Isabel's Choice

Chapter 31 - Lars

"Whose war are you fighting, bro?"

Sven is lying next to me, in the back of his truck. We are both tired, after a day of being interrogated by the Shifter's Council about our unplanned raid. It's snowing, but we are safe in the bubble I keep clear around us. My brother has made it all warm with a little hovering fire globe and then filled it with a deliciously smelling grass smoke.

Unlike him, I am perfectly sober and yet his question spins around in my mind on a wavy, disorganized path.

Whose war am I fighting?

Having to explain to Kari and the other six über-Alphas how I played Werewolves vs Humans - The Witch Brothel extension was not exactly pleasant or dignified.

I did remind them that other than deduction skills and brute force, we don't really have anything available to detect or fight dark magic with. That, due to their lackadaisical ways of dealing with this threat, I am reduced to conducting research on Defenders with my underage Beta. He is working on this in parallel with studying for his damn finals.

The Northern Alpha who is currently rotating as Council lead reassured me that, once the investigation of the Witches is concluded, they will watch very carefully the preventive and corrective measures that will be put in place.

I was tempted to go full Ayn on his asses and tell him exactly how to please himself with his reassurance since he wasn't even worthy of a donkey's attention. The murderous look in Kari's eyes prevented me from doing so.

My dad and Rio had laid some good groundwork but they hadn't yet been successful in convincing the other Alphas to engage with the Witches on the topic of Defenders. Kari had already warned us about this during our private brief and he also outlined his expectations regarding our behavior during the meeting. He had included a specific request for no profanity whatsoever.

So I took the small victory we were granted - the Council's commitment to having their hybrid Alpha's backs in case we would be summoned by the Witches and the Humans. I left the room feeling more alone than ever.

Why did they specifically mention that we are hybrids?

Whose war am I fighting?

"Mine?"

"No," he exhales slowly, calling out my lie in a deep Alpha tone. "None of it is yours. Miro's attack is not yours. Owen killing that human girl is not yours."

He's technically right. I am driven by other witches' memories - images and sounds that I forcefully pulled into my mind. But void as emotion as they are, they are a perfect canvas to paint my own demons on.

In Ayn's memories, I am the victim. It's my blood dripping on a sandy floor. It's my face that is spit on, my ears hear the same idiotic question, again and again, whether the child is a hybrid.

And all this quickly births the fear my mother has tried to shelter me from, the one which kills reason. The fear which reduces the visual field to a narrow tunnel whose end needs to be reached at all costs. As a consequence, I didn't spare a single thought for my safety - or Isabel's, or our pack's - when I decided to enter the Red. The only thing that mattered was stopping a potential dark magic wielder.

Morgane's memories of Owen were terrifying in a different way. In them, I assume the perspective of the one casting the curse, a spectator to the silent, cowardly execution of an innocent woman.

My brain and my soul were asking me to react to the events unfolding, to stop the hand which is tugging at a pendant and warping the reality into a dark sheath, to scream and warn Toni to get out of Owen's range.  Until I realised that I won't be able to do any of those, the poison had already seeped into my skin.