In Reach?

Mira’s POV

When Theo and I get back to the house, I sense eyes on me.

I look up and see Liam looking at us, looking at me from his office window.

When we get to the ‘conference room’, I see just how packed it is. Not that it’s cramped in this huge space, but because all the head-members are here. What am I doing here? They’re all already sitting, except Liam is still standing by the window with his hands in his pockets. He has a very serious expression on his face.

I take a seat, wondering what all this is for. I don’t really understand why I am here. Isn’t this a pack matter?

After everyone is seated, Liam makes his way to the head of the table.

“So, for those of you that don’t know, there was an attack last night, near the southern border.”

There are a few whispers in the air.

“It was a small and pathetic attack. Not something worth mentioning to be concerned about. But,….” He sighs as he sits laid back into his large wing-chair. “It turns out this attack may just have been a message, from Dahlia.”

Who?

“Dahlia?” Aiden sits forward.

“What makes you say that?” Liz asks.

Oh, the witch lady. With Noah’s serious expression, I figure he already knows about this.

Liam sits up straight. “Two hunters tried to attack our pack last night. It didn’t make sense to begin with. Why would you just send two hunters to attack a pack as big as ours? They definitely weren’t novices though. By the time I reached that side of the border, they were still holding their own against three of our patrols. The fight turned pretty violent very quickly. They died soon after.”

“But how does this link back to Dahlia?” Mason asks.

“One of the patrols were injured during the fight. One of the pack healers had a look at him and said they were just minor wounds, bandaged him up and sent him off. But this morning, he died. Turns out the wounds weren’t healing, and he bled out.” Liam is breathing heavily now. “Those hunters were using weapons I’ve never seen before. I thought nothing of it before, but after taking a closer look, it’s clear, - there is witchcraft all over this.”

I startle from a loud clank sound resounding through the room as Noah throws a dagger partially covered in a piece of cloth into the middle of the table.

The cloth is covered in blood splatters. The dagger though, looks old. Half of it is rusted. And there are engraved inscriptions on the sides of the blade.

Mason leans forward trying to reach for the dagger.

“No, don’t!” We all turn to Charlotte as she frantically stands up to pull Mason’s hand away.

“You’ve seen this before.” Liam says as statement.

“Yes, but-,…..”

“Speak!” Liam commands.

Char gives him an apologetic look, but it seems more like she is sorry for him and not to him.

“The council has recently been made me aware of these hexed weapons. I only received the report yesterday about it.”

“Yesterday?” Noah looks annoyed. “You knew about this yesterday and you didn’t think to tell us any of it?”

She sighs. “I was not authorized to share such information. The council was worried that knowledge of such weapons may just cause unnecessary panic.”

“Unnecessary? A man is dead, because he bled out from a scratch. I think this is panic worthy.” Noah gives her a disappointed look.

Liam takes over. “Well since it is out now, what can you tell us about this?”

She sits back down. “These are hexed weapons, cursed with blood magic. They use weapons made of silver, for maximum damage. That’s because the curse enhances the effects of the weapons it’s placed on, on the silver. We all know that with wolves, wounds obtained by silver heal slower. But these curses makes the silver potent and toxic. Not only does it lessen the healing rate of a wolf to the extreme, but it also weakens your wolf. This weapon literally attacks both your body and your wolf spirit in one blow. One won’t be able to heal the other. It’s fatal.”

Gggrh! Liam bangs his hand on the table. “Why would the council want to keep this from us? Leaving us defenseless with a fatal threat like this.”

The room is quiet. Even Charlotte doesn’t have an answer for him, but she does say something else.

“The fact that Dahlia made these weapons known to you, as a warning, means that she is declaring war. This is already out of the council’s hands. We need to prepare ourselves with this.”

“And how do we do that?” Mason turns to her.

“Well, like every spell casted by blood magic, there is a limit. It’s like having a half-life, the effects decrease either over time or with use. As you can see, the dagger is rusted. That’s what happens when it is used.”

“So are you saying that after the weapon is used, it can’t be used again?”

“Not exactly. There are a lot of variables involved, such as the power of the caster, the type of weapon it is casted on, the way that the spell is casted, the type of blood used, which I’m guessing is most likely wolf blood. But, think of the dagger as almost like a parasite. It’s main purpose is to feed on wolf blood, which then provides a fatal injury in exchange. But it can only take so much blood. If the weapon has exhausted its limit of blood intake, it completely rusts, whereas that weapon on the table is only partially rusted. Which means it still has some fight in it. So don’t touch it.”

“Fuck.” Liz seems very worried about this news.

“How can we go about healing such wounds then?” Aiden asks his mother.

“Unfortunately, they haven’t figured that out yet. There are no reports of anyone surviving such wounds.”

The murmurs in the room are getting louder now. Even Theo is muttering something under his breath.

“That’s not all we have to be worried about?” Liam gets the room quiet again. He briefly looks at me before he looks at the dagger on the table. “It seems we have a mole in our midst."

Damn. There really is a lot going on in this pack.

“What do you mean?” Theo looks serious now.

Liam leans forward and looks at Theo, but he steals easy looks my way as I sit next to Theo.

“Well, one of those hunters said something pretty interesting before I ripped his throat out.”

He did what?

“He didn’t mention any names, but I knew he was talking about Dahlia. He said that she loves watching this pack crumble from the inside. First blind attacks and now exposed rapists.”

Theo looks confused, like he’s waiting for more information.

“You see the thing is, nobody outside of the pack has been informed on the attack that happened that night, and no one outside of this room knows about those rapists. Yet that information somehow got to her. Which means that someone in this room informed her about it.” He says the last part through gritted teeth.

Everyone starts looking around the room with confused expressions. But as their looks linger a little too long on my face, I begin to realize why it is I am included in this meeting. – They think it is me!

Even Theo is looking at me a bit wearily.

Is this the part where I have to defend myself now? I don’t even know who this Dahlia person is. Hell, I just found out about wolves and witches a few weeks ago.

At this point I know it probably doesn’t help what I say, but staying quiet may just make it worse.

“It wasn’t me.” I say in a steady voice. But they all look disbelieving and angry.

Wow! These people can really flip their switch at the snap of a finger. Wasn’t it just last night that we were chilling, and dancing, and singing, and eating each other’s faces off. Gosh! I’m annoyed. I stare at Liam, hoping he absorbs all this annoyance I’m radiating right now.

Liam clears his throat, getting attention back on him. “Just so that you all are aware, I will be having each of you checked so that we can find out who the mole is. And I hope you all will cooperate. Meeting dismissed.”

He gets up and walks back to the window.

Everybody starts getting up and making their way to the door. But just as I’m about to reach the door, I hear him call my name.

“Mira. Stay behind.” He says as he’s still looking out the window.

Oh great. Who am I kidding, the universe hates me. My plan to avoid him flew out the window since I woke up this morning.

Am I supposed to sit, or stand? What does Mr ‘Alpha’ want from me now?

I remain standing where I am, with the huge table between me and him. That should be safe enough, right?

He turns around and looks at me, angry. Why? What now? I thought he just got it all out?

“Come here.”