A Werewolf Fantasy
Chapter 46

Putting the mysterious potion into Nikjin's food turned out to be more challenging than Erin had envisaged. With Rowana safely tucked away in the bleeding hut, she was left with Mizzah, and Timah to oversee the preparation of their lord's meal. There was so much care and attention that went into the cooking and laying out of the food, that one would think that the women were preparing a feast for a respectable leader, instead of a bully who delighted in hurting everyone around him.

Erin was amazed that it had never occurred to any of the other women to poison their captor's food and end their misery. Was it Stockholm's syndrome that kept them hooked and loyal to him or was it just plain fear?

They fussed and primped over the meal until Erin was sure that she was going to lose her mind if she has to keep watching them go at it for one more second.

"Is Lord Nikjin having guests over at his place tonight or is all this food for him alone?" Erin asked dryly.

"You know our lord loves variety," said Timah with a smile.

Her remark reminded Erin of Zokman's words when he had threatened to give Zorraya to Nikjin as his new sex slave.

"Don't we all?" she said under her breath, watching the other women closely so that she could seize the opportunity to lace the food when they weren't looking. "Timah, go to my lord and ask him if we can bring him his food now," Mizzah instructed the other woman.

"Why me? Why not go yourself and ask him?" Timah protested.

"You are going to draw his attention to you if you keep avoiding him like that," said Mizzah. "You do not want to get on his bad side, do you?"

"I am not going!" said Timah, adamantly.

"Fine. Edvana, go and ask our lord if he is ready for his meal," said Mizzah authoritatively.

Erin scoffed. "If you have been attentive to the happenings around here yesterday, you would have noticed that Lord Nikjin is not very happy with me.

"If I show up in his lair right now, he might lose his appetite and I do not want to be punished for being stupid enough to show my face when he is still angry with me."

Her explanation sounded sensible, so with a long-suffering sigh, Mizzah left them in the kitchen to go and carry out the dreaded task by herself.

"I wonder who appointed her the leader of the group," Timah grumbled after the other woman left. "Just because Cheyenne and Rowana are not here, she thinks she is queen now."

"I wouldn't want to be a queen in this horrid place," said Erin. "I cannot wait to get out of here."

"Me too," said Timah. "Excuse me, I need to go and relieve myself before it is time to serve Lord Nikjin. I will not take long."

"Take your time, dear," Erin said with a smile, happy that she finally had her golden opportunity.

As soon as Timah left, she quickly unwrapped the pouch she had been hiding in the band of her skirt and she started to sprinkle the content on the food, careful to check if either of the women was coming. She had her back turned to the entrance to block anyone's view from seeing what she was up to.

"What are you doing?"

Erin jumped at the sound of Mizzah's voice. She had been so engrossed in her task that she hadn't heard the other woman approaching the hut.

"Nothing," she denied, hiding the now empty pouch in her fist.

"You are lying!" Mizzah screamed. "I saw you, Edvana. You were putting something inside Lord Nikjin's food. I saw you!" "Hush!" Erin said desperately. Her heart was pounding wildly in her chest because she knew she had been discovered.

This may be Mizzah's chance to score loyalty points with Nikjin by reporting what she had just witnessed.

"Did Zokman put you up to this?"

Erin saw a wiggle room for her to get out of this sticky situation by throwing the wicked shaman under the bus and she took it shamelessly. "Yes, he told me to do it."

"By the gods, Edvana! I warned you, did I not? I told you to stay away from that evil man, now look at what he has made you do. He has sent you to do his dirty work for him and you agreed too. Why?"

At this point, Erin knew the best way to reel Mizzah in was by telling her the truth. If the young woman could sympathize with her, she would be less likely to turn Erin in. "He threatened me," she said.

"I still have family out there and Zokman knows where they are. He said if I did not do this, he would send his mad beasts to attack them and kill them all.

"The hope of seeing my family again is what has kept me going in this horrible place. Please, Mizzah. Do not let anyone else know what has happened here, please." Mizzah was incensed. "Are you mad? Do you think I am crazy enough to conspire with you to kill our lord?"

"No, no, that is not it, Mizzah. This is not supposed to kill him," Erin explained quickly. "It is only meant to weaken him."

The young woman threw back her head and laughed. "I thought you were a clever woman," she said.

"But you are nothing but a stupid woman who has allowed Zokman to use her weakness against her. I will not be a party to this!"

She marched out of the hut, on her way to Nikjin's longhouse like a woman on a sacred mission.

"Mizzah! Wait!" Erin called out, but the other woman kept on striding purposefully toward the master's lair.

"What is it?" Timah asked, returning from her bathroom break. "Why is Mizzah going back without the food?"

"I do not know," Erin said tiredly.

She had finally reached the end of the road here. Nothing and no one could save her from Nikjin's wrath now, not even that hateful creature called Zokman.

He had known this was an impossible task because the women were always fawning over Nikjin's food.

He must have known that she would get caught and he was probably counting on it. The bastard!

"Here comes Mizzah again," said Timah, looking off into the distance where her co-wife was coming from.

Erin got to her feet and quickly tucked the empty pouch in her hand behind a box of knick-knacks on the wall shelf in the hut, and then she dusted the extra residue of the pouch from her hands. "Our lord has asked for his food and he wants the three of us to serve him," said Mizzah with a straight face.

"What did you tell him?" Erin asked fearfully.

"The truth, of course," said Mizzah with an air of self-righteousness. "Now pick up a tray of food and follow me. You too, Timah."

"What is going on?" Timah whispered to Erin as they bent down to carry the trays of food.

"Nothing," Erin whispered back. There was nothing to explain.

As they approached Nikjin's place, Erin could feel her body shaking with fear and the tray of food quivered slightly in her hands.

She had allowed Zokman to outsmart her and now she was going to die. She would not live to see the apocalyptic battle that could be the end of Nikjin's reign of terror or the dawn of a new and terrifying era.

She had missed the opportunity to set all the other prisoners free from their cells, and in a sense, robbed them of the chance to fight beside the Alpha King on the night of the full moon. That had been her plan and she had failed woefully. When they stepped into the longhouse, Erin thought she would faint. Nikjin was sitting on his favorite chair and watching them keenly like a hawk.

Once they were done laying down the food on his table, they stepped back and waited for further instructions from their master.

"Where is Rowana?" Nikjin asked nobody in particular.

"She is in the bleeding hut," Mizzah replied. "It is her time of the month."

He pinned Erin with a hard gaze. "Mizzah tells me that you have poisoned my food," he said flatly. "Is that true?"

Timah looked at Erin sharply, surprised by Nikjin's statement. Her eyes were huge like saucers and she was more shocked at Erin's audacity to try such a treasonable offense than the question itself.

"It is not true, my lord. I did no such thing," Erin denied.

"Liar!" Mizzah rebuked her. "I saw you with my very own eyes, Edvana. You laced my lord's food with poison. You claimed that it was Zokman who had given it to you."

Erin suddenly felt inspired. "Zokman? Which Zokman? The same one that would not touch me with a ten-foot pole, or which one?"

Nikjin chuckled. "The Luna has a point," he said. "Zokman hates her. I do not see how he can form an alliance with her of all people. They are sworn enemies."

"Oh, no, my lord. Edvana has deceived you. She has been to Zokman's hut twice this week already. I was the one that took her there the first time she went," said Mizzah. "Does that mean you were in on the plan to poison me?" Nikjin asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, my lord," Mizzah said quickly, shaking her head. "I have nothing to do with that. I caught her red-handed poisoning your food."

"And where was Timah when this was happening?" Nikjin asked.

"I went to relieve myself, my lord," said Timah. "I know nothing of this conspiracy. They would not tell me what was going on."

"Very well, then," said Nikjin. "The three of you will sit down now and eat this food together."

"Yes, my lord," said Erin and she dropped to the floor and began to eat.

Timah gave her a dubious look before joining her, but Mizzah refused to participate. "I cannot eat it, my lord. I swear to you, it is poisoned!"

Nikjin frowned at her. "Are you refusing to obey my order?"

Mizzah whimpered fearfully. "No, my lord, but - "

"Then do as I say!"

She rushed forward and sat down on the floor with the others before taking a tiny piece of meat to put into her mouth. Everyone watched her chewing the meat meticulously before swallowing. Nikjin watched the women eat for another couple of minutes until the trays of food were nearly empty.

"I do not see anyone dropping dead," Nikjin remarked humorlessly. "Can you explain that to me, dearest Mizzah?"

She swallowed hard before speaking, "Perhaps it is a slow poison that was not designed to kill its victim quickly," she said.

"Very well, then. You will all remain here with me tonight," he said with a hard expression.

He reached down beside his chair and grabbed a bottle of wine made from animal skin and he drank deeply.

"Since the three of you have deprived me of my food, I might as well make my heart merry with wine."

Several minutes passed and nothing happened. Erin had expected that by now, they would be dropping off to sleep one by one as Zokman had predicted, but they were still wide awake and unharmed. Eventually, Nikjin got tired of waiting for something to happen, so he dropped his wine skin and got to his feet.

"Stand up!" he barked at the three of them.

"Tomorrow is my night of victory and instead of allowing me to eat and rest, you have all wasted my time with this nonsense claim about my food being poisoned. Was that your plan all along?" "No, my lord. What I said was true," Mizzah insisted. "Edvana did poison your food. I saw her."

"So, can you explain why none of you is dead yet?" he asked her angrily.

"No, my lord. I do not know how she did it. Perhaps the potion does not affect us, humans, maybe it was supposed to affect only you."

Nikjin sneered at her. "Are you not forgetting something then? Have you forgotten that she is a werewolf just like me? Why isn't she affected by the poison?"

Mizzah was speechless. She hadn't considered that small detail while putting her theory together.

"What is it about you that makes these other women want to get rid of you so badly?" Nikjin asked Erin. "First it was Cheyenne, now it is Mizzah. Why are they so intimidated by you?"

"I do not know," Erin replied innocently.

"What is it that you know about me that these women do not know, that makes them see you as a threat?"

"They do not know that you are immortal, but I do," Erin said confidently.

The other women looked at her in shock and then back at Nikjin.

A smile spread across his face slowly and he said, "You are right, my Luna. I am immortal and no kind of poison can kill me."

He strode toward Mizzah and grabbed the young woman by the head before bashing her skull against the clay wall beside her with such force, that it broke like a porcelain vase. Timah screamed and ran out of the longhouse, while Erin retched up a violent stream of vomit, expelling everything she had just eaten.

"I hate it when people waste my time," said Nikjin as he let Mizzah's body drop to the ground.

"Get someone to clean up this place. And... next time another person accuses you of making an attempt on my life, I shall kill you, no questions asked."

He walked away from her leaving her shaken and afraid in a pool of vomit, with Mizzah's crumpled body at her feet.