The Elders were in the same position as when Aceso and William had carried Nicolas out. Huan Li looked very relaxed, while Ansuya held a regalness to her that couldn’t be disturbed by a hurricane.
Aceso again formally addressed the Elders. “Elders, I Aceso, alpha of my pack, have brought my pack before you. What is it you ask of us?”
Huan Li looked at each of them in turn. He was wearing slacks and a shirt, with the top button undone. He looked long and hard at Charles and William. That inexplicable weight that he felt when looking into an Elder’s eyes was there, it was less than when he first experienced it but it was still there.
He glanced to his right and left taking in all the Elders that sat there, there was no one else in the room except for the four of his pack. Huan Li said slowly, “Your scout, Nicolas has made a discovery which we have deemed worthy of further investigation.” He took a long pause as if to express his hesitance with what he was about to say. His body language disagreed with this hypothesis. William still felt like what he was going to say had not been agreed to by all the Elders. Huan Li stood up and walked in front of Aceso, “You will take what remains of your pack, once Nicolas has recovered, and follow him to what he has seen.” Huan Li looked at all of them once more, “This will be dangerous but Nicolas must be with his pack. You are being sent out to find what we thought had been lost.”
Forgetting himself William blurted out, “What was thought to be lost?”
Derceto jerked her head toward the interruption and glared at William with her bright golden eyes that shone like molten gold. Before she could say anything Huan Li raised a hand and Derceto immediately relaxed back into her previous stance. Huan Li looked over at William. “We werewolves are not the only shape shifters to have existed in this world.” He said in a scholarly voice. “We were not the strongest, nor were we the most plentiful.” He gestured behind him toward Ansuya, “We may have been the first, though, and from that we have some of the strongest ties to our celestial beginnings, Ansuya is proof of that.”
“How so, Elder?” Charles asked
Ansuya answered in a smooth unfaltering voice full of confidence and command, “I am sixty two years old.”
William jaw nearly dropped to the floor. Sixty Two!? And he would have guessed that she wasn’t a day over twenty two, still she was still hot. Looking at her sitting there he couldn’t believe that she was as old as the other Elders sitting there. It made sense though, why would the Elders have a young woman as one of their pack if there was another older more powerful and more experienced shape shifter to hold that seat. Isn’t that what being an Elder meant, you’re supposed to be older than those you look over?
Huan Li continued, “You and your pack, Aceso, will be accompanied by Ansuya and Alexiares. They will help you in finding whatever or whoever Nicolas leads you to.”
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If they don’t know what we are after it makes sense that they would send Nicolas and us to go find it and not some other pack. It was obvious from Huan Li’s mannerisms and speech that he would have liked to have chosen another pack. But Nicolas was part of Aceso’s pack and he wasn’t bonded to the pack yet. Was it dangerous to have Nicolas with another pack because of that? What would happen if Nicolas swore fealty to another pack alpha? William visibly shrugged, that alpha would know not to accept his oath. So why were the Elders sending them with two Elders for support. Was Ares busy? Did they not trust any other pack to work with them? It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him but the Elders were the Elders and Aceso wasn’t going to argue with them in any case.
William couldn’t help but speak out once more, “Elder?” Huan Li turned his attention to the enforcer. Returning his heavy gaze, William asked, “What is it that was thought to be lost?”
Huan Li smiled thinly, “Once there were many species of shape shifters in the world. For various reasons they are all but extinct.” Huan Li walked back to his seat and heavily rested himself. Looking at the four of them he continued, “In his exhaustion and sleep deprived delirium, Nicolas’s visions began to coalesce into a single form. His speech was slurred and his description was vague. We know that whatever he saw had the potential to be at least twice as strong as Ares or even Alexiares.” The massive Elder enforcer turned his head a fraction of an inch. If William didn’t know any better, he would have thought that the enforcer would have liked to question the First Elder’s statement about his strength.
“We also know,” Huan Li said, “That whatever it is, it is most definitely female.”
“How do you know that, Elder?” Katherine asked.
Derceto answered dryly with some impatience, “We can only guess. But unless Nicolas is attracted to males his repeated use of the words ‘sexy’ and ‘hot’ to describe whatever it was that he saw strongly points toward an entity of the female persuasion.”
“So, we are going after some other form of shape shifter that is not a werewolf.” William stated.
Huan Li looked at him and nodded, “Yes, William. That is why Ansuya will be accompanying you and Alexiares will go along as well for your safety.”
William couldn’t help but think that this whole thing of extra protection was just a convenient excuse for the Elders to keep an eye on them. After all they let Aceso leave the city twice, and twice she had entered the Whyte Plain and almost got herself and her pack killed. William knew that that wasn’t the case, but the Elders could have come to any number of conclusions about it that they wanted. The Elders never asked him about what happened in the Whyte Plain. He had always assumed that they didn’t want to hear his side of the story. From their behavior today it seemed that that theory may have been correct.
“Where will we be going, Elder?” Aceso asked. Regardless of her thoughts or feelings on this the Elders had given her a job to do and she was going to carry it out.
“We will leave in the morning,” Ansuya answered, “once your scout has recovered his strength. Oh, and remember to be in your proper natural born form.”
The four of them found themselves outside the Tower on the street level. William felt like he had just been called a child that couldn’t be trusted to cross the street without his parents. From the looks of his pack mates their thoughts weren’t too far off from his.
“So, I guess we do…what? Just wait around for Nicolas to wake up and Ansuya to come and get us?” William asked.
Aceso glared at William for a moment before her gaze softened. “You are free for the rest of the day. Tomorrow morning we will meet here and begin our journey to wherever Nicolas leads us.”