CHAPTER 165

[Devenford Prep]

Across the Devenford field, its lacrosse team were doing their exercises while Brett, its captain, was talking to their coach and by the looks on their faces, it was something serious.

"Listen Brett, I understand your concerns but we're siccing him on the other teams."

"Coach, he's becoming a loose cannon even during training." Brett however sounded adamant. "Liam is becoming more aggressive and just yesterday he almost sent Timo to the nurse's office."

The coach was about to say something but held himself before finally nodding with a reluctant sigh.

"Dunbar is one of our best players and I can't just drop him just because you say so, Brett," the coach said, holding his hand to stop anything Brett had to say, "But I'll be keeping an eye on him from now on. If he starts going out of control then I'll bench him. Good?"

"Yeah-" Brett's words, whatever he wanted to reply with, all ceased as a familiar call filtered into his ears like a soft siren's cry.

AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"Brett, what is it?" His coach called as he saw Brett suddenly going still. Seeing him not responding, he called again. "Brett?"

Calling him for the second time seemed to snap him out of it but it was clear his mind was no longer in the conversation with how frustrated and hurried he became.

"Um, coach uh, I have to go." Brett said and bolted right out of the team lobby, ignoring his coach calls as he did.

"Brett, over here!" Lori called out to him as he was running past the school gates.

"I'm guessing you heard it too." She nodded as he got to her. "Well let's go. Hopefully they haven't gotten themselves in trouble."

Lori scoffed as they ran. "He just got himself out of the house. I think the only thing they could have gotten into is trouble."

He smiled wryly at how true that probably was. It didn't take a werewolf to know how antsy Tristan had been getting when he couldn't leave the house during the day.

"You think they found it?" Brett asked. Given that the howl came from the direction of the woods, it could be that they might have found the shy root.

"Definitely." She nodded. "I think Jiang is right behind us."

And truly, the Asian teen was a hundred meters behind them, slowly closing in on them at full speed.

Lori had to howl, one which Malia responded to with a howl of her own, for them to get the exact direction they were to go in.

When they finally got there, they saw Tristan and Malia sitting a few meters from the giant stomp sitting in the middle of an open field.

"Oh, you guys are here. That's great… well not so much." Malia said before frowning after looking at the ones who'd arrived.

"So is there a reason why you guys are just sitting here when the tree is right there?" Brett asked.

Tristan pointed in a certain direction and that was when they understood after their eyes trailed where he was pointing.

"Tsk, mountain ash. When is it not a bitch?" Jiang cursed as he plopped down right beside Tristan. "So what are we doing here? You guys made it sound urgent."

"Well, initially we wanted to use you guys as couriers to get someone to break the mountain ash but given the number of times we've howled so far…"

"Every werewolf looking for this tree is probably coming here as we speak." Lori added, surprised.

"Yup," Malia nodded, with extra emphasis while popping the 'p'. "Argent Alphas, betas and a witch are probably making their way here as we speak."

Brett looked gobsmacked while Jiang's expression darkened as opposed to Malia's and Tristan's bloodthirsty grin, a smirk in Tristan's case.

They just fully realized that what Malia was saying was basically a free-for-all for, well for all.

"Guys, I don't think you realize just how bad what is about to happen is." Jiang said as he got up and looked around, no longer feeling comfortable sitting down.

"Oh trust me, we didn't realize it until you guys were like halfway here." Tristan admitted with a light laugh. "And look at that, someone's already made it here. And here I thought they'd be the first instead of you guys."

He hadn't finished his sentence when Scott jumped out of the bushes and arrived on the other side of the tree stump, looking just as perplexed at why a bunch of werewolves were just sitting there when what they were looking for was literally in front of them.

"Don't bother man, unless you can't break through mountain ash then I wouldn't advise you to take a step further." Brett called out but otherwise said nothing else as Scott took a step forward to get a feel of the barrier.

Scott frowned, agitated and impatient because the fact that there was a mountain ash barrier meant that the tree stomp was as important as they had speculated.

He tried, he really did, pushing against the barrier that it started shining a high contrast blue, but nothing happened other than it pushing him away.

"Shit!" He cursed and hit the ground as his frustration built up.

"Don't beat yourself up, dude. At least it's better than us who didn't bother doing anything." Scott turned to Jiang who nodded with a shrug, slumped his shoulders before waking over to them.

"Do you have any idea how the Nemeton will be of help?" He asked, earning a bout of ignorant shrugs from the five people gathered around.

"Nope. Hopefully someone comes along and breaks it." Malia commented.

Tristan who had been silent for a while looked up, catching the attention of everyone as he stood up, eyes to the sky.

"Trist?"

"We have company."

The wind picked up and with it Lee in something dreadful which made all their hair stand on its split ends.

"How pleasant it is, this wonderful day, that we all meet at this point." The soft elderly and undeniable voice of Deucalion sifted beautifully through the blowing winds and when they looked, he and his two beta Alphas were just a few feet away from the barrier.

'How did they get so close?' Other than Tristan, everyone thought this, visibly shocked at his close three Alphas came without them knowing.

And as if confirming the setting of a bad omen, the sky started darkening with the wind picking up. It was also at this point that Derek arrived, walking calmly out of the trees to stand alone without his pack.

"Derek. I guess it's only fitting to have you here, but I'm afraid the guest of the hour is still absent. Makes you wonder what she's cooking up, doesn't it?" Deucalion chuckled, maybe at a joke only he understood or the fact that everyone was looking at him with a hard expression on their faces. "And where's your pack if I may ask?"

"They are currently busy with something else, but don't worry they'll be here soon." Derek replied and then the two Alphas turned to gaze at Scott.

"Well then, McCall?"

"Scott?"

"What will it be, Scott? You know she's going to kill your Stiles' father." Deucalion said, making Scott's expression even harder, if that was even possible.

"He's still alive, Scott. He's under those roots somewhere; I can hear his heartbeat." Derek's words caused a few of the beta's eyes to jump up in surprise because they couldn't hear a thing because of the barrier and the tree being a short distance away.

And Derek wasn't the only one who'd figured that out, Tristan and the Alpha Pack also could hear not one, but two very faint heartbeats coming from under the tree root.

"She'll bury them alive, Scott. It's a miracle we found them before the lunar eclipse but they are still not safe."

Watching the two Alphas batter for what was essentially Scott's guardianship, Malia fitted closer and whispered in Tristan's ears. "They are totally ignoring us, aren't they?"

"Not intentionally, but yeah." Tristan said, whispering back to her. "And don't think they don't know about how bad you want to kill the twins. You're basically telling them so."

Malia huffed but made no mention about it again because by this time some people were already arriving; Satomi, Tierney, Argent and Allison, Stiles and Isaac.

"Well, it looks like everyone's here." Deucalion started, "How about now, Jennifer? Or is this not enough for you?"

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