As Yet Untitled
Chapter 22

Outside of training most of the pack avoided me. It hurt but I knew they didn’t trust me yet. Instead of making friends I spent most of my time with Jack and my dad learning how to be an alpha. On the whole, it seemed like a boring job. Yes, you could tell everyone what to do and they all had to submit to you, but there was so much damn paperwork and politics to deal with. We had to know about every war and disagreement our pack has ever had with another, every treaty and alliance we had formed, every other alpha family and pack in the area. There was so much information just being thrown at me I barely managed to remember it all.

I did my best to joke and mess around with Jack. Although I still don’t think he trusted me, he was at least warming up to me. We spent a lot of our free time sparring together and he was quickly improving. He was almost a challenge for me and I could see how happy that made him. James occasionally joined us as well so we could have three-way fights.

James had apologised to me after it was decided that I wasn’t a traitor and we easily slipped back into our friendship, though he still refused to let me hang out with his mate. Even during training, he would always be there to partner up with her and to keep me away from her.

It bothered me a little bit, I wasn’t a bad person and I thought of him as my best friend here. Okay, maybe I was a slightly bad person but still. Right now, we were in a meeting and I was just staring at Solus while I was lost in my thoughts. She always looked so uncomfortable. Looking away I snapped back to the conversation.

“We need a show of force, a strong counter-attack, to stop them from trying anything else.” One of the elders stated. Ugh this again. Ever since the ‘attack’ on our pack last week every meeting would result in an argument of whether we should retaliate or not.

On the one hand we could send a small army to the Blue moon pack to deter them from performing an actual attack, we could even wipe them out. On the other hand, it was clear they didn’t intend an actual attack last week. They might just leave us alone now that they have failed to undermine me which would make a show of force excessive and could create more tension between us and the surrounding packs. To be honest I was leaning towards wiping out the pack. I doubt they will just leave us alone and the next attack could be much worse than me spending a few hours in the cells.

“No it’s too risky. Blue Moon is a long way away sending even ten wolves will cause us problems with all the packs we pass by. It’s not worth the risk right now. We may even be left vulnerable to an attack from elsewhere.” Jack responded.

“But not retaliating will show other packs that they can do the same. We need to do something about this, even if they didn’t succeed, we can’t just wait around till they decide to try attack us again.” I reason.

“Enough. We will not initiate a war. If Alpha Knight is looking for some kind of retribution, we will prepare ourselves for it. We will defend ourselves if necessary, but we will not go seeking a war with any pack.” My dad’s voice boomed throughout the room. “Now if there’s nothing else to discuss?” He looked around the room, but no one said anything. “Good, you’re all dismissed.”

As we left, I grabbed James and Jack by their shirt collars and pulled them along with me. “Training time!” I exclaimed happily. If we were just going to sit around waiting for an attack, we needed to train even more than usual. I felt resistance from James and turned, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I’ve already trained today, I had other plans.” He whined.

“This is more important we need more three-way fights. We need to prepare for an attack.” I told him.

“It’s been a week and nothing has happened. I doubt anything is going to happen they’ll be licking their wounds and recovering from such a failure.” James argued.

“No arguing we are training now. Get over it.” I demanded, Alpha Knight was most certainly not licking his wounds. I saw James shoot Solus an apologetic look. “Bring your mate to train with us if you’re that obsessed with spending time with her.” I tell him pointedly.

We reach the training grounds despite James still complaining about it. Solus ended up following us out so I hoped she would join us. We did a few laps of the training ground to warm up and then prepared to fight.

“Three against one?” Jack suggested. I nodded and we formed a small circle. We attacked Jack first using the mind-link to co-ordinate our attacks always keeping him on the move and alert. Solus was nowhere near as experienced as the rest of us, but the pressure of a fight is one of the quickest ways to improve technique and she was just about managing to hold her own.

Each of our fights were around 10 minutes and I was fairly happy with how it worked out. Hopefully in a real fight they would be able to kill their enemy in less time than that. After we were done sparring, I let James go and do whatever he was so desperate to go and do with his mate. There was still some time before dinner, so I suggested a run around the borders. Jack agreed and began stripping off his shirt.

“Oh uh I meant in human form…” I told him.

“We’ve done plenty of training in human form for today I need to let my wolf out and you should too. We can try avoid the pack members, come on.” He was headed to the forest at the edge of the training grounds.

He was right that I needed to let my wolf out, I could feel it, but I was hesitant to do so on pack territory. None the less, I eventually relented and followed him, also removing my clothes so they wouldn’t tear when I shifted. I placed my clothes in a neat pile at the base of a tree along with my contacts and locket before I shifted into my wolf. Jack nuzzled his head into my side in greeting. I playfully nipped at his ear and took off running towards the border. We ran a few laps of the pack together, weaving through the trees and bushes, before we got tired and headed back.

I laughed lightly as I re-dressed, “I totally beat you back here!”

“Only because I let you,” he muttered pulling on his trackies.

“It would take a miracle for your wolf to be faster than mine.” I claimed still laughing. Once we were dressed I patted him on the shoulder to offer my condolences for his loss. He looked so moody and upset that I had beaten him in our little race, but all I could do was laugh. We headed back to the pack house for dinner after he demanded I never tell anyone that he lost.

A/N- Back to brother and sister bonding time! Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Leave a like if you like the story and maybe a review if you fancy! I love to know what you guys think x

P.S. I know most of you are american so to clarify 'trackies' is the English abbreviation for tracksuit bottoms/sweatpants. My two american friends always laugh about the 'weird' way English people say things XD