Weres

37. Home

"We begged him to let us go. He didn't listen and turned us into these strange animals," a man spoke up, standing among his fellow lycans. "A rogue's life meant nothing to him." 

Murmurs of agreement from the crowd followed. 

"It means nothing to anyone!" He spat bitterly.

"Damien, you—"

"Jared, you don't have to take his side anymore," Damien continued, silencing Jared, who stood at the other end of the hall beside Theo. "He is dead. Odis is dead. You're not bound to him anymore." Damien looked around, meeting everyone's eyes. "We are not bound to him anymore." His voice boomed.

Now that their purebred head, Odis, was dead, they were back in control of their will.

"Have some shame," Jared growled, walking to the centre and stood chest to chest with Damien. "His grave isn't even cold yet."

"I am simply stating the truth." Damien growled back, glaring at Jared. "I wasn't the one to make the deal with Odis to kill my homicidal alpha, set my pack free of his chaotic reign, and be turned into a lycan." He sneered. "I was the one to be mercilessly hunted down and given no choice but to be a part of this bloodshed." He turned to look at other lycans. "So were you all!"

Others nodded.

Jared resorted to glaring, to compensate for the lack of answer. 

Damien was right. Jared wasn't a rogue like others. He used to be a pack's wolf, moreover a high ranking one. He used to be the beta of his pack. 

Jared's then alpha, Cane, wasn't fit to lead the pack. Cane's unsolicited reign comprised of killing and torturing pack members over trifle matters, sometimes over nothing. 

Pack members, even high ranking ones, weren't capable of taking down their alpha. The wolf blood in their veins didn't allow that. The human authorities had refused to interfere since it wasn't their concern what happened in the supernatural world. As long as their humans weren't hurt, they didn't care. 

A desperate need to free his pack of Cane's rule had led Jared to Odis. Odis was an outsider and a lycan, more than capable to put an end to Cane's tyranny. Thus, A settlement was formed. Odis would kill Cane, and in exchange, Jared would join him and become a lycan.

Giving up the beta rank and turning into a lycan—one of the beings he had no idea existed till then—wasn't something Jared had wanted to choose.

However, Damien was right. In the end, Jared did have a choice, unlike others who were surrounding him.

"I am not telling you all this to degrade Odis or to take his vacated spot. That is the last thing I want. I just simply want to leave and these are my reasons for doing it. The moment Odis died, we had already lost the war against those bloodsuckers. Now, I see no reason to stick around and simply wait for my turn to die. I am leaving." Damien's eyes flashed red, daring anyone to stop him. "I'm going home."

"You're going to abandon us like a coward!" Jared yelled, furious.

"Yes," Damien replied, without any remorse, which only enraged the other lycan further.

A second later, the room was filled with mumbling of other men. Few even chorused their thoughts aloud.

"He's right. We don't belong here. We were turned into these beasts forcefully!"

"Odis is dead. There is nothing that we can do now."

"I didn't want to be here in the first place."

"I'm leaving too. I prefer to live than to die fighting those vamps."