I GLANCED OVER MY SHOULDER to experience the scene. There was a lot of blood following the man, his ankles and wrists were coloured blue which meant he had been tied up and by huge chains to be specific.
Blood ran down his forehead and I saw those sorts of wounds enough to know that there was a bullet inside of him. Bullets, it wasn't one.
It was done by a shotgun.
"I'm sorry Alpha…w-we tried but even as we were a pack it wasn't enough to get past their surveillance."
Lucian ran hisnslender fingers through his hair, his jaw becoming more defined as it was clenched. "The others?" He questione, the sound of hope in his voice but the man shook his head.
"Only me." His shoulders slumped, "I barely made it, broke my wrists and ankles to get out of their heavy chains. They slaughtered and kept the ones they would they would work on."
Lucian nodded, "Go on now. You're bleeding out."
The man nodded and limped out of the room, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
I didn't finish my soup as my appetite was once again affected by the strong scent of blood now in the room.
"Again?!" The table was slammed and my eyes followed the source. It was a bearded man with long curly hair in which he tied into a low ponytail. It was the first word I heard him mustered ever since seated at the table. There's a long scar on his cheek, his eyes dark and slanted. It was difficult to determine his age from his attire. He dressed in woolen clothes and his beard overgrown but though he looked old, his face wasn't exactly so.
"At this rate they'll kill us all. Lucian please, please let us finish. Why do you not listen? Soon they'll be for your head, our numbers are decreasing, theirs rising. We cannot continue to attack in groups. It is not working, what are you doing, Lucian?!"
Lucian remained calm despite the man's shouting. "So now you speak. I see that you've kept things in mind. You're angered because I do not listen to your foolish plans. I am sorry but that will not work."
"And doing nothing will?"
"So must us all go and die? Is our pack not important to you, brother Garnet? Do you want to bury your own family?" Lucian gritted his teeth, his boiling anger no longer able to stay under the surface.
"But the humans. We cannot be a family when they are around and they think the same about us. There is no peace with them around. Humans are disgusting creatures! Dying in their sleep is what suits them right."
"That is what you think? Tell me then, brother, what do you wish for?" Lucian furrowed his brow, "Because to you, we do not have bigger problems. It is not only the humans we are up against but our kind."
Garnet sipped the bottle of wine beside him before he wiped his mouth and spoke again, "The bounds. We must cross them. Dash said he saw 'death' being stored inside. These bounds… they're sealing us off. My brother's last words were about those bounds. He died to get a view inside. He died for us! Why must we waste his bravery. Do you not respect him?"
"Do you not respect me?! You know how Dash and I relationship was. He was another brother. Yes he was family but you know that his death couldn't have been stopped. He was blinded! He acted foolishly! Got impatient! Do not act as he did!"
Garnet went quiet and bowed his head but continued to explain it to the others, "The bounds. We are limited. They are taking the forest, piece by piece and building on it; they are trying to trap us. We must stop them!"
Lucian shook his head, "And does anyone have anything to discuss involving our brother's shared knowledge? Shall we go blinded by his plan. Are you willing?"
"Why don't we ask our new lady…Lydia?" Phelicia mentioned and I glanced at her, taken by surprise.
Lucian turned to be with furrowed brows and she shrugged at him fluttering innocent eyes as if she only generally wanted to include me.
"She's our new lady, is she not? We can't limit her thoughts, she is a part of our pack now, after all she has been on the outside for some time, has she not? What do you have to say, Lydia?" She looked at him and fluttered her lashes at me again.
I gulped. "I don't have anything to add."
"Speak girl, I do not have time for the bashful." Garnet stared at me and so did everyone around the table.
"I-I think it's…I think you should take the more sufficient route. You don't want to lose your people but if then you decide that some of them can die for the cause of just ending humans then fine but but if then you take that route and it turns out you lost all those people but one, one single human still remains, could you still say you don't regret the lives sacrificed for that purpose that wasn't even a success." I finished but at the end of it didn't remember what I said. I was only focused on their eyes on me.
Phelicia didn't give me a break and continued her taunts. "Is that it, dawdler, your face tells me you have more to add. Or are you slow?"
Garnet huffed and added. "That did not answer the question! The question was how do we go about killing the pests. How do we stop them killing our kind, how is it that we can—"
The rest of his words went silent but some of them played over and over in my head until it burned on my tongue. He talked about mercy and his family…only his, not anyone else's, how he saw his brother die and not how countless others had to experience the same and worse.
I balled my fist, attempting to calm the adrenaline rushing through my veins because his words just happened to bring back flashes of a past I pictured through my father's words.
The tears that were blurring my eyes that day.
The feeling of sticky blood on my hands for the time that day.
The pain I felt that day.
Was the pain that haunted me ever since that day.
My own mother's blood painted my hands that day.
I looked up from staring at my hands and focused my glare at him. "It is you who's running around hungrily and taking lives without an eye to envision! And wonder why you're stuck." I fully lost control of my mouth and forgot that I was supposed to be clueless. I made a mistake, I forgot that I was vulnerable to over twenty wolves seated around me.
They covered their mouths and gasped in shock from my outburst, disrespected.
Garnet's eyes widened. "Which clan does she belong in? She must be one of the immatures, were you petted by a human, girl? Given a sugary treat that sent you into madness?! Humans are not to be discussed unless discussed against."
"Do you care about the families being ruined on their side?! Sisters, brothers…mother's, do you care?! "
"Why should I care about them?!"
"Enough!" Lucian tried silencing us but the adrenaline in veins hadn't died down yet.
"You're brother wanted to get on the inside because he wanted to see what it was like, he knew what was there but he still wanted and that's because he was greedy. But you think he did that for you, huh? Tell me what you think about that, Garnet?"
I made a mistake, the words came out of my mouth before I could silence myself and just as it left Garnet throwed the bone of the meat he finished cleaning over his shoulder and transformed to wolf in the blink of my eyes. It felt like I hadn't even been able to take another blink by just how quickly he ran across the table.
One blink and open again and his canines was revealed, his dark eyes targeted at me, his paws digging into the table as he ran to my end, and then another blink and open again and there was blood in my soup.
I felt the wind from the quick swipe of his paw. It left me believing for a while nothing was done but when I placed my palm on my below neck and on my chest I felt the wet moisture. I lifted my hand to my face and saw that there was blood on my fingers, followed by my clothes, the table and the ground below me.
"Garnet, you dare defy me, brother?!" I heard Lucian shout.
I stared at Garnet heaving in front of me and then at my blood on his paw before I hunched over, squeezing my chest to stop the bleeding.