Free Web NovelChapter 134: Trial (6)
"She’s been here for a while, uncle. If you have been so curious about her, why have you never come to ask about it? I’m sure you remember the wonderful moon goddess?" Vincent questioned, propping upon his hand as he watched his uncle in amusement.
"What are you getting at? Of course, I know Artemis. How can a werewolf not know about her?" Graham wasn’t in for these games with his nephew. The woman should be made to stand trial too and he was going to make sure she shared the same fate as the human children. "What does that have to do with her?"
"One look at her appearance and I thought everyone would have figured it out so I don’t have to explain. She’s not human. Have all of your noses gone bad to not notice that? It is a big concern when all of you can’t smell-" freёwebnoѵel.com
"Enough of this!" Graham explained interrupting his nephew. "Even if she is not human she is still not a wolf and we don’t accept outsiders. Our leader should not get to bend the rules for his own desires. It’s disrespectful how you have her sitting here like everything is normal. I am only looking out for you to make sure you don’t abuse your power nephew."
"How kind of you but it is not needed. I did not bend the rules with her. In fact, she was here a long time ago. Why was she able to enter? She’s one of the creatures created by Artemis. One of her pets or children. Whichever one sounds better." When Aurora was here before, she hadn’t interacted with people that weren’t close to Vincent. That was why everyone looked at her being a stranger.
Graham looked at the young woman sitting up front again. How could she possibly be one of Artemis’s people? "How can we know that for certain? Just because she has white hair and blue eyes means nothing. How can you prove to us that she belongs to Artemis?" If she did belong to Artemis, Graham knew he couldn’t touch a hair on her head.
Vincent was expecting his uncle to entertain him but the man was taking this discussion too far. They had a purpose for being here today and the man was prolonging it. "I don’t have to prove it to you. I have the most contact with Artemis therefore I can spot one of her people. Now, would you be so kind as to sit down and keep quiet before I add you to the list of people who must be thrown out?"
Graham wasn’t done yet. He wanted to push the topic further until Vincent showed all of them proof but he didn’t want to offend the woman if she really was one of Artemis’s people. He wanted to get close to someone close to the Goddess as it would benefit him. His goal was to become alpha and remove his nephew who stole that from him.
"Take a seat Graham," Marge, the female elder said. She had grown interested in the conversation about the young lady but now was not the time. The purpose of everyone being here was for the trial of Derek and the two children. The Lawerences could settle their family feud elsewhere.
Not satisfied, Graham took his seat next to some of his friends. His wife hadn’t cared to attend the trial today as she had better things to do. "Carry on."
"We are told that there are two people who want to vouch for the little ones and request to keep them alive. We will hear Jane Coleman first. Please stand and give us your reason for why you think the little girls should be saved. I find you standing here to be funny because your husband was the one who allowed them to follow him. Was this your plan? To have him return with children since you aren’t able to have any of your own?"
It was suspicious to Marge that the couple supported the children following the husband. Marge kept up with the gossip here and knew that Jane had been struggling to have children of her own. It was sad but it didn’t mean she could just bring human children here for her to play family with them. What made it even more suspicious was the couple working so close for Vincent. Maybe Vincent’s uncle was onto something with Vincent breaking the rules.
"Not at all. In fact, I was angry that my husband had allowed them to follow him here but I am also glad he didn’t harm them. Maybe my failure at trying to be a mother has made me come to have a bond with the little ones. There is no harm in admitting that. What I do believe outside of that is we should not harm children-"
"If given the chance they would harm our children. Have you turned blindside to what has happened to us in the past? We had many of our wolf children taken and killed. Now you stand before us requesting we not kill their kind? Is that really going to be your defense? No one here wants to hear such a thing. Show me a day in history when our children have been spared," Marge said with deep hatred. If she had it her way, the children would have been dead all now.
"As an elder, you should be up to date with all of our histories to know that there have been instances when humans showed wolf children kindness. We just choose to ignore those parts of the past and focus on all of the bad. Vincent recently asked if I would kill a human adult who comes too close to our community and I would to protect everyone on the inside. However, I won’t harm children. I don’t think deserve to be killed. We can raise them here," Jane suggested.
She continued to explain, "We send many of our own into the human towns to get information. It can be risky if anyone picks up on what we are. Some humans placed wolfsbane around to get us to react to it. It would be better if we have humans we trained to go to these villages in our place. Less risk for our people. We have lost some throughout the years because of how much the guards look into everyone who visits the town."
"How can we be so certain that they won’t betray us when they visit the town? And is it just these two little girls you plan to use or do you expect us to kidnap more orphan children?" Vincent asked. He liked Jane’s plan but there were a lot of downsides to it. His judgment had to be fair as he would with anyone else standing before him.
"We don’t need too many humans at one time. The two girls will be enough for now and when their time expires we can take one human orphan child at a time. We have them here so why not use this opportunity to test this out? They are young children and we can raise them to follow our rules so that they don’t betray us. They can eventually forget the human world they ran away from and become a part of our world." Jane wasn’t sure when she came up with this idea that they would like it but it was the only thing she could think of on short notice.
"I am going to reject this idea. What about everyone else?" Marge asked without looking around at everyone else at the table. For all the many years that she had been alive, she never once thought their community needed humans working for them.
Marge received two rejections from her peers and the final one from Vincent. "There you have it. You have failed to tell us why they should remain alive. Take your seat. The next person to defend them is Aurora." freёweɓnovel.com
Defeated, Jane went back to her seat beside Derek. He patted her back and whispered encouraging words in her ear. "Good luck Aurora."
Aurora stood up and walked to stand where Jane previously stood. "It is my understanding that werewolves had once mated with humans in the past and therefore lived with them. You show deep hatred for them like you have never experienced good humans being around you. For my short time here, I know that none of you look your age and at least one of you remembers the time when humans and werewolves lived with each other."
"The people who should remember those times are sitting at this table and none of us care. We believe it was a mistake of our ancestors to mate with humans," Rai, one of the two male elders, spoke up. He didn’t see why this woman was given the opportunity to talk even if she was a person of Artemis. She was still not a werewolf.
"You might not like it but since your ancestors once mated with humans, you have the blood of humans running through many of you whether you want to admit it or not," Aurora smiled when the elders got upset.
