The Tribulations of Romeo

CHAPTER 1

December 21, 2121

19:31 pm

The moon was fully out. Shining its brightest, even though it was not a full moon. Down below and basking in the moonlight sat a solitary shed located in a remote part of a vast, beautiful forest. Few meters from the shed ran a stream that shimmered a lovely silver color as it ran slowly across the creek that bordered it. Here and there, were a few rocks that glistened with a mysterious hue, hinting at the possibility of something being special about them.

A light breeze blew, bringing with it a light, soft giggle and a low, much deeper laugh followed right after.

"You can't just do that. It will get you in trouble with the Elders." A soft, feminine voice said.

"I don't care." The owner of the deep laugh replied. "It won't be my first time facing the council anyway."

"Still..." The feminine voice tried to raise a point, but the masculine voice interrupted.

"Relax! Nothing will go wrong this time. I promise!"

"That's not reassuring!"

"What do you mean?"

"You always break your promises."

"No, I don't." The deep voice drawled.

"The second you say, 'you promise', that promise is doomed to be broken."

The owner of the deep voice had nothing to say to that. He looked at Mona's beautiful face, who had just spoken, with deep brown eyes and a small smile that somehow spoke waves of the thousands of mischievous thoughts battling for supremacy in his head.

"That can't be true!" He denied. "I have kept my promises a couple of times."

Mona looked him straight in the eye and made a request,

"Give me a valid example."

"Uh?" He exclaimed, surprised. "Uh......"

He tried to think of all the times he had promised. His very active brain immediately brought him thousands of instances, all of which were made in the short twenty-one years of his existence. Since he was the one thinking it, he could not lie to himself. His brain not only plated back the promises in their thousands within a few seconds, but it also took the liberty of sorting and arranging the times each broken promise was broken. After only half a minute of thinking, he came to a shocking realization. There was not a promise he made that he had not, at one time or the other, broken.

So, he looked straight back into Mona's eyes and replied with a smile.

"I can't think of any right now. But, I am dead sure there are few instances where I actually kept my promises. And even I have never, this will definitely be my first."

Mona looked away.

"How reassuring!"

"Relax! Seriously! What's the worst that could happen? At worst, the plan fails, maybe one or two kids get injured and we all have to face the Council and get punished. It is still not going to affect you and I am way too used by now. The punishments are actually just an excuse to increase our physical strength and stamina while at the same time, quelling the anger of the rest of the pack."

"Is that really just how you see it?" Mona asked, looking at him with a hint of anger. "What about me?"

He immediately shook his head.

"It won't affect you! That I'm sure of."

"That is not what I am talking about." She immediately remarked. "I'm talking about your reputation. Your image in the pack. Your standing."

The man chuckled, muttering under his breath. Mona's eyes watered. She unconsciously raised her voice.

"Nobody respects you. You are at the bottom of the barrel. They don't like you or want to associate with you."

"My friends want to associate with me." He said with a chuckle.

"Those ones don't count! They are useless people, but at least, they don't seem as hopeless as you. They have useful parents."

"It's not my fault I was orphaned because of the last war."

"Nobody is disputing that. That is why everyone has endured you till now. Because of your father was a very powerful defender and your mother was a wise woman and a disciple to a very wise elder. But, you have long exhausted those graces."

"SO, I should work for my grace?"

"Don't you still get it?" Mona screamed at him. She was frustrated. She stood up from the rock she shared with Romeo, fuming and glaring at his smiling, nonchalant expression that she fell in love with two years ago.

Romeo looked back at her, without saying anything. She grunted and turned and walked upstream. She angrily sat down on another rock, her back turned to him and hugged her knees.

Romeo chuckled. Mona was very cute when she sulked. He stood up and followed after her. He stood in front of her quietly for several minutes.

Mona finally looked up at him. She observed his exposed torso; his broad, muscular chest that rivalled that of the Champion Pack Defender, six stable abs that looked like well-constructed blocks were pasted on his body, with possibly one more extra pair that was hidden behind the high-waist leather pants he loved to wear. He had a bronze-like skin color that glistened whenever he sweated or had just taken a bath.

She briefly looked at his legs. Those two legs. Those very fast two legs of his. Trained and specialized in running away from the trouble his energetic hands and overworking brain always caused. She could never forget the first time she tried chasing after him two years ago. He had beaten her for pace. It did not matter how fast she ran, he teasingly maintained a precise distance between them. She still did not know how he managed to calculate it so accurately even through the trees separating them. After some time, she had simply assumed it was due to how much more experienced he was in running and hiding in the forest, surrounding the 'Den'1.

She looked at his wide palms resting on his waist. She remembered how secure they made her feel every time he hugged her and patted her back.

Her eyes slowly traced up his hands to his moderate biceps that spoke of power. She was sure as hell, of how much power those arms contained in them. Sometimes she had the illusion that each muscle in his arms had their own biceps.

The mere thought made her chuckle even now. She didn't understand why Romeo, as good-looking, powerful and creative as he was, would choose to be the bottom-ranking, useless Beta that he was. He was so useless that the Alpha's howl did not even increase his strength. She looked up at his face after and her smiling face turned to a frown again.

That same stupid grin. He was having mischievous thoughts again.

"Stop smiling!" She said.