make sense of the new change.
"Dammit! Let\'s catch her before she gets into trouble."
Fenris ran at the top of his speed while following the scent. However, when he reached the nearby wood, the scent was everywhere. It was as if Niylah had finished running throughout the wood in circles and had spread her scent all around, making it difficult to track her.
"What do I do? I hope Nigel figured out what happened." He needed more werewolves to find Niylah so he hoped that Nigel would also bring along some of the other werewolves in his pack.
Fenris tried following the scent but he was too worried and desperate to concentrate properly.
"I don\'t want to howl and cause a chain reaction. It will be even more difficult to track Niylah," Fenris thought to himself.
So he reverted back into his human form and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Niylah!"
---
"Niylah?" Joyce\'s eyes widened as she processed everything in split seconds.
And instead of directing her attack on the wolf who was already in the air with an open jaw, Joyce shifted her palm towards that drunk man.
That man got thrown away and hit the tree trunk with great force. "Arghhh…"
The black wolf simply bit the air and landed on the ground. She again turned her head in order to go and tear off the meat of that man.
However, before she could do so, Joyce swiftly controlled several branches and carefully bound Niylah to the ground.
Joyce tapped on her chest and was no more invisible.
And she shouted again, this time a bit lovingly, "Niylah, it\'s me, Joy."
She ran towards Niylah while trying to engage her in small talk. "Niylah, you don\'t have to be afraid now that I\'m here. And I\'m sorry that I hit you earlier."
Joyce furrowed her brows in regret and whispered sadly, "I didn\'t know it was you."