Remember

Chapter 33: What Now?

She opened her mouth to speak but I cut her off. "How?" I whispered.

"I will tell you all that I know." he said, her eyes showing her displeasure at me cutting her off. "In return all that I ask is that you do not interrupt me until the end."

I nodded, my mind already reeling with her first admission.

She leaned back, waiting to make sure that I was going to abide by her rules. When I remained silent she continued.

"In addition to being three hundred years old, I have also been packless for two hundred fifty of those years. To answer your earlier question, we beasts do not age as humans do. The few of us who have lived to long age have estimated that ten years equates to one year of aging, after the beast comes of age."

I was in shock, trying to understand what I was being told.

She had said beasts, not werewolves, not lycans, beasts, meaning it applied to all. More than that she had said they, there were others, more than her and Avia who had lived to extraordinary age.

After her pause to give her first few statements time to sink in she plowed forward, weaving a story around me.

"My pack was relatively small, it had been split up during my parents' generation. Nonetheless we were a strong pack, all were trained to defend. And they were all great at it.

I was away at a regional meeting. Alphas only. I had left my Beta pair in charge. There had been no unusual activity, nothing suspicious in the days leading up to the attack.

I was on my way back whenever they were attacked."

She took a breath, the pain and anguish were clearly written on her face, even after all of this time.

"I felt every instant of it. I felt their agony, their despair. I felt every single one of them die. There is nothing that compares to it. You feel cold and-"

She trailed off as she tried to find the words to describe the soul squeezing, gut wrenching pain that comes with losing a lack.

"I know." I whispered softly, my own memories of the experience rising to the surface.

She nodded, not trusting her voice for a moment.

"They burned the corpses at least. They gave them that respect." Rage now burned in her eyes, her voice strengthening.

"It was a large group of Hunters. I don't know why they hate us so much! We keep to ourselves, we don't harm humans, we have measures in place to take care of those who do not follow our laws. What makes them decide that they should live but we must die?"

The question wasn't rhetorical. Her eyes continued to blaze, begging for me to give an answer to satisfy her.

I thought for a moment before responding. "There is no good reason. A long time ago there were those who did despicable and wicked things. They fear that we will do as they once did. Fear is a powerful motivator."

Lefleur shook her head, unsatisfied by my answer. "By that same logic shouldn't we be killing every human on site because they may try to kill is?"

I let out a breath, carefully forming my response. "No it doesn't. Look at human history for example. Millions of people were herded into concentration camps during World War Two by the Germans, many of these people were killed. Does this give these millions of people and their families the right to kill millions of Germans? No it doesn't, because not all are guilty. Never stoop to the level of your attacker, it makes you worse than they are." My eyes held her unwavering gaze, waiting to see if she understood.