The Alpha and his Mate
Chapter 24

Jax’s POV

“It’s really not that difficult once you get the hang of it Annabelle, honestly” I tried to convince her.

We were currently sitting crossed legged opposite each other in my back garden and I was trying to show her how the mind link works. By law she wasn’t allowed to officially become the packs Luna until she learnt it and connected with the pack.

To say she was shocked when I first told her about it would be an understatement, in fact she outright laughed at the idea of it. I had to prove it to her by calling Xavier over with my mind link and doing a full ten minutes of what number was I thinking of with him, Annabelle watching closely to make sure we weren’t cheating in any way. After not getting a single one wrong she had no choice but to believe us.

She groaned in frustration and ran her hands over her face “well if it’s so easy then why can’t I do it yet?”

I smiled at her to try and ease some of her tension and reached over to take her hands into mine. “It’s most probably because your wolf hasn’t fully emerged yet. Yes you have now shifted but there is so much more to becoming a werewolf than just turning into a wolf. You have to feel her, know her, train and learn what work best for you both, no two people are the same after all so why would that change for a wolf?

“Mind linking works by one wolf talking to another, not human talking to human telepathically” I explained

“Well then why are we even bothering if it’s impossible for me to do right now? Why don’t we work on something else like strengthening the connection so I can do stuff like linking in the future.” I could tell she was getting frustrated with not being able to link. She was frowning at the her feet and pulling the grass out of the ground by its roots, I know I shouldn’t be thinking this right now but she looked so damn cute right now.

“This will help strengthen your bond with her, everyday your brain is working to try and replace new pathways and short cuts to talk to her and use your link” I tried to explain. I don’t think she was aware of just how important it was for her to learn linking. If she couldn’t link than she couldn’t become the Luna. If she couldn’t become Luna I had one of two choices to make, step down from my Alpha position and be with her or reject her and mate with someone who wasn’t my destined mate.

It was an impossible decision to make, if I chose my pack over her than it would surely break both of us, and after waiting so long to replace her I knew that I could never break her heart like that. On the other hand, though if I chose her over my pack than my sister would have to step up as Alpha. She wasn’t the Alpha type though, she had never shown any interest in anything to do with the Alpha role and I fear that with me stepping down it would cause the pack to become weak and eventually collapse.

I looked into my little mates’ eyes and smiled encouragingly at her, “I know you can do it Annabelle”.

With my words of encouragement, I could see the sparkle had returned into her eyes. She no longer looked bored, she looked more like her determined self than she had done all morning. “Let’s do it”.

“Okay so close your eyes... Focus on my wolf, his eye colour, fur colour, his height... everything. Focus on trying to connect with him” I explained.

She nodded and took a deep breath through her nose and closed her eyes. She was silent for a few minutes and just as I started to see her give up hope I suddenly felt a slight push in my mind. I smiled a full megawatt smile at her, not that she could see it, and closed my eyes to try and reach out to her too.

She was just within reach, just one more stretch, when we were suddenly interrupted by a pack member forcing their way into my mind.

I growled in anger, not liking the disrespect that member was showing me but sobered up when the wolf said a few words to me. It was my brother.

“Annabelle we have to go. Now” I stated.

I shot up to my feet, pulling Annabelle with me, and we ran as fast as we could to my parent’s house. All I knew was that my brother was in trouble, no one would tell me anything else which was more worrying that the news itself.

“Jax what’s happening?” I heard Annabelle whisper behind me, obviously shocked and slightly panicked by my sudden reaction.

“Will is in trouble, he went on a scouting mission with a few other pack members this morning and no one will tell me what has happened.”

Annabelle stayed silent after that which I was very thankful for, I didn’t have the answers to the questions I knew she would be asking me.

Thankfully my parents didn’t live too far away from me and in a few minutes we were on their property and I was racing up the front porch steps and banging on their door. When nobody answered I sighed in frustration as I let go of Annabelle’s hand and started rooting around the many plant pots that surrounding my parent front door, trying to replace the spare key they always kept around here.

I felt movement behind me and I looked around to see Annabelle was doing exactly the same thing a me on the other side of the path, obviously understanding what I was trying to replace.

She found the key almost straight away and I sighed in relief as I took it from her and quickly unlocked the door with shaking fingers, whether it was from fear or adrenaline though I didn’t know.

What we were greeted with when we walked through the threshold was pure mayhem.

Pack warriors were running left and right, mobile phones strapped to their ears and the paced the length of the living room. The majority of people in here though were huddled around the open plan kitchen dining room where a large detailed map was spread out over the table.

“What the hell is going on here?” I yelled and suddenly everyone froze as they felt the power of their Alpha entering the room. I felt Annabelle shrink behind me, not liking the fact that everyone had stopped what they were doing and were now focusing all their attention on us. I tightened my hold on her and wrapped my arm around her waist, hoping I was giving her enough reassurance to get through the next few hours that would undoubtedly be hard for the both of us.

“It’s Will son, he hasn’t come back from his scout mission” my dad told me as he came up to us and placed a hand on my shoulder.

I frowned “well maybe they just ran over, it’s not like we were expecting them back at a certain time”.

“It’s not just that. One of the men that went with them came back. He was covered in blood and barely made it to the medical bay before passing out. He’s there now, Dr Tessler is working on him as best she can but apparently with all the stress his body has gone though it’s going to be touch and go.”

I closed my eyes for a second and took in a breath, mentally preparing myself for what our pack was about to go though. This is where my Alpha training came into its own, not many people would know how to deal with a situation like this but thankfully years of studying and watching my dad deal with situation similar to this I knew what the next steps would be.

I walked over to the map on the dining room table and took in what I could see, a lot of X’s and circled areas but apart from that not much. “What do we have?”

“Well we knew they were heading in this direction when they left the pack in the early hours of this morning” one of my warriors explained as he pointed towards the south side of our territory. “The last update we had was ten thirty this morning telling us that they had witnessed suspicious activity and that they were going to investigate further. If they were going traveling at the standard speed, then they would have only been able to get as far as this area here at the time of their last check in”.

I nodded my understanding before I took a pen and started crossing sections off. “I know my brother and I know that he would not enter any pack territory without permission from their Alpha. As I haven’t gotten a call from anyone, we can rule out these areas here” I muttered as I crossed out all of the known pack territories in the area.

“That would mean they could only have gotten as far as this area here”. I circled the area where I believed my brother and our trackers could have possibly been but as I was starting to form a plan in my head my sister suddenly screamed my name from the stairs.

I dropped the pen and sprinted over to Hannah to replace Annabelle passed out in her arms.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!