Greykin Mountain

| 6 | Council

          No one said anything. They all looked him up and down and then glanced at one another.

          "And you're sure, chief?" one of the men asked Grisly.

          Grisly nodded, taking his eyes off the woman to look at Jackson. "He confirmed that the cadejo was the one that bit him."

          "And you turned?" the man asked Jackson.

          Jackson nodded.

          The man frowned skeptically but shifted his gaze to Grisly. "I agree with Alpha Damon. We should keep him around. He could prove useful."

          "He's a threat!" Elias snapped. "For all we know, the cadejo virus could just be taking a little longer to consume him because the thing bit him while he was human."

          "But cadejo don't attack humans," one of the women revealed.

          "And wolf walkers don't fully emerge from a bite after a day—it takes weeks," the man beside her added.

          "But it only takes a day for a cadejo to turn," the man on Jackson's left argued. "Elias could be right. I vote we get rid of him and move on."

          Jackson's heart started beating a little harder. Were they...talking about killing him?

          "How do we even know he wasn't a wolf walker before?" the woman at Grisly's side asked. "He could have lied."

          Shaking his head, Jackson opened his mouth to speak—

          "No one said you could speak," Elias snapped before he could utter a word.

          "He didn't even know how to shift—he could have died when that cadejo came for me, but he ran instead of turned," Grisly told them.

          "Then he's just a little coward," one laughed.

          "Coward or not, any wolf walker knows they're faster as a wolf. He didn't turn," Grisly repeated.

          They all looked at Jackson again.

          "What were you doing up in the mountains?" another asked.

          Jackson eyed Grisly, expecting him to chime in again, but he didn't. So, he swallowed his angst and tried to calm his nerves. "I-I came out here looking for people."

          "People?"

          "Missing people—I come from Dawnward; it's a city. Some journalists have gone missing, and I wanted to find them."

          Some of them laughed.

          "If you go missing in Greykin, you're gone for good," the man beside Elias stated.

          "That doesn't make me wanna give up," Jackson said firmly.

          "We're falling off track," one of the women announced.

          "I stand by what I said," Elias uttered.

          Grisly shook his head. "We vote like we always do." He turned to the black-haired woman sitting on his left. "Aysel?"

          She sighed heavily. "It's strange, but we can't risk the pack. I say we kill him just like we would any other cadejo."

          Jackson's eyes widened in horror.

          "Elias—need I ask," Grisly uttered.

          "Death."

          Was this really happening? Had he seriously gone through everything he had in the past few days just to have his life debated by some strangers?