Souls Entwined

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven
Elle's POV

During the hours-long summit meeting, I had two things confirmed to me.

The first I recognised almost immediately. The Vermiculo pack was the pack to hold discussions with. The alphas and lunas around the room turned to Alpha Delossa for every question and every negotiation, all vying to fall in favour with the powerful pack. Those who spoke their mind before Leon did often found themselves backpedalling to align themselves with his views.

The second became more apparent as the day continued. My words held no value.

I had prepared for others to judge me. I anticipated they would turn their noses down at my words. I was expecting them to hear what I had to say but to disagree with me based solely on their prejudice and my inexperience. I had not anticipated that I wouldn't be able to get a word in edgewise.

Every time I tried to contribute, I was spoken over as though I hadn't made a sound. I didn't try to say much. At first, I had listened, taking in everything that was said. Everyone was content with how I had found my place, but it wasn't where I wanted to stay.

Around an hour into our meeting, the conversation shifted towards the Vermiculo pack. A negotiation deal had been struck up between Kaden and the Luna of the Urbs pack, and it was a tense topic amongst the others. Kaden had discussed it in-depth while I caught my breath after the party, so I was already more informed than most others surrounding us.

Waiting for an appropriate moment to talk had felt like torture when all those voices rose in crescendo to form an argument, as though they would be immediately affected by the outcome. To some extent, they would, though now hardly seemed an ideal place to spill their vulnerabilities.

As the room had fallen into a moment of peace, silence taking the floor, I decided to say my piece. I barely had three words out before a luna across the room raised her voice deafeningly to drown me out. I watched, feeling defeated, as a trend was set for the remainder of the meeting.

Kaden tried to involve me, using every trick he knew, asking me questions, or leading into topics he knew I was well versed in, but there was only so much he could do, and I had already asked him not to call them out on their behaviour. I hadn't thought there would be so many people to call out, but as the minutes ticked by, the offences against me continued to build, and Kaden's mood soured.

Leon, Kaden's father, had admittedly set the tone. He and Kaden's aunt represented our pack in the inner circle. During the first minutes of the meeting, he had fought to have Kaden sit with him amongst the current leaders. The suggestion was praised—a sign of what would come—until an elder asked where I would sit.

Leon was dismissive, and only Kaden's solidarity caused an argument that ended with him sitting beside me. Kaden had publicly shown his loyalties, but the damage had already been done. Leon didn't respect me, and it was the permission the others needed to treat me as though I shouldn't have been there. Perhaps they were right.

'There was a time when sorry would have cut it, but the tensions between our packs are now too big to be dismissed as simple.'

As it turned out, national leadership meetings were mostly a way to act like toddlers behind closed doors, where the media couldn't see inside the minds of those most powerful.

On a bigger scale, they were like the Monday evening council meetings between the four packs back home. However, fifty-six packs were represented here, and some of them held grudges like prepubescent children.

The argument creating a storm in the room had started from a passing comment an omega made to a journalist eight months ago. The two packs involved in the conflict lived close enough to each other that it boiled up and caused simmering emotions to erupt. Thievery and assault were among the number of transgressions which took place between the two packs.