That night, I couldn't sleep.
The puppies were curled up at the foot of my bed as usual, their soft breathing a comfort in the darkness. But my mind kept circling back to the same problem: I had one week to prove the shadow panther cub could be combat-ready.
Combat-ready meant killing.
I'd spent my entire career training animals to help people, to heal, to comfort. Now I was being asked to train one to kill. The irony wasn't lost on me—the series title might as well have been a warning label for my own moral crisis.
I pulled out my phone, now at 23% battery. In the dim glow of the screen, I scrolled through old photos. Dogs I'd trained back home. A golden retriever named Sunny who worked as a therapy dog in nursing homes. A Belgian Malinois named Duke who'd become a search-and-rescue specialist. A pit bull mix named Princess who'd gone from a fighting ring to being a beloved family pet.
All of them trained with patience, positive reinforcement, and love.
None of them trained to kill.
A soft knock at my door pulled me from my thoughts.
"Come in."
Sera entered, carrying a tray with tea and bread. "I saw your light on. Thought you might be awake."
"Can't sleep," I admitted, setting the phone aside. "Too much thinking."
She set the tray down and poured two cups of tea. The steam rose in lazy spirals, and the scent was surprisingly familiar—something like chamomile mixed with honey.
"Want to talk about it?" she asked, sitting in the room's single chair.
I took a cup, letting the warmth seep into my hands. "Cornelius wants proof of combat readiness. That means the cub needs to attack on command, to kill efficiently. But everything I've done so far has been about building trust, reducing fear and aggression. How do I reconcile those things?"
"Can you?" Sera asked quietly. "Reconcile them, I mean."
"I don't know." I took a sip of tea. It was good, soothing. "Back home, there were working dogs trained for protection—police dogs, military dogs, guard dogs. They learned controlled aggression. How to bite on command, how to release on command. But that training built on breeds developed over thousands of years specifically for those purposes. And even then, it was about control and discipline, not pure killing instinct."
"The shadow panther already has killing instinct," Sera pointed out. "It's a predator. You wouldn't be creating something new, just... directing what's already there."
"Maybe." I watched the puppies sleep. Luna was dreaming, her paws twitching. "But there's a difference between a predator hunting for food and a weapon used for assassination. One is natural. The other is something we create."
Sera was quiet for a moment. "Do you regret being summoned here?"
The question caught me off guard. Did I?
"Sometimes," I admitted. "I miss home. I miss knowing what I'm doing, having the tools and knowledge I need. I miss not having to make impossible choices." I looked at her. "But if I hadn't been summoned, that cub would already be dead. The dire wolf in Vane's training yard would still be suffering. So no, I don't think I regret it. Just... I'm struggling with what comes next."
"The Demon King's forces are real, Marcus. I've seen the refugees from the border territories. Entire villages destroyed. Families torn apart. Children orphaned." Her voice was soft but firm. "If your methods can create beasts that protect people without the suffering Vane's methods cause, isn't that worth the moral complexity?"
"Protecting is different from killing."
"Is it? Sometimes protection requires violence. Ask any parent who's defended their child from danger."
I didn't have a good answer to that. She was right, in a way. In this world, at this time, violence wasn't an abstract concept. It was survival.
"How do you do it?" I asked. "Make peace with the violence, I mean. You're a priestess. Doesn't your faith teach compassion?"
"It does. It also teaches that compassion without action is just sentiment." She set down her cup. "I pray every day for peace. But while I'm praying, I also prepare bandages for the wounded and feed the refugees. Faith and action aren't opposites, Marcus. They're partners."
I thought about that. About the cub waiting in its cell, about Cornelius's ultimatum, about Commander Vane's brutal efficiency born from years of war.
"I need to find a middle path," I said slowly. "The cub can be trained to fight—it's a predator, like you said. But it doesn't have to be broken to do it. It doesn't have to suffer."
"How?"
"Same way I'd train a protection dog. Build the bond first, establish trust, then introduce controlled aggression through play and reward." I was thinking out loud now, the pieces clicking together. "Shadow panthers are pack hunters, right? According to the books?"
"Yes. They coordinate attacks, use tactics."
"Then the cub doesn't need to be a lone weapon. It needs to be part of a team. It needs to understand that fighting alongside humans protects its pack." I felt excitement building despite my reservations. "If I can make it understand that violence in defense of the pack is different from violence as torture..."
"Then you teach it purpose," Sera finished. "Not just violence, but righteous violence."
"I don't know if any violence is truly righteous," I said. "But defensive violence, protective violence—that I can maybe live with."
Sera smiled. "That's more than most warriors in this kingdom can say. They've forgotten the difference."
After she left, I lay back down, mind still churning but with a clearer direction now. The puppies stirred, and Maxwell climbed up to curl against my chest. His warmth was comforting.
"You three are going to help with this," I told him quietly. "The cub needs to see pack behavior. Needs to understand loyalty and cooperation. You'll be the example."
Maxwell yawned and went back to sleep, completely unburdened by the weight of moral philosophy.
I envied him that.
As I finally drifted off, I made myself a promise: I would train the shadow panther cub to fight. But I would do it in a way that preserved its spirit, its autonomy, its ability to choose. It wouldn't be a broken weapon. It would be a willing partner.
Whether that would be enough to satisfy Cornelius in one week remained to be seen.
But at least now I had a plan.
Tomorrow, day four. Time to start teaching the cub that it wasn't alone anymore. That it had a pack. And that pack was worth fighting for.
Even a dog trainer could understand that.