The Dark Side of His Mates

Ashley Roderick closed his eyes for a moment as he took a long, deep breath before exhaling slowly, and he opened his eyes and looked at Michael Raymond. 

A human with a very poor fashion sense, who always managed to do his job of hurting his eyes by combining a baby green sweater with black trousers and his already old and dirty sneakers. 

Michael’s hair was not even neatly styled, with the front hair falling down to cover his eyes, preventing anyone near him from knowing what kind of reaction was showing on his face.

Ashley knew from Michael's body language that this piece of garbage was afraid of him. It could be seen from the way Michael tightly gripped the pile of books he was carrying—typical of nerdy people for whom he did not even want to spare his time to understand their existence. 

Michael's two legs were shaking so badly that he felt that sooner or later, this nerd would fall if he continued to stand with shaking legs like that.

Well, that was none of his business. His dealings with Michael were far more important than Michael's feet.

"Michael Raymond."

"Y... yes!" Michael jumped in surprise, stepped back, and was about to find a way to escape from Ashley. Yet he swallowed hard when his back hit the wall behind him, telling him there was no escape from Ashley.

Besides Michael, three of Ashley’s friends—Gabriella Garfield, Sawyer Florence, and Cain Melville—stand around Michael to prevent him from escaping Ashley.

"I am sure I already told you what you should do, didn't I?" He stepped toward Michael until the distance between their faces remained a few centimeters. 

His irises turned hazel, which reflected clearly in Michael’s eyes. Michael was now trembling in fear as he noticed the change in Ashley's irises.

"And where is my assignment you were supposed to give me today, Michael?"

His hand landed on Michael’s right shoulder, gripping it until Michael winced in pain from his grip.

"I...I forgot to bring it..."

"What did you just say to me? You forgot to bring it to me?" Ashley said again in a high-pitched voice, full of annoyance. He could not take it anymore when he heard the classic excuse Michael had given him. "Do you think that's a good reason?"

This time, he could no longer contain his anger. His hand moved away from Michael’s shoulder, then he signaled to his three friends to stay away from him while he immediately grabbed Michael by the collar. 

He threw the body away from them for a few meters, creating a loud boom that echoed through the lobby of the university building where they were now.

"I just gave you one simple task, Michael! It was one simple task, you moron!" 

Ashley shouted loudly, approaching the figure of Michael, who was trying to stand up with difficulty after the throw earlier, and then punched Michael's cheeks in turn over and over again until the glasses worn by the human youth fell off his face. 

"I just ask you to do one easy, simple task, Michael Raymond. And I will leave you in peace. Wasn't that our deal?"

"I a ... am sorry ..." Michael mumbled softly, closing his eyes tightly. "I..."

"Do you think your apology will fix everything?"

Ignoring Michael's painful moans, he continued to throw his fists. Not even the human lecturers who passed them dared to prevent or break up the quarrel. They all chose to turn their eyes away from Ashley and walk with brisk footsteps. 

The humans in this place realized the only safe way to avoid dealing with Ashley was to pretend they did not see anything. It could be said that one of the advantages he got from living in this city and being a werewolf was that he occupied the highest position in society's social strata.

No human would dare to challenge a werewolf. Since the werewolf ancestors in their towns were able to put an end to the witch and werewolf hunts in continental Europe, the werewolf ancestors have been able to force the human nobles and priests to sign a contract that favors the werewolves over the humans.

First, the leader of this city would always be the werewolf, with a rotating division of the ten strongest clans elected every three years using a general election system. Humans were still allowed to cast their votes in those elections, but no more than that.

Second, in the government system, humans could only fill less than thirty percent of the seats in government positions. The rest would fall into the hands of the werewolves.

Third, whatever the werewolves did to humans, humans wouldn't be capable of doing anything other than resigning themselves to whatever they were about to receive. No law will strengthen the position or take sides with humans.

And a lot more laws. In short, there are still lots of rules that limit human movement in this city. All the laws made by the ancestors of the werewolves succeeded in creating a social chasm between humans and werewolves.

Of course, he belonged to the werewolf group, which wanted to keep these rules in place. For him, who was born into the Roderick family—one of the three most respected families in the city with their high power and vast influence—that rule greatly benefited his position.

He even felt surprised when he recently saw the movement of the werewolves, who asked the higher-ups of the werewolf clan to change the ancient rules so that later, humans and werewolves would coexist.

It was a beautiful idea, he had to admit. It was indeed a pretty cool idea to put everyone in the same shoes. 

But he didn't want the werewolf officials to approve the new rules proposal. 

What he meant was, why should he defend a human race that wouldn't even give him any benefits other than causing him trouble?  It was quite a weird idea.

“Stop what you are doing right now!”

Ashley was just about to punch Michael in the cheek again when a hand suddenly appeared, blocking his movement with a firm and steady grip without hesitation. The mysterious figure was forcing Ashley to shift his attention from Michael to the person standing behind him and block his movement in an easy move.

Who would dare stand in his way?

***