A Werewolf's Unexpected Mate-Chapter 149 -: : Broth and Brimstone
[Ace’s POV]
Gale reached across the table with a pair of long cooking chopsticks. With deliberate, almost fussy precision, he began adding the last of our ingredients to the seasoned broth pot: plump brown mushrooms, the final slices of marbled beef that hissed as they hit the liquid, a tangled nest of white noodles, and finally, a small bowl of shredded cheese that melted instantly into a rich, creamy swirl. He gave the pot a slow stir, the savory steam rising in a fragrant cloud that did nothing to cut the chilling tension in the room.
"Silver magic restraints and black magic restraints may look similar," he began, his voice resuming its lecturing monotone as he fished out a cooked piece of meat. He dipped it into a bowl of cheesy sauce he’d concocted. "But they are fundamentally different. Silver restraints do not absorb mana. They are specific to werewolves because your mana is tied to lunar energy, but their function is analogous to a mana-nullifier device used on witches, elves, or fairies. Both work by blocking the internal flow of mana. It’s a dam. The user cannot access their power to cast magic, and the device prevents external detection of the mana signature within." He took a bite of the meat, chewing thoughtfully before continuing. "Black magic restraints... they don’t block. They absorb. They are a siphon."
"That explains it," Ann said, her voice tight. She was staring at her own hands as if seeing them anew. "When I used one on that bandit in Thunoa, even through my iron gloves, it felt like my physical strength was being slowly pulled out through my palms. A draining sensation, not just a suppression."
I saw Ray’s hands, resting on the table, slowly clench into fists. The knuckles turned white. "I had considered proposing we adopt black magic restraints for high-risk prisoners," he said, the words clipped, each one bitten off. "A more potent alternative to silver. Hearing this... they should be eradicated. Banned from every market, legal or shadow. Their production must be stopped at the source." The anger in his voice was cold, the fury of a strategist who sees a weapon too vile for the battlefield.
I nodded, my own thoughts racing down a darker path. "Mana stones are a controlled resource because of their potential," I said, thinking aloud. "They power everything from city lights to healing wards, but in the wrong hands, they can fuel siege spells or destructive artifacts. If these black magic restraints can be turned into makeshift mana stones... they’re not just tools of suppression. They’re portable power banks, filled with stolen life-force." I looked at Gale for confirmation. "If the masked men are collecting them, and they have witches who know how to weaponize that stored power... they could be building something. Something meant to reignite the Great Species War. We would be facing an enemy armed with batteries charged by our own people."
The scale of the threat was becoming apocalyptic.
"This conversation is getting more serious... and scarier," Ovelia whispered, her voice so small it was nearly lost in the bubbling of the pot. She hugged the ridiculous fairy stuffed toy tightly to her chest, as if it could shield her from the looming shadow we were outlining.
I didn’t have words of comfort that wouldn’t sound hollow. Instead, I reached out and placed my hand on her shoulder, a simple, solid point of contact. She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t look at me either; her red eyes were fixed on the roiling broth, watching the ingredients we’d just added cook as if their transformation was easier to understand than ours.
"Don’t worry, Lady Ovelia," Ann said, her voice forceful, trying to inject a note of certainty. "We won’t let that happen." She held Ovelia’s gaze, her black eyes intense. But my senses, sharper than any pureblood’s, caught the subtle, sour note beneath her words—the scent of her own deep-seated doubt. She was promising what she desperately wanted to be true.
Ovelia offered her a faint, grateful smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
"But it’s also okay to think about the negative outcome," Gale interjected, his tone brutally pragmatic. He plucked a mushroom from the pot and ate it. "If we cannot prevent whatever these witches and their masked patrons are planning, what is our contingency? How do we, specifically, survive? How do we minimize casualties when the storm breaks? Ignoring the worst-case scenario is how you get slaughtered."
Ray let out a long, weary sigh, the sound of a man bearing the weight of kingdoms. "Right. Contingency planning is crucial. But we cannot formulate a survival strategy alone in a restaurant. This requires a council. We need to report all of this to the King immediately. And this intelligence must be shared with our allied kingdoms—Crimsonheart, Shadow, Atlassian, Amethyst. A threat of this magnitude cannot be contained by one nation."
"Like I said earlier," Gale snapped, his patience visibly fraying. "There is likely a traitor within those four kingdoms. If you start shouting this from the palace rooftops, what do you think that traitor—or those traitors—will do? Sit politely and wait to be caught? They’ll bury the evidence, silence sources, and accelerate their timetable. You’ll be lighting a fuse."
Ray’s head turned slowly toward Gale. The easygoing general was gone. In his place was the Prince of Agony, his orange eyes flat and dangerous. "As long as we have no concrete proof of treason at the royal level, we cannot act on that assumption. The Four Kingdoms’ alliance is the bedrock of the current peace. Silverhowl has its own intelligence networks, spies we can trust implicitly. Pointing fingers without evidence is not strategy; it is paranoia that breeds its own destruction." His voice was low, each word a stone dropped into the tense silence.
"But—" Gale tried to argue, his own temper flaring.
Ray didn’t raise his voice. He simply held Gale’s gaze, and the sheer, unyielding authority in it—the command of a man used to being obeyed on the battlefield—was a physical force. It wasn’t a glare of anger, but one of absolute, uncompromising finality.
Gale’s jaw snapped shut. He looked away, his gray eyes burning with frustration. He clutched his own fist on the tabletop, the muscles in his forearm corded. For a moment, I thought he might shatter his chopsticks.
"Gale?" Ovelia asked, her voice thick with worry for him. She reached a hand out slightly, then pulled it back.
Gale took a sharp, controlled breath. "Don’t mind me," he muttered, the words strained. He turned his attention back to the hotpot, using his chopsticks to hunt for another piece of meat with violent focus.
"What a rude fairy," I heard Ann whisper under her breath, almost inaudibly, as she ladled more broth into her bowl.
"Let’s proceed to my final question," Ray said, his voice reclaiming its calm, authoritative cadence, though the air still vibrated with the unresolved clash. He was forcibly steering the ship back on course.
I sighed internally. The tension was a live wire in the room, sparking between Gale’s cynical isolation and Ray’s dutiful loyalty to a system that might already be compromised. I hoped, for all our sakes, that the rest of this conversation wouldn’t snap it completely.
