Veritas

Chapter 58

Hot and crowded.

That's what Aislinn thought as she looked around the room she found herself in. Bodies packed tightly together, making the room stifling. She could tell she wasn't actually there, so she began weaving around people to figure out what she was seeing...And why.

As she passed, she heard angry voices in differing conversations.

"...lone wolves should be hunted and killed like the rogues..."

"...death is too easy, torture them until they tell us!"

"...hope they find the King..."

Aislinn frowned, getting a bad feeling. She began to recognize some of the decor, and determined she was seeing a large room in the Royal pack. Based on the people gathered, she suspected that it was a pack meeting area, potentially within the palace. Once she was closer to the front of the room, she heard different voices.

Familiar voices.

"You have no evidence! Please, listen to me!" Rei's male voice begged desperately.

"I saw with my own eyes that you and your son were standing watch. I bet you'd be gone, too, if it wasn't for my unexpected interruption of your plot" an angry female voice replied. Aislinn recognized it from her many dreams of the woman...The woman that Gwen had called the King's mother.

"Don't just execute us without evidence! There's more going on than you're seeing!" Rei insisted, and as Aislinn came within view, she realized that Rei wasn't speaking to the woman.

She was speaking to a tall, muscular man with blonde hair and a blonde beard. Despite his neat appearance, Aislinn immediately recognized him...The drunkard!

He looked uncomfortable standing before the large crowd, distressed even. He shifted from one side to the other, looking everywhere but at Rei and Ryan, who were on their knees before the drunkard and the King's mother. They looked like they'd been beaten up, blood stains on their skin and their clothes ripped and wrinkled. As wolves, they had healed; but, knowing someone harmed her family had Aislinn's blood boiling. It didn't help that Rei and Ryan had their hands shackled behind their backs, making Aislinn imagine them being beaten while unable to defend themselves.

"Listen to me! This isn't right, I know that you know that!" Rei insisted, leaning forward as if wanting to get closer to the man she was pleading with.

"Shut up! You took our son from us!" Shaela said, stomping up to Rei and backhanding her across the face. "If you won't tell me where he is, I'll take your son from you!" She screeched, grabbing Ryan by his hair to jerk his head back.

Unfazed by the hit, Rei temporarily gave up on the man to glare at the woman, and let out a snarl. "Unhand my son, you bitch!"

"Then tell me where mine is" Shaela hissed, although, having come nearly side-by-side with Rei, Aislinn could see the smirk on the woman's face as she said it.

Rei growled at the woman, then spit in her face. Shaela's guard rushed forward to give Rei a swift beating; but, Aislinn noted that the drunkard didn't react to the disrespect. He seemed to be in his own world, his eyes darting in every direction, and that was when Aislinn noticed it.

His eyes kept shifting. Not from side-to-side; but, from green to gold! What was going on with him?

"You have been a disgraceful father, and were a pathetic king!" Shaela suddenly yelled at the drunkard, releasing Ryan to turn and face the man. "Your son has been kidnapped, and you're doing nothing! For once, give this kingdom the man it deserves and do the right thing! Execute these mutts for treason!"

A rolling wave of shouts and cries for their execution followed Shaela's demand. The pack was in an uproar, and Shaela was pushing the right buttons to keep them on her side. As the yells grew louder, the man up front, the King's father, grew more distressed.

Finally, with a bellow, the man shifted from human to wolf. A huge, snarling beast, with crazed golden eyes that didn't hesitate to charge at Rei and Ryan as soon as its paws touched the ground.

Rei, bloody and swollen in the face from the guard's beating, let out a scream of anguish and defeat, she lurched herself forward to tackle Ryan over, shielding him with her body as the great, blonde beast descended upon them.

Aislinn watched in equal parts horror and rage, her blood pounding in her ears, knowing she couldn't stop what was unfolding before her.

Was this happening now? Was this yet to come? She had to save them!

Her desperation turned to rage, and her rage fed the fire within her. As Rei's pained, dying screams rang out, Aislinn matched them with her own scream of fury.

And then she woke up.