There was a rather ugly silence as the entire main lodge turned quiet.
"It must be a witch," spoke Laxus as he finished locking all the doors and activated the anti-magic defenses that they had installed to protect their pack against the witches. He walked past Nyx, who looked a bit troubled while supporting her mother, and said to her, "You should sit down." Knowing what horrors they had gone through at the hands of witches, Laxus understood her.
Nyx nodded as she helped her mother onto the couch and then said to the rest of the pack, "Witches have been known for using such methods for a long time. They use spells to mimic the cries for help of a pack member when they want to separate a pack. This is a really old trick in their books because they know that no shifter, especially an alpha, would abandon their pack member."
Ajax didn’t seem surprised by what Nyx said. "They are trying to take down the pack bit by bit. If their intention was to divide the pack, then they nearly succeeded if Selene wasn’t feeling sick." At that, he paused and turned to Inez before saying to her, "Where did you go?"
"Sorry, I had seen something before. So I wanted to check if it was really Ally or a witch; we didn’t have much time, so I didn’t wait around." Inez made up an excuse. She then turned to look at Selene, looking grateful and said, "Let me see if something hurts."
Selene shook her head. She had only done it because she wanted to divert the attention of others from Inez and Killian; since she had succeeded, there was no need for her to continue faking her sickness. "It’s alright; I am feeling better thanks to your healing."
A muscle ticked in Edira’s cheeks. She pursed her lips and chewed the inside of her cheek before saying in a harsh voice, "Our pack mostly has submissive lycans, as most of the dominant lycans are killed when they are children. If we had lost so many dominant lycans, including the alpha, then it would have been a severe blow to our pack."
"It would have also emboldened the other packs to attack us. The loss of our alpha would have made a big difference in a battle."
"And it’s also an emotional blow that can make us act out in grief and anger," said Selene.
"How many witches do you think are out there?" Ajax asked Inez, as he came to stand next to her. He peered out of the large glass window and stared at the outside, watching for any potential threat coming their way.
Inez shrugged. "I think we only heard one... I can’t be sure if there are any more." She paused and added, "Do you think that Killian and the rest would be fine?" Even if she didn’t want to underestimate Killian and his enforcers, they were still shifters while their opponents were witches. She couldn’t help but wonder if they really stood a chance against those hell-raising spawns who could use magic.
Ajax shot her an odd look before saying quietly, "Why do you think young lycans are killed when they are children? It’s because our defences are better than the rest."
Far from the main lodge, Killian halted a safe distance from the clearing, and so did the rest of the lycans. With their furless dark skins that became one with the darkness itself, they didn’t have to worry about being noticed. His beast raised its snout and took a sniff of the air.
Tracking the witches was not difficult; they just needed to follow the loudest cry for help and follow it. He turned around and jerked his head to the left to the lycan with scarlet eyes behind him. His beta understood the order and led half of the lycans to the left, while the alpha of the pack led the others to the right. Stealthily and silently, the pack moved around in a loose circle to surround the witches.
Surrounding their prey before attacking was a tactic that all shifters followed.
The alpha lycan sensed the presence of five witches. The witches were standing in the shadows, using spells to create the fake cries.
As they drew close to them, Killian spoke through the pack bond.
’One of you will go ahead and lure them out of the shadows. If we don’t, then I believe that they will just use their stupid teleportation spell to disappear."
Finn agreed. He crouched and continued in the pack bond, "I and Ryder will drop back and then burst into the clearing on the other side."
"There are five of them and seven of us. We can definitely take them down."
Witches were good at one-to-one fights because they could focus all of their energy into chanting spells. However, when they were surrounded, it became difficult for them to focus on just one person. Thus, the chances of their pack winning were high. But not without some serious injuries.
"Leave me alone, and you all pair up," said Killian as he stepped forward. "As the alpha, I can take two witches at once." Not prepared to waste any time, Finn and Ryder’s lycans ran a distance away before loudly rushing through the forest once again. They burst into the clearing as if they had no idea what was going on. Witches were known to attack from the shadows.
The fake cries stopped instantly. The witches hiding in the shadows took aim but realised that the lycans were too far from them to cause serious damage. They snarled in anger before leaving their hiding spot, where they had drawn the teleportation array to escape, believing that their trickery of using a decoy had worked.
Killian waited for the witches to step further away from the clearing. He watched closely as the witches appeared in front of the two lycans, who paused and whipped around to snarl at them, and the witches hissed back.