Outcasts

[21]

Pacing back and forth in the cave, my pack watched as I tried to understand what I had just been told. War. The word repeated in my head, a blaring sign, a sign of death. I didn't want this. No one wanted this, but it had to happen. There was no stopping it. The hunters were determined to take us down before the vampires, who've we thankfully stalled, arrived. Is there really nothing we could do to prevent this? I said.

We've tried, but they are hellbent on war. Scott replied, his fur bristling in frustration. It was only inevitable. My paws, now soaked from constantly walking into the water, only led me to pace faster. It was not inevitable. We should've been able to stop it. I spat back. "There was no possible way. They've been hellbent on destroying us since the last war where their previous leader was killed." Lana explained, "We were only delaying the inevitable."

Lana's right. This war is a long time coming. Connor agreed, sullenly. They know we can't let them get away with Castiel's death. They want this war. We have no choice but to give it to them. I felt the stares of my pack as I raced through plans to avoid it. Of course, all ideas were quickly shot down. There was no avoiding it. This war was going to happen.

"We need to prepare, to train." Romeo said, "And it would be great if we had a werebeaver on our side, if you can convince him." I huffed in disbelief. Charles, though helpful to a point, wasn't exactly stable. Not to mention, we were fighting his family. Unlikely. I replied. Even if he did want to battle alongside us, I'm not too keen on the idea of letting loose a completely unstable, giant ass werebeaver on the world.

Then we're going to need to train, hard. Scott said. There's no excuse for failure at this point. Everyone silently agreed with Scott, even me. We needed to train as best we could, there was nothing we could do. The battle could begin at any time. We probably had little time to train.

Unless....

They shot Lana. I thought, happily. "Yeah, I remember." Lana grumbled, rubbing the bandaged wound. Connor approached her, gently licking the wound, pitifully. Lana's a mermaid they can't shoot her! I said, Guys, we may have just bought ourselves some training time.

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"What is the meaning of this?" Jace said. Megan's brother, Jace, not to be confused with my ex, was duct taped to a tree in the middle of the woods, surrounded by the pack. He was probably stunned on how we found him in the only pub in town. He was also probably disturbed by the fact that both Lana's and Romeo's face were covered and he was surrounded by a pack of horse-sized wolves.

I rolled my eyes as he started shouting at us in some unknown hunter language. (Or anything outside of English, Spanish, and Quileute.) "What do you want? Revenge?" He said, wriggling around even more, his words slurring from the alcohol.

Now it was just getting sad.

I looked to Lana, nodding. "You shot me. Well, your friend did." Lana said, folding her arms over her chest. Jace stopped wriggling and looked at us if we had all lost our minds. "And...that's kind of how things work." He said. Lana smirked, running her fingers through her beautiful curls. "Tsk tsk tsk." She said, "Now, you should know that mermaids are out of your jurisdiction so to speak."

Jace's eyes widened as he looked Lana up and down, "But, but mermaids are sea creatures." He said in disbelief. Lana shrugged, placing her hands on her hips. "Long story short, I'm not allowed past the Washington State ocean line, but....that's none of your concern." She said. "You know the punishment for shooting a mermaid, especially since you were in charge." Jace's eyes widened in fear. According to Connor's memories, his punishments would leave him scarred - mentally and physically. It was one of their greatest laws, anything that resided in the sea was untouchable to the hunters. "What do you want?" Jace said, practically mumbling.