Truth Be Told
The first thing that Yunalesca could feel once the fog of rosemary and holy water was gone from her mind was pain. It was cold and precise, needling her body relentlessly. She opened her eyes and was greeted with a bright, intruding light that nearly blinded her. She shielded her eyes with her hand and tried to sit up when her head spun dangerously.
"She's awake. That's longer than I expected it would take," said someone nearby. She looked around to find the voice but couldn't see anything save the bright light.
"Yes, the aromatherapy must've worked much better than we expected," another voice commented.
"Could you stop talking about me like I'm some sort of experiment?" she growled. Instead of an answer, the pain intensified, causing her to grip the floor beneath her and grit her teeth in pain.
"She's resisting? Maybe her runes are stronger than we thought," the first voice commented dryly. The pain continued to grow stronger with each passing moment, making her concentrate harder and harder on not crying. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her shed a tear, even if it cost every ounce of sanity she had.
"You... can all... go... to... hell..." Yunalesca stammered through gritted teeth, her eyes alight with power as she started pushing back. The light around her eyes faded gradually and she began to see her surroundings more clearly. She was on the floor in a laboratory of some sort with a power cable running from where she was sitting to a massive generator embedded in the wall. Standing around her were four men in white robes with their hoods drawn over their eyes so she couldn't see them.
"Turn the power up to maximum. Maybe that will stay her tongue," said the one to her right. She watched one of the warlocks walk over to the generator and mentally uttered every protection rune she could think of before digging her claws into the sheet rock to brace herself for the pain.
"G-go ahead... give me your... worst," she challenged. She gave the warlock infront of her a dark grin and felt the electricity going through her increase incredibly, causing her to scream loudly in agony as she fell back with a blank expression in her eyes, her mind shutting off as she passed out.
"Sir, her mental activity spiked exponentially just before the surge. She must've tried to use her more powerful runes to keep from getting hurt," the warlock at the generator reported. The head of the project, a warlock by the name of Leonard, looked up from the passed out vixen and gave his apprentice a bored, almost disappointed look.
"Thank you, Gregory. Put the records from the trial in the journal and give her a sharp jolt every few minutes. Lets see how strong her will is."
* * *
Lucas sat alone in his room, staring at the sword infront of him for the hundredth time in the last hour. He had saved it from being experimented on by the warlocks and kept it in his room ever since. That had been over a week ago.
He picked it up by the handle and held the blade up to the sunlight that was filtering through his window. There was nothing remarkable about it, just a normal katana of average length and build. He sighed and put it back down on his bed before falling back onto his pillow to stare at the ceiling.
"Why would she do those things? She healed me instead of killing me and she took the time to heal each member of my pack. Why? What could she possibly have gained from that?" he muttered. When he couldn't think of any reasonable answer to the question, he sighed and looked out the window, wondering if anyone else was facing this kind of problem. 'Probably not,' he thought when he heard a knock at the door.
"Hey Lucas, you in there?" he heard a girl's voice call out.
"Yeah. The door's unlocked anyway, Angela," he called back. The door opened and she took a seat at the foot of the bed, staring at him wonderingly. He stared back and found himself feeling a tingling sensation build in the tips of his fingers. He sighed and closed his eyes, the image of the brunette still playing infront of them against the darkness of his eyelids.
"So... I see you kept the vampire's sword," she said almost enviously as she picked it up. He nodded and looked up at the ceiling again.
"Yeah, I did," he replied. Angela looked over at him and put the sword back on the bed.
"Lucas what's wrong? You haven't been to any of the training sessions and you haven't been helping with the cleanup of the compound. Usually you would've been the first to help out," she pointed out before looking down at her hands, which had been scarred from the battle. "We're starting to get worried about you."
He watched her carefully and noticed the subtle movements her shoulders made as she breathed, wondering why she was making sure to keep her emotions hidden. "And why would you be getting worried?" he asked. She looked over at him and he could see a little confliction in her eyes.
"Because you were the only in the room when the Mistress died and that vampire healed you. Some of the others are wondering what happened in there," she replied quietly. He looked at her as if she were joking and when she didn't say anything; he sat up and glared at her.
"You honestly think I had anything to do with what happened in there! Sure she healed me, but I have no reason as to why she would do that," he snarled, "Lillith had found me when I was first starting out as a werewolf. She took care of me and taught me how to fight. She was the closest thing to a mother I've ever had and now my own packmates think that I would give a rat's ass about some vampire bitch that came into our care because she was supposed to help us catch Lamount?!"
Angela quailed under his gaze and could feel his presence start making her spine tingle. "I'm sorry Lucas, but that's what some of them are saying," she whispered, trying desperately to keep her eyes from looking away. She was his second in command and she didn't want him to think her weak and give the position to someone else. He narrowed his eyes in anger and balled his hands into fists.
"Is that what you think too?" he growled quietly.
"Of course not. You're our Alpha. I know you wouldn't do anything that would hurt the pack," she replied with an almost hurt look in her eyes. He looked away for a moment and calmed down somewhat before putting his hand on her shoulder.
"Thanks," he murmured before getting up. She looked after him and couldn't help but stare at the numerous scars crisscrossing his back and shoulders, wondering idly where he could've gotten them all. He grabbed a shirt from the hamper in the corner and pulled it over his head before looking back at her. "Could you get everyone together for a meeting, Angela? I think I may need to quiet someone's overactive imagination," he muttered, knowing full well who had started talking about him.
"Sure Lucas," she replied before getting off the bed as well. She turned to leave and walked over to the door before looking back at him. He was standing at his window and looking out over the courtyard outside it, his hands resting on the sill and a conflicted look on his face. That look alone was enough to cause Angela to think twice about leaving, but she didn't want to seem imposing if he just wanted to think about something.
Lucas watched her leave from out the corner of his eye and sighed as he looked over at the sword again.
"I have to know," he muttered with an irritated sigh before raking a hand through his hair and glowering at the wall. When he couldn't find the answers to his questions, he grabbed the sword and left for the warlock's chambers, determined to get answers from the one he knew would answer them.
* * *
Lucas could feel the eyes of most everyone working and moving about the hallways boring into him, but he didn't pay them any attention. They usually did this, but he could feel something a little more icy about their stares.
By the time he had made it to the warlock's chambers, he had the distinct feeling that everyone had some kind of suspicion about him. It unsettled him to know that not many people still trusted him completely, but he paid it no mind. He knocked loudly on the stone door leading into the entryway and waited a couple seconds before the door opened, admitting him into a small, square room with another door on the opposite wall. As soon as he walked in, the door behind him slammed shut and a hissing sound could be heard coming from the walls. He knew they were only checking to see if it really was him but that still didn't keep a shiver of anger from running down his spine.
"Welcome, Lucas. Sorry about the searching spell we had to use just now, but can't be too careful with those vampires running around with knowledge of our location," Leonard apologized from a hidden speaker embedded in the wall.
"No we can't..." he murmured. The door infront of him opened and admitted him into the entrance hall of the laboratories, with Leonard standing behind the door with an almost passable smile plastered on his face.
"I see you brought the sword with you as well. Good, good..." he trailed, leaving Lucas to wonder what the warlock was thinking about. He disregarded the foreboding feeling creeping up his spine and nodded.
"Yeah... I also came by to talk to her, if that's possible," Lucas replied before handing Leonard the sword. The warlock took it gingerly and held it in his hands as if it were something fragile. He looked at the beautifully crafted sheath and nodded.
"Of course, Lucas. Maybe you could get her to open up," he replied before walking off to the holding chambers where Yunalesca was being held. Lucas followed after him and listened as the door slammed shut.
"What do you mean? She hasn't been talking?" he asked. 'And why would she open up to me?' he added mentally.
"I'm afraid not," said Leonard, "she stopped talking all together after the first few days she's been awake."
"And why is that?" Lucas asked. Leonard looked at him with an almost disappointed look on his face as they came to an unmarked door and murmured a string of words under his breath to unlock it.
"This."
As the door swung open silently, Lucas caught a glimpse of what they had been doing to her for the past week. Yunalesca was chained to the ground by a heavy, iron collar with four six-inch thick steel chains running from it into clamps secured to the walls by heavier steel locks. Her arms were chained to her front as well with three pairs of manacles that ran up the length of her forearms. Her head was bowed so they couldn't see her face, but Lucas could only imagine what pain she was in and it made him sick to his stomach.
"Why is she all chained up like this?" he asked quietly, taking in her ripped and torn clothes as well as the dried blood that caked her claws and her shirtfront. Leonard sighed.
"Because she killed two of my colleagues after she overloaded the generator," he stated sullenly. At that the vixen stirred minutely and Lucas could almost make out the sound of a quiet laugh, but it was too low to catch. Leonard shook his head. "I'm going to take this down to the others so they can try and unravel the defensive charms on it so we can study them. Are you going to be alright on your own in here, Lucas?"
"Yeah..." he said half-heartedly. He stepped into the room and listened to Leonard close the door behind him with a resounding boom. He walked over to her but stopped at a safe distance incase she wasn't as secure as they thought. "Why did you leave me your sword, vampire?"
Yunalesca stayed silent, much to his irritation. He walked closer and glared silently down at the quiet vampire. "I know you can speak, leech, so out with it," he spat, "why did you heal me and my pack? Why help us at all? Why help me?" He knelt next to her and tilted her chin so that she was looking at him. He glared into her distant, vacant eyes and tried to summon more anger and hatred for her, but couldn't feel anything other than an emptiness that spread through his body quickly.
Lucas tried to pull away from her gaze, but his body had become numb and unresponsive. He felt a slight pressure at the base of his skull and winced as he felt it increase slightly. He saw Yunalesca's lips twitch into a smile and felt a cold sensation creep along his spine.
'You are mine now, lycanthrope,' Lucas heard her voice ring out in his subconscious. He tried to suppress her presence in his mind, but she just laughed and began to pull on his conscious' string, tugging it back with her into her body. As his conscious left his body, it began shutting down all but the major functions, leaving it alive for his return. The last thing he saw before he was yanked into the vampire's mind was a determined fire in her eyes; the kind that would've been normal in his own.
The first thing Lucas felt was snow. He opened his eyes and sat up quickly to find that he was covered in the stuff, his clothes soaked with melted ice and causing him to shiver. He wrapped his arms around himself and exhaled a breath to watch it cloud infront of him before disappearing into the gray, cloud-strewn sky.
'Where am I?' he muttered quietly. He got up onto his feet and looked around at the concrete walls, trying to get a bearing on where he was.
'We're in the prison yard for one of Germany's prisons,' a voice told him. He whipped around quickly and saw Yunalesca standing in the snow near a doorway with a Secret Police uniform on and a Walther P38 adorning her hip. He cocked an eyebrow and was about to walk over to her when a hand touched his shoulder. He turned his head and saw another Yunalesca, this one garbed in the clothes he had seen her wearing in the confinement room.
'Why are we here?' he asked before hearing the sound of boots crunching on the snow. He looked to their origin and watched a procession of grim faced soldiers, a sergeant and their commander walk by. Behind them was a bedraggled and severely beaten prisoner.
He looked to be in his late thirties, though his eyes seemed to betray a youthful fire and determination that Lucas had to respect. His fur was stained in places with blood and looked to be saturated with sweat and ash, giving him a fierce appearance. They lead him by a chain, careful to keep their distance, over to the stoic Yunalesca and the soldiers snapped her a sharp salute. She did the same and spoke in a quick string of German to them, gesturing to the bound canine. The commander stepped forward and she saluted him as well, listening patiently as he explained who he was and why they had brought him.
'The commander is telling me that this prisoner was causing undo distress and problems in the building, so they have brought him to me to be executed,' Yunalesca translated. Lucas looked at her in almost disbelief, but she just stared past him, her eyes fixed on the prisoner. The soldier Yunalesca gave assent to the orders given her and offered her hand for the leash. The sergeant handed her the chain leash and stepped aside so that she could fulfill her orders. The prisoner looked at her scathingly and spat on her highly polished shoes as she stepped over to him. Some of the soldiers aimed their rifles at him, but she put a hand up to stop them and looked over at the commander before speaking a quick sentence in German. He nodded and called for the soldiers to follow him into the building. The sergeant was the last to follow him, eyeing the vixen warily before walking into the building and slamming the door shut behind him.
Yunalesca waited for what seemed to be an eternity before dragging the prisoner over to a wall and throwing him against it roughly. "What the hell is your problem!" she hissed quietly, "I told you to quit making a nuisance of yourself!"
The canine grinned and shook his head. "My time's up, Yuna. That last stunt was enough to get me executed. And if you don't kill me, they'll kill us both," he replied quietly, making her sigh in exasperation and unholster her pistol. She pulled back the slide and flipped the safety before aiming it at him.
"You know I can't kill you, George. You're my only contact with the outside world," she muttered, aiming past his head and at the wall. He grinned again and leaned back against the wall.
"Of course I am. I'm the only other American spy you've met. But we both know how our lives end, either in death or in exile," he muttered before closing his eyes. She stared at the accepting face of her friend and put a gloved hand to her face to keep him from seeing her eyes tear up, as she knew he was right. As a spy, their lives were more meaningless than that of an infantryman's.
She wiped a finger across her eyes and took a shuddering breath before wrapping her finger around the trigger.
"I'm sorry, George, please forgive me," she whispered. She pulled the trigger once and Lucas had to mentally replay the event to actually believe he had just seen that.
'Already have, Yuna. That's what he would've said,' Yunalesca said. He looked over at her and saw that she was looking at him expectantly. He looked back at the quietly grieving vixen near the wall and found that he felt some sympathy for her, something that he had never felt for a vampire in his entire life.
'Is that why you kept me alive, vampire? Because I remind you of your friend?' Lucas asked. She shook her head and turned on the sight of her crying silently over her fallen comrade.
'No... that's not why I healed you,' she whispered before walking off, leaving Lucas to watch the memory unravel around him. He followed after her and turned to see the crying vixen disappear into the darkness along with everything else.
'Then why did you heal me?' he asked when he caught up with her. She stopped infront of a door and placed her hand on the knob.
'Because... I don't want to have the blood of an innocent on my hands ever again,' she whispered before opening the door. Lucas blinked at the bright light and followed her into the memory, wondering what she was going to show him this time.
As his eyes began to adjust, he saw what she meant. Infront of them was a burning village, the screams of children and adults in agony and the rhythmic sounds of machine gun fire drifting up to where they stood on the hilltop. He looked over to where Yunalesca stood and noticed that her shoulders were stiffer and she was standing more rigidly than before, as if the scene below was making her ill.
'Come on, I have something to show you,' she muttered before walking quickly down the hill. He caught up with her quickly and walked with her, trying to focus on one sound in the cacophony of noise coming toward them. They walked past a burning house and Lucas could feel the heat coming off it dry his clothes, making him wonder what kind of rune she had used on him to make this place so realistic.
They walked out into the town square where German soldiers were rounding up everyone forcing them to the ground with either their hands or their rifles. Lucas watched as one struck a child on the back of his head with the butt of his gun and spat something in German at him. The child was quickly scooped into the arms of his mother, who looked fearfully around at what was happening.
'What did you want to show me, vampire?' he asked quietly, trying to see the point in all of this. She pointed to one of the still intact houses and he saw Yunalesca dragging a young mink by the hair, her legs flailing as she tried to twist out of her tormentor's grasp. She pleaded in German, or a loosely accented German, for her to release her, that she had done nothing wrong. Yunalesca turned on her and kicked her in the side, making her cry out in pain. She continued dragging her to the center of town and threw her to the ground before aiming her rifle at the mass of huddled villagers staring fearfully at her contingent of soldiers.
She barked something in German and waved her rifle to the trucks parked at the entrance to the village. Some of the villagers gave her confused looks and she growled and fired a warning burst into the air before making the same gesture. They understood her that time and began to move off to the trucks in a single file line. She watched them go and spotted the mink running out of the line and into a nearby building, much to her anger and hidden joy.
She barked an order at her soldiers to oversee the line and ran after the mink, intent on giving her the pistol she always kept on her. She ran into the house and saw that it was relatively intact. She called out to the mink in German, telling her that it was going to be alright, that she was going to be fine. She walked into the kitchen and stopped with revulsion and almost vomited from the smell. Infront of her were a dead family, their eyes staring blankly at her as their blood seeped from their torn open throats. She could tell immediately that no attack dog could have done this with such brutality, but she couldn't see any sign of the one who did. That is, until she heard the sound of scuffling feet upstairs.
Yunalesca lead Lucas over to the house she had gone in and walked up the stairs while Lucas stood rooted to the spot. He watched the Yunalesca of the past close their eyes and say a quiet prayer for them before wiping the tears from her eyes and the bile from her lips.
'Are you coming or what, wolf?' she asked, snapping him out of his trance. He followed her up the stairs, the image of her caring for that dead family burned into his eyes. He stepped onto the second floor and immediately felt his feral side cry out to rip apart the vampire nearby, but he squashed the feeling and balled his hands into fists to keep the transformation at bay. He heard the sound of soft crying in one the nearby rooms and walked quietly over to the door, noticing that there was a light coming from the room. He pushed the door open slightly and saw the mink curled on the floor with a young boy in her arms, his face pale and lifeless with her mouth at his neck.
He could hear her sobs as she fed and had to fight the almost overwhelming urge to shift and tear her to shreds. He heard the sound of boots treading lightly on wooded carpet and looked over his shoulder to find that Yunalesca had shown up with a grim look on her face, which was washed away by a wave of terror and sadness when she saw what the mink was doing. She looked up fearfully at the vixen and backpedaled quickly to the wall, her eyes wide and terrified and her mouth still dripping blood from between her lips. Yunalesca looked at her almost pityingly and raised her rifle before pulling back the slide. She aimed it at the vampire and shot just to the left of her head, barely missing her cheek by an inch.
The mink looked at her in confusion and tried to cringe further against the wall when she came near. She knelt next to her and unholstered her pistol before pressing it into her hands.
"I don't know what you are and I don't care. Whatever you are, this existence is much better than what awaits you on those trucks," she whispered before standing and walking out the room, leaving both Lucas and the vampire in stunned silence.
Yunalesca touched Lucas's arm and he looked over at her to see that she was smiling lightly. 'She was one of the only vampires I met during my time in Germany... and one of the few people I saved,' she whispered as the memory unraveled itself. Lucas stared at the vampire standing infront of him and felt only a fraction of the hate he had held for her. Alongside that feeling, he also felt respect and sympathy. She had sacrificed much to do her job and even in the end, she still gave her life for the protection of the things she held dear.
'I think I know why you saved me before... and for that I thank you,' he said, making her smile brighten a little.
'You're welcome, but I doubt you have the entire reason why I saved you,' she replied before gesturing with her hand and having a door appear next to her. He walked towards it and twisted the knob before giving her a wondering look and walking through, returning to his own mind. Yunalesca watched the door disappear again and grinned to herself.
'Maybe he'll find out on his own...' she whispered.
Lucas blinked and felt a slight stiffness in his limbs set in as he tried to move. He groaned at the small pain and stood up before cracking his back loudly and rubbing the back of his neck. He heard pounding on the door and looked over at it curiously. He walked over and opened it to find Leonard standing with a frenzied, almost crazed look in his eyes.
"What did you do? Her mental activity was exemplary for the last few hours and now its back to essentially zero!" he grabbed Lucas's shoulders and shook him for emphasis. "NOW WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!?"
Lucas looked at him incredulously and pried his hands off his shoulders before glaring at him.
"I didn't do anything! Why don't you ask her what she did," he growled before walking past him and back to the entrance, Leonard closely following behind. The warlock let him out of the chamber and then went back to the containment room where Yunalesca was still kneeling. He walked over to her and placed his hand on her forehead before speaking the name of a punishment spell he knew. The spell sent a shockwave of power through her body and caused her to mentally gasp in pain while she stayed physically silent.
"I know you can hear me, vampire, so listen well. You will tell me how you spoke to that traitor Lucas and you will tell me why that ex-hunter Lamount returned to the compound. Otherwise," he applied a more severe shock of power to her and this time a tear dripped down her cheek, "I will torture you until your mind crumbles and I take the answers out of whatever is left. Do you understand?"
Yunalesca stayed silent and he applied an even more severe shock to her, causing her to scream in pain. "I said do you understand?"
She looked up at him with burning eyes and growled at him. "Yes... I understand."
"Good," he replied before taking his hand off of her head. "I hope you will be more cooperative in the future, vampire. I wouldn't want to fry that brain of yours before learning all of your secrets." He laughed and left her alone again, locking her in the room and cutting off the lights, leaving her in pitch darkness. When she was sure he had left, she dug a claw into her palm and dragged it roughly through to shape a complex and dangerous rune she had read about in one of her books.
'I hope you sleep well tonight, Leonard,' she thought darkly as she felt her bloodlust growing as she carved the rune into her palms, ' because tomorrow I plan on ripping that thing you call a heart right out of your chest.'
* * * *
Lucas arrived to the arranged meeting place, a small abandoned hotel near the outskirts of the city, and was greeted by Angela and another one of his packmates, a young blonde haired boy named Nathan.
"What took you so long, Lucas? The others have been starting to get a little restless, especially you know who," Nathan said. Lucas sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"There was something I had to take care of first," he muttered before looking at his second. She looked about to say something but thought against it and smiled at him. "Well, lets get the meeting underway, shall we?"
They nodded and followed Lucas to the ballroom, which served as their home away from home when they were on missions outside the city limits. He pushed open the double doors and all of the murmurings and conversations quieted immediately, all eyes drawn to him.
"How nice of you to finally show up, Lucas. We were beginning to wonder if you were going to come at all," one of them said. Lucas looked over to the speaker and gave him a calm look.
"Well I'm here now, Shawn, so you might as well come out and say what you've been talking behind my back about," he replied. Shawn stood up with a smirk and strode over to him confidently.
"Fine then," he said before gesturing to everyone in the room, "we've all been wondering what happened in the Mistress's quarters and seeing as you and that vampire are the only ones who know what happened, we want to know what you have to say about it."
Lucas looked up at him and let his calm eyes bore into Shawn's, giving him a subtle reminder as to why he was the Alpha and not the other way around.
"I have nothing more to say about what happened in Lillith's quarters. The vampire known as Yunalesca fought Lamount and he left before she could kill him. I would have done them both in, but several snapped bones in my ribcage and front legs hampered me from moving. And before you or anyone else objects to what I have said, let ask you something. If you were in my position, what would you have done?" Lucas concluded before letting a small smile come to his lips as he saw some of the confidence leave Shawn's eyes.
"But that doesn't explain why she healed you or the rest of us," someone else stated. He looked at the speaker, a girl of Latin descent with soft brown eyes and equally brown hair, and nodded.
"And I agree, Sonya. That is why I went to speak with her earlier," he replied. He had been ready for the wave of shocked gasps and outbursts, but the only one that came was from Shawn, which was to be doubly expected. He picked him up by the front of his shirt and growled in his face.
"Why didn't you tell us you were going to do something like that? Even as an Alpha, you still have to tell your pack about things that would potentially harm us." Lucas looked at him calmly and easily pried his hands off his shirt before smoothing down the fabric.
"I apologize for not doing so, but I had my own questions I needed answered. Why she left me her sword was one but I never got the chance to ask. Though I do have the answer to why she healed us," he said. Shawn smirked.
"And why, pray tell, did she do that?"
Lucas gave him a look that made some inner part of him cower before looking to everyone in the room with calm understanding in his eyes.
"She healed us because she doesn't want the blood of innocent souls on her hands anymore. She showed me things when I talked to her; her past and the crimes she has had to do in order to protect the things she loved and held dear. Before I saw those things, I felt how Shawn feels, just kill her and be done with it. But now, I still hold her responsible for our Mistress's death, but I do so with a better understanding of who she is and what she is," he replied, knowing Shawn would still have some problem with his explanation.
But before he could voice his own opinion, Angela beat him to it. "Do you mean that you sympathize with her feeding on innocent lives?" she asked. Lucas shook his head.
"No I don't, but I've seen what she did do before ever becoming a vampire. Killing friends she had known to keep from revealing herself to the Germans, sending people to their deaths. Those are the things I speak of. She showed me that she hated the fact that so many had to die because of her and her mission, but I realize that what she did was worth it in the end. Maybe I'm wrong and some part of her enjoyed what she did and what I was shown and told was all lies. But there were some moments that reminded me that even if she is a vampire, she still has a moral conscious that is riddled with guilt for what she has done," he stopped before looking at the rest of them, saving Shawn for last. "Have any of you asked yourselves why she would go out of her way to heal you instead of end your lives?"
At that even Shawn had to step down because he hadn't. Angela was the first to answer after the silence.
"So... what are you saying Lucas?" she asked, wondering what he was trying to get at. He looked over at her with a small grin and shook his head.
"I'm not even sure what all of this means, Angela. All I do know is that what I saw in the warlock's containment chamber wasn't a mindless killing machine. I don't think she was used to bring Lamount here, but she was just caught up in an unfortunate circumstance. You all read the file on her, I'm sure, and you know that they used to be in love. But if that were still the case now, then wouldn't she have fought tooth and claw to help him?"
Shawn glowered at Lucas but had to admit what he said was making a lot of sense.
"Did she?" Sonya asked, interest apparent in her eyes.
"No," he replied, "She was fighting herself most of the way to the study. She was emotionally torn between her past feelings for him and what she considered to be right. In the end, she chose to fight for us, not against us. That she chose to heal you all after Lamount had gone through you should be proof enough that she can be trusted."
At this Shawn snorted, which earned him a glare from Angela.
"I think he's right," agreed Nathan.
"You're the greenest member of our pack, Nathan, of course you're going to side with the Alpha," retorted Shawn, to which Sonya objected.
"No, Shawn, what Lucas is saying makes a lot of sense. I mean, just because a lot of vampires enjoy killing, this one doesn't seem to be like that. If we could see what she showed Lucas, then maybe we could trust her more," she said. There were murmurs of assent from the others and Shawn couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"So your telling me you've gone soft on us, Lucas? That you've become some damn vampire sympathizer! Doing that would go against our instincts and against the creed of the hunters. We'd be becoming traitors to those we call friends and family!" he snapped.
Lucas shook his head and sighed, knowing it would take a lot more than his words to change his mind.
"Fine," he said, "then I'll just have to show you what she showed me."
With that said, he concentrated on his feral self and shifted infront of them. At this Shawn would have laughed, but when the Alpha shifts the whole pack was to follow suit or their bodies would begin to hurt. They quickly shifted as well and surrounded Lucas; waiting for him to show them the memories Yunalesca had shown him.
'Alright, now watch,' he told them before calling on the memories, showing them first the one of George and their conversation afterwards. He could tell some of them hadn't expected the vampire they were keeping prisoner to have had such a turmoil-strewn life, but he could still feel some disbelief from Shawn. He then showed them the second memory, making sure they saw how she treated the dead family and the fledging vampire. He knew none of his packmates would cry for what she had done, but his hope was that they would feel the same amount of respect that he held for her now.
When the memory was finished and everyone had shifted to their human selves, Lucas looked around at the faces of his packmates expectantly.
"You were right Lucas..." Sonya whispered, still a little shocked that Yunalesca hadn't gone insane from the guilt she must have felt. The others nodded, some in complete agreement while others still a little hesitantly. Angela looked at Lucas and was reminded why he was made the Alpha over her or Shawn. He took a single-minded hate for vampires and in the span of half a day he had molded it into a respect for this one good-hearted vixen who truly was sorry for her transgressions, both before and after her death.
This was why she couldn't have been the Alpha of this pack. Had she been given the same opportunity to do what Lucas had, she would have brushed it off and ignored Yunalesca completely. But he, on the other hand, did something that none of them would ever be able to do, especially given the circumstances.
"Thank you Sonya. And I hope that this meeting has cleared the air of my affiliation with our pack and moreover with our clan," Lucas said to the rest of his pack, more so to Shawn than anyone else. Shawn gave a grudging grunt and stalked out of the room in a foul temper at being beaten by him again.
'He'll never learn,' he thought before sitting down in a nearby chair, letting the sounds of the others conversing surround him. 'Maybe Yunalesca isn't as bad as we all thought she was...' he thought, a small hint of hubris creeping into his mind. And at the moment, he was right.