A Summer To Never Forget {Complete}

33. Riley

(Pic of the orphaned cubs ---> the one upside down is Leah)

        I didn't much have time to let Archie's words sink in before we were summoned to the Pack House. Which was in utter chaos when we arrived, telling me immediately that something terrible happened. My shackles rose as we made our way down the corridor where I knew the King would be around this time of the day and the scent of humans and the sounds of argument were even worse. Squeezing Archie's hand once more, I throw open the double doors and walk into the room.

        Marching to the middle of the room, I stand in attention in front of the King on his throne. "You called for us Your Highness?" Archie bowed, peeking over to the humans cowering in the opposite corner. "Yes." The King's voice is grave and then my eyes take in the sobbing family of Jasmine and her mate Liam. Archie gasps as he must have come to the same conclusion I did. Jasmine and Liam must have died and the humans present must have something to do with it. What's worse is that I can tell there are at least two hunters among them, and the rest are either my colleague's or Archie's. That's because of the looks they keep throwing our way.

        There is a little commotion where the humans were gathered, people were shoved around and a hunter stepped forward "We were well within our rights to shoot fair game!" He screamed before Geoffrey, Archie's manager managed to drag the man back. That confirmed my worst fears that they shot Jasmine and Liam. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement in Jasmine's family as Cordell, Jasmine's younger brother shifted and bounded over to attack the hunter. Archie growled as he moved to intercept Cordell. While they were struggling, Archie was trying to calm Cordell down, so that he won't commit murder in front of the King. No matter how justified it might be, cross that line, and you'll find Dillan standing on your doorstep. Archie was doing a good job, Cordell shifted back, crying and shouting threats at the address of the hunter who basically admitted that he had killed his sister and his brother in law.

        The King turned his gaze to the hunter, rose from his seat and took a few steps in their direction. "Within your rights you say?" The King's sole focus was feasted on the hunter, "Within your rights on my land?" The hunters seemed sacred but determined not to show it. "Yeah." The King snorted very animal like, making me and every shifter in the room tense. The meaning of the sound went over the hunters head, as he continued to dig his own grave. "Yeah, no matter where we hunt we are within our rights to shoot fair game." The King cocked his head to the side, "And that fair game would be the two snow panthers you shoot I presume." The hunter looked surprised; he didn't know that the King would know what type of shifters they were. "And then one of the snow panthers became human, a man. Probably clueing you in on the fact he and the other snow panther were shifters, and yet you shot the second pregnant snow panther." He stressed the word pregnant; family was everything to shifters, family and Pack.

        "The fact you orphaned a little girl, and that you killed a man in cold blood, mortally wounded a pregnant woman doesn't faze you? Not at all?" At hearing that little Leah will never get to know her parents or her unborn sibling had Jasmine's and Liam's family sobbing. "The fact you ripped a family apart just because they were snow panthers never crossed your mind? The fact that a pair of snow panthers walk around in a dense forest, close to civilisation, never made a bell ring in your mind?" Now the hunter seemed to pale a little, it seemed to sink in what he had done. Of course someone had to step in on his behalf and make everything worse. "And how was he to know that they were shifters huh? How was he to know that they weren't fair game?" Another hunter demanded. The King grinned, showing his teeth, a very animalistic move. "I am glad you asked, because I will tell you." The King stepped even closer to the hunter, who smartly enough took several steps back. "You and your puny hunting party trespassed into my Lands when you decided to ignore the warning sign near Weeping Willow's creek, because that creek is the border between the Pack Lands and your human town. Because of that I am within my rights to kill each and every one of you on the spot."