Fighting by Anaya Phoenix (black books to read txt) 📕

“For the safety of my people.” Felicia scoffed then and stood up, saluting the president.

“I come from a military family, sir. My dad was in the Navy, as soon as they figured out he was a shifter, and my dad, they killed him. Called it a K.I.A., but you can’t lie about things like that when I know very well how to detect a lie. Quite frankly, sir, you can go fuck yourself.” There was outrage below us and I rolled my eyes.

“How are you going to explain that one? How are you planning on spinning this, so it’s anybody but not your fault?”

“We don’t need to fight, Luna. Things can go back to the way it was.”

“With us living in cages and fear. Us getting attacked for no reason, us being hated by the human population for no other reason than you told them to. So tell me, what happened to you huh? Why do you hate us so much? Got stood up by a shifter girl before?” My heart was beating fast and I was terrified. Maybe, if done right, this could be avoided. If I managed to sway the people or him enough for them to see it was wrong, there wouldn’t need to be bloodshed.

“My only concern is for the safety of my people-“

“You are safe.” The hyena said, cutting him off with a steely glare.

“Your kind is known for their violence.”

“Not to humans.” I raised a brow and looked between the hyena and the president.

“Young man, I don’t think we’ve met.”

“We haven’t, I’ve been hiding. You don’t know what hell is like, until you’re a hyena that has to live in the artic circle to survive. No animal, or human, should have to be there. It’s cold, and it’s dark most of the time. And, whatever sunlight is there is so faint that it’s like an eyelash on your cheek: if you didn’t see it, you wouldn’t know it’s there. Do you know why I ran? Because of you, and your mercenaries. The people you ordered for a genial swipe. Anything furry has to go. That was the order, wasn’t it? At the beginning where you were just killing us because there cannot be another race superior to yours on the same planet. Well, let me tell you something. The monkeys that shit where they sleep or superior to you, and there’s nothing you can do about that. You may hate us, for being born better in every way but that is not grounds for a genocide. It’s up to you to determine which is wiped out of existence, and I’d think hard about that.” He opened the portal and walked through and Filly followed.

“Don’t do this, don’t do anything you would regret or push my hand. Think about it: more than half of the Earth’s population is gone, either from your doing or they were shifters and we saved them. Of that half a quarter of the people are actually able to fight. What are you gonna do, draw a massive draft? Kids in the army, and for what? Pride? Look, all we want, at the end of the day is freedom. We want the same equality we had before you even knew about us. Without your scanners and your trackers you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Without help form the dark fae, you wouldn’t be able to weed us out. We are not any different from you. In this instance, right now, it’s animal and animal sharing a rock.” He looked down to the masses that had quieted down and he looked for a long time. And when he looked up, I knew what I’d always known. This was inevitable.

“You all are dangerous, I cannot have that threat looming above the human race. What kind of President, and person, would I be to personally sign the death certificates of all of us by letting your people come back?”

“You just did.” I said softly and looked to the sky. I waved my hand over it and showed them my memories. My family, my friends. I showed them the lives that we had before, running and loving and living freely. I showed them the laughter of shifter children, the beautiful sounds of the creautures of the night. Then I showed them my dreams. I showed them children, drowning in pools of blood. Lovers dying without ever saying good bye. I showed them families being ripped apart, and lives lost for no reason other than unnecessary fear and pride. I showed them what would come of this war.

“You have a month, when we show up you will know where. I would’ve liked to say that this was a nice chat but it’s kind of hard tryin to be friendly with the executioner.” I stepped back into the portal and closed it.

“Did it work?” The hyena asked and I shook my head, running my hands over my face and turning around.

“Let’s go alert the masses.”

     The only thing I wanted, to be very completely honest, was a nice hot shower and several gallons of food stuffed into my mouth. But I knew if I wanted any peace during my shower and food stuffing I would have to go tell everybody we were back and break the news that I wasn’t able to smooth talk our way out of the war. Not that anybody had expected me to do it, but it would’ve been great if I could. I didn’t know who to go to first, so I let them come to me. I knew my scent would get married around pretty easily, it wouldn’t be long for people to know I was back. It took approximately ten seconds of me walking in to the training grounds before my mother yelled my name.

“You little cow!” I was crushed, literally crushed, into another body. I didn’t have to scent her to know that my mother was gonna kill me.

“You smell like them and pain, did they hurt you? I will cut a bitch if they hurt you.” She backed up to look me in my eyes. She grabbed my face and inspected it closely, no doubt counting every freckle and eyelash. I grabbed her wrists and smiled, my eyes burning from the tears that threatened to spill out.

“Mom.” My voice cracked and she broke my grip to hug me again.

“Lunarosa, if you ever do that again I might have to shove you back inside me.” I laughed and buried my nose into her neck, allowing myself to calm down.

“Felicia, I don’t know if you think you’re grown but you’re not. Your father’s probably tearing you a new one right now!” Filly’s mother’s hair was a frantic bun on top of her head that moved with her as she practically ran towards her daughter.

“Ma, would it kill you to be nice to me for just a minute or two?”

“Yes!” I didn’t look behind but I didn’t need to. I knew exactly what they would be doing.

“Your father’s going to kill you so is…”

“You can say it, Ander. Ander is going to kill me.”

“Finally you’re back, I thought I was going to have to come up there and tear shit up.” I tore away from my mom to see Leo walking in, he looked pale and sickly but otherwise healthy.

“We tore shit up for you.” He nodded in my direction and walked to Filly and her mom. He tapped on her shoulder and nodded at Filly. Her mom nodded and stepped away. Filly looked nervous and she averted her eyes.

“I know I should have told you and I’m sorry, I didn’t think we’d get caught. And I had to borrow because we wouldn’t have gotten out and I know you’re probably pissed off but I needed to do-“ He kissed her, a kiss that made the link between them shine so bright it hurt to look at directly.  The hyena gasped and suddenly everybody looked directly at him as if they just noticed him for the first time. There was general disdain in the room, nobody really liked hyenas. They made enemies wherever they went, more or less. I felt mom’s curiosity peek up at that and realized she would have no animosity towards the hyena. She walked to him and he eyed her warily, not knowing what to do now that he was in our element and we didn’t need him.

“I’m Molly Green.” She gave him a hug and he looked genuinely shocked. Knowing my mother, I knew she wouldn’t let go until he hugged her back and she was OK with the hug she’d gotten in return. He sniffed her before hugging her back lightly, he shot a glance to me and I nodded. He hugged her back slightly harder and I could only imagine what that would feel like.  The first motherly touch in Goddess knows how long.

“What’s your name?” She pulled away slightly and looked at him with what I can only assume the kindest of eyes. He took off his hat and cleared his throat putting his hat to his chest.

“The name’s Seamus, ma’am.”

“Ma’am? Do I look like a ma’am to you?” She tried to mimic his accent and hit his shoulder light heartedly. If she’d known him better that hit would’ve packed a lot more punch.

“You don’t look a day over twenty, I was just aiming to be a little more polite is all.” His smirk was friendly but it looked like it could be much more lethal if he wanted it to. Relief flooded through me as I felt my mom’s acceptance flow through him.

“Twenty and a grandma? I think that’s a mother’s worst nightmare!” She laughed at her own joke and nodded once at him before looking behind to me and winking.

“Definitely on our side.” She whispered through the link and I wrinkled my brow at her but she quickly looked back to Seamus.

“See you on the flip side Shay.” She walked to Filly’s mom and linked her arm and practically dragged her away from the couple that was still way into each other. It made my heart hurt and I took a deep breath before looking to the hyena.

“I would stay and wait for the welcome wagon with you, but I’ve gotta go fish out my mate. He’s probably really pissed at me… rightfully, but still have to fix it. See ya around Shay.” I winked at him before leaving the room and letting my body go into autopilot. I knew Ander had to be pretty pissed at me to not even come to see me, his wolf could feel I was here. He was fighting all those urges, the wolfy ones, for his anger. The link between us was open, it was one of the first things I’d opened when I’d gotten back near magick and I could tell he was holding back in telling me something. I knew it would go along the lines of him threatening me with locking me up if I continued to threaten myself and my body. But, it was always good to get the formalities out. I was squeezed from behind, all of a sudden, my lungs practically being forced out of my mouth. I held on to the hands that went around my belly and shook my hand.

“I see you found me.” I stayed still and let her get her hug out before she let go and walked around to face me. Her cute hazel eyes blazing with anger, this time justified. My eyes narrowed and my brow furrowed as I leaned closer in and saw the sickly yellow surrounding her eye.

“Who hit you?” She seemed taken aback my question but her eyes still held anger.

“Don’t worry about it. Who gave you the right to openly put yourself in danger?”

“At this point I’m asking the same thing about you. Who hit you,