Luna grit her teeth, attempting not to shudder, but she couldn't stop the small quakes shooting through her body.
Everything about this situation was dangerous.
The man in front of her could kill her without even trying.
And her father, though weaker, was worse.
In either case, she couldn't fight back.
So a monster was threatening her either way. But there was one crucial difference.
Her father could not be reasoned with. This Lycan, he might be different.
There was only one way to find out.
"Please my lord, take me away," she said softly. Her hands weakly gripped his wrist, as though she was unsure whether she wanted him to let go or squeeze harder.
"What?"
"My father will be furious that I told you this," she tried, sprinkling a hint of desperation into her voice. "I'm not safe anywhere in this kingdom, not anymore."
"You haven't told me anything I didn't already know," he growled, narrowing his eyes. He was suspicious. That was not good.
"You don't understand. My father is a vicious man," Luna begged. She needed something to further sell it...
Wait.
This man was a Lycan.
Lycans responded well to submission. It made them want to take control.
She could use that.
Luna took in a deep breath, as though preparing herself for something that she was terrified of.
Then she let her legs tremble. It wasn't hard. Her body was already fighting her control.
"I can tell you more," she begged, tightening her grip on his arm. "Please. Anything you want to know, I just need to leave this kingdom.
"I'll tell you about the Blight."
He froze.
He tried to hide it, but she could see.
The Blight was the Emperor's greatest fear. Not because it affected him the most, but because it could tear his nation apart if an army were outfitted with it.
Silver was the Lycans' weakness, and there were no major silver mines on the continent, which was part of how the Emperor was able to take control with his Lycans.
Every single other race had at least one large deposit of their metal somewhere in the other races' lands. But when the war had started and silver became known to be a Lycan's weakness, all of the races except for the humans had scouted their lands and found nothing.
Having tactics that relied so heavily on possessing the enemy's neutralizing metal meant that without it, the other races fell under the Emperor's control quite easily, and only after having the entire continent united against them had the humans surrendered, becoming a part of the Empire.
But the Emperor was still scared of humans. And there were several good reasons for it.
Their military had never been defeated by another race, ever. Not even in the war that formed the Empire. The humans had held strong and won their battles thanks to the development or iron arrows, iron-laced nets, and peculiarly-shaped weapons designed to disarm that replaced their shields, along with most being equipped with weapons inlaid with the metals to counter specific races.
And not only had they never been defeated, but they had continued to show that they were disobedient to the Emperor's commands to be peaceful by being caught with entire operations for forging iron war implements under multiple different kings.
Even Luna's father could be seen as guilty without them every going under the palace to the lower tiers, because of his insistence on having a proper military, though it was ostensibly under the Emperor's command.
She needed him to think that she was utterly useless, willing to betray her kingdom's deepest secrets in order to stay with him. Desperation was the only weapon she could wield. Lukas must be wary of humans, and particularly of her. After all, he had more than enough reasons to be. He had heard how her voice changed, unless he was an idiot, and that was dangerous to assume about anybody, even if it was true.
So the only way she could convince him that she had broken was desperation. And fortunately, her father had set the stage perfectly for that. His aggression, his skirting of the Emperor's rules, anyone could see that he was a dangerous man.
"What can you possibly have to tell me?" Lukas growled, yanking her closer. His mouth, practically the only visible part of his face, was twisted into an angry snarl, showing his teeth as only a Lycan or Beastfolk would.
Luna slowly reached up the left side of her dress, and pulled on a strap. A dagger dropped into her waiting hand.
And then she felt the impact.