"If I may, Alpha?"<br/><br/>Hekhem peered out behind Dax, having seemingly sneaked up on the awkward moment building up in the room. Truth be told he had stood there for a few minutes, even before the Alpha and Roaen had arrived. It was all about how much you wanted people to sense you. A good jackal of Djaf could even mask his scent and musk to hide his presence. And Hekhem was the father of Djaf. He relished the thought of sliding a silvered blade into the alpha's back, more a mental exercise than a malevolent one. He liked to believe that he had that sort of power over the group, that he merely chose to be subservient. Rounding the alpha in one fluid motion he put himself between him and this Claire. Not that he thought the woman was weak, but she would be useful and Dax was the kind of alpha that could go berserk from the slightest show of defiance.<br/><br/>"While I admire the way you have drawn so many wolves to the pack it is quite clear that some of these barely know about their own nature. I imagine some of them don't even know about their inherent immortality, which is why they live their lives burning bright but waning quickly."<br/><br/>It wasn't a direct critique of the Alpha's behavior earlier that evening, but it was definitively a stab at it. If he had any brains over brawn he would understand the sentiment rather than beat him to a pulp. He eyed Claire but found his eyes drawn to Silva again. Such a curious little thing.<br/><br/>"While I was still young some five centuries ago I ran into the same problem in my own tribe. The new cubs didn't understand that with power comes a sort of danger that lurks beneath the surface. Jihadists, Christian witchhunters, the foolish but brave heroes that slay beasts like us because what we do is inherently... evil. Which is why I implemented the Rites of Passage. A sort of trial which sorted out the weak and left the strong standing. Those who returned a failure were put to death. Those who returned triumphant often lived for centuries afterwards, living by stealth instead of pure brutality. Because the truth is that if the mortals want to, if they knew, they could kill us as easily as they kill cattle. We will only be on top of the food chain as long as they don't know about us."<br/><br/>He looked around at the gathered with a wicked smile on his face. How he loved to break the walls of the arrogant. They might think that they are big and strong, but in truth the lycanthropes were a dying breed, weak and frail in the face of the swarming humanity. Hekhem had once seen a swarm of locust choke a dog to death by simply swarming around it. It was the same with werewolves and humanity.<br/><br/>"So while I am sure you are all capable werewolves, and excuse my saying so, you are not smart ones. You hunt without thought of the consequences, you kill without purpose and some of you seem suicidal in your ignorance of the pack hierarchy..." he paused, giving Claire a glare before his eyes came to Silva again "...while some of you seem pathetically submissive. If we don't mend the cracks in the blade it will fail us when it is needed. And we need to work perfectly as a pack unless we want our prey to kill us. Even an antelope has horns to skewer with. It's time we wake up and realize it is not just fucking your brains out and slaughtering for a laugh. We are a dying breed.<em>This</em>is survival."