The Alpha and his Mate
Chapter 23

Annabelle’s POV

“Mummy?”

“You gave us quite a scare there Annabelle, how are you feeling?” Dr Tessler asked as she proceeded to shine a light in my eye.

I didn’t know how to respond; how do you explain to someone that you just saw your mum and dad for the first time in thirteen years without sounding like you’d completely lost your mind?

“I saw her” I whispered as I felt Jax sit next to me and take my hand.

“Saw who little mate?” He whispered, speaking softly, probably so as not to scare me.

I looked over at him and my eyes instantly welled up with tears. “My mum”.

He furrowed his brow in confusion and looked over at the doctor for a second before focusing his attention back on me. “As in you had a dream about her? Or some form of memory maybe?”

I shook my head and licked my lips; I couldn’t figure out how to explain it to him, how I knew that what I just saw was real and was happening right now and not in my head as a dream. That my mum and dad were both alive but kept as prisoners, forced to be apart and beaten when their captures didn’t like an answer my mum gave them.

I looked over at Jax and tried to explain to him with my eyes that what I had just borne witness to was real. I didn’t know how I knew; I just had a gut feeling that someone had brought me there, to see that, for a reason.

“They were prisoners, in some kind of dungeon or cell block. It was definitely underground judging by how cold and dark it was. It smelled horrible... of damp and blood” I shuddered as I thought back to my dream. Jax pulled me into his arms and rubbed my exposed arms where goose bumps had started to appear.

“This guy was yelling questions at my mum, but she didn’t know the answer to them, saying that some form of communication bond had been broken or something like that” I whispered, cringing as I remembered the way they treated her.

I felt Jax tense around me and I looked up to see he had locked eyes with an older man, a stranger, who was sitting on the sofa opposite us. How had I not noticed the amount of people that were in the room until now?

I froze and shrunk slightly into Jax’s arms, trying to hide from them as much as I could, but as I took another look at them again I weirdly felt like I knew them. Hannah was here, Jax’s sister and she gave me a little smile when we had locked eyes, but I had definitely not met the other three strangers in the room.

“Annabelle did you see anyone that you recognise at all? Any familiar faces in the dream that you can think of?” Jax asked as he looked down at me with the slight V still between his eyebrows.

I thought back to the dream and tried to refocus on the faces but sighed and shook my head when I came up blank. “No sorry” I mumbled “do you think you know where they could be?”

Jax sighed before running a hand through his hair, making sure to keep his other arm wrapped securely around my waist. “We have an idea who might have them, but we need hard evidence to be able to rally our allies and form an attack.”

“Where do you think they are?” I frowned as I looked up at him in confusion. How could he possibly know where they were being kept when I hadn’t even truly explained to them what I’d seen.

Jax just shook his head before kissing me on the forehead “I don’t want to tell you and get your hopes up if it turns out that my hunch is wrong. I’ll have some of the pack members do some scouting near the area and see if they pick up anything unusual, if they do you’ll be the first to know”.

“Be careful son, if it is who you’re thinking of then he is not someone we want to get on the wrong side of lightly” the older man of the three strangers spoke up and I looked over to see him give me a soft smile before focusing his attention back on Jax. He had called Jax son, that must make him Jax’s father.

“Of course dad, I know who we will be up against, the trackers will just have to be extra careful at hiding their scent.”

“I’ll go with them” the youngest stranger in the group muttered. He couldn’t be more that eighteen, but his eyes told me that he knew way more that his age was letting on. A flash of an image ran through my mind and I suddenly remembered where I recognised him from. The first night I was here I looked at a photo of Jax, Hannah and one other person all huddled together and smiling right before I smashed the frame. He must be Jax’s brother.

“Thank you Will, I would appreciate you experience in guiding the pack trackers.”

He just nodded his head in response but otherwise stayed quiet.

The only stranger left in the room was the woman sitting in between Jax’s dad and his brother Will, I’m guessing she was his mum, but I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions.

“Jax are you not going to introduce us to your mate?” The woman suddenly piped up and I realised I must have been staring at her in slight confusion without realising it.

I looked down in embarrassment and blushed slightly at being caught.

“Oh yes sorry. Annabelle this is my little brother Will, my father Jackson, my mother Emily and Hannah you already know. Everyone this is my mate Annabelle” Jax introduced everyone whilst pointing to each person on the couch, making sure I wasn’t confused about who was who.

“It is so lovely to finally meet you my dear, we have heard so much about you from Xavier and Hannah. It’s so nice to finally be able to put a face to the name” she smiled. “If you need anything at all you just let me know okay?” Jax’s mum said. She looked like a kind-hearted woman, with mousey brown hair and chocolate brown eyes you could tell that she was a caring woman, someone who did everything they could to help someone out, even if it was someone she didn’t know.

None of Jax’s family had gotten up to hug me or shake my hand and I had a sneaky suspicion Jax had something to do with it, telling them I was still very uncomfortable with strange people I didn’t know getting close to me.

I smiled and nodded my greeting at them but before I could mutter some form of greeting a small yawn escaped my lips. I tried to discreetly lift my hand to cover my mouth and hide it but it didn’t work, everyone still heard it. I really had to get used to this super sensitive hearing they all apparently have, that we apparently have.

“I guess that’s our cue to leave” Dr Tessler stated as she stood up and gathered all her things into her bag. “My patient needs her rest”.

I smiled at them all as they whispered quiet farewells to us as they one by one got up off the sofa and headed out the front door. Before long it was just me and Jax sitting on the living room sofa, cuddled up with me in his lap and my head resting on his chest. “I think we should follow the doctors orders and get you to bed don’t you think?” Jax asked as my eyes started to drop. “After all, we have a lot of training to get done tomorrow” he chuckled.

I wanted to ask him what he meant by training but before I could even form the sentence in my head I was out like a light, with Jax’s strong arms around me, keeping me safe.