Éris

Chapter 1- "Planning" ✔

'Éris,' Started Alpha Nicholas, speaking directly to me for the first time in this meeting, the preoccupation and stress he had lately been put through evidently showing in his eyes and paled face, as well as his otherwise perfectly combed hair that was now an untamed mess on top of his head, one that had been hanging a little low lately. '-what do you make of this?'

I sighed, probably finding myself in a similar state as my Alpha and friend, Nicholas, and stared down again at the numerous photos and reports scattered across the 7 feet long wooden table in the reunion room, all of them about the recent attacks that our pack, specifically our warriors, had been enduring. And by attacks, I mean they were brutally murdered.

Over the last couple of weeks, our warriors on patrol had been taken out by a certain pack's wolfs, killed with incredible precision but with a hint of sadism and viciousness in them, which lead us to conclude that the individuals responsible for the deaths of my fellow pack mates weren't just mindless rogues, but an organized pack that just happened to be constituted by bloody psychopaths, and we all knew just which pack perfectly fitted that description, and we were all aware of the meaning these attacks had.

Everyone just called it the Rogue Pack, since no one knew where it came from. It had been making its presence known for about 5 years now, terrorizing and destroying everything that came in contact with it, slaughtering and pillaging everyone and everything. No one knew where they came from or how they reached the numbers they have today, but we believe that this pack was originated by a group of rogues that somehow managed to keep their sanity and formed a pack, and by the acts of attacking and defeating other packs and forcing them to join their own, they had reached the point where there were about 500 members apart of that pack, most of them being warriors, unfortunately for us, for we believed to next in their target.

'Well Nik, we must face reality. We have about 220 members as you are well aware of, but only 125 of them are equipped to fight.' I stated plainly, trying to hide the alarm and fear that cursed through me as I read the numbers on the immaculate paper in front of me. 'The rest of them are either too young or too old. Further more, you must consider that within those 125, only about 65 of them can actually fight. We have been a peaceful pack for as long as I can remember Nik, and probably generations before that, we never had to fight. And now that we lost 17 of our warriors, we are finding ourselves in quite the predicament.' I declared, as emotionless as I could, though the lack of hope that I felt was clear in the way I spoke.

'Then what do you suggest? Should we attempt to fight them? Should we just surrender right now?' The middle aged Alpha asked with his jaw clenched, the mere idea of going down without a fight making him enraged and possessive, as it would to any Alpha.

I sighed heavily, preparing him for something he would not want to hear, but was what I believed to be the best and least damaging solution for our pack. I would not let innocent lives be taken at the hands of savages simply because our pride spoke higher and demanded a fight that was already lost before it began.

'As your Beta, my duty is not just to my Alpha, is also to my people, and my people deserve to live. They don't deserve to be sent to war they'll never win, nor do they deserve to be murdered at the hands of killers who already killed many of our brothers and sisters. But they also don't deserve to live the rest of their lives serving these monsters, fighting for them, eating with them. They will not die at their hands nor will they let themselves be shackled by them.' I finished, my fist unconsciously banging on the table due to determination that evidently flowed through my voice.

I would not let my pack be subdued by a group of monsters like the Rogue Pack. Even though I would rather have then die as part of the Black Wood Pack then as slaves part of the Rogue one, I still refused to let them die for nothing. So, in my point of view, since we could not win the fight nor could we surrender to one, the one possible choice that I saw that wouldn't lead to the termination of the Black Wood Pack and it's pack members would be to run.