Chapter 3

EVERETT P.O.V

“You care only about yourself. If you wanted to stay here, you could have just called and told me. I was waiting for you all night yesterday.”

“I’m 16, not 5.”

“I had cooked you eggs for dinner yesterday.”

“I don’t like eggs mother. Templar was the one who used to like them.”

“What do you mean used to?”

I had had enough of this. Every morning it’s the same thing. Ever since Templar left, Teresa had gone crazy. She needs help. Initially, she had blamed Trudy for Templar leaving but after she was sent away, it was Terence’s turn to suffer. He doesn’t like going home for that reason. He can’t bear all the yelling. So instead of facing Teresa’s wrath he crashes at my house. And then the next day, in the early hours of the morning, Teresa is over giving him an earful.

Groaning, I get up from my nice comfortable bed and headed downstairs.

“We are searching for her mother.”

“Then search harder and bring my baby home.”

Yeah, right! Baby? When has she ever been a good mother?

It was wrong of Teresa to blame only Terence and Trudy for Templar’s leaving. It was everyone’s fault. Everyone had provoked Templar to take that step to run away.

“Come home for breakfast. I don’t want you out with your friends all day. I let it happen once and now my baby is not here with me,” she said to Terence as she stood over him, while he sat on the couch with his face buried in his hands.

I couldn’t take it any longer. “Enough!!” I yelled at Teresa, using my Alpha tone. “I want you out of my house, now.”

“Yes Alpha,” she said softly, her face down in submission, and quickly left my house.

“Thanks man,” Terence said, looking up at me. I nodded and sat down on the opposite couch to him. “She keeps reminding of it every day. It’s not like I don’t feel guilty enough as it is for what I’ve done.”

It had been a huge shock to the entire pack that Templar had left. We had all thought rouges had taken her away at first, until we saw the note she had left. No harsh words, nothing, just goodbye. We tried tracing her scent, but it was faint by the time we realized she had left. So we appointed a few detectives to try and find her. Oh that reminds me.

“Any news from detectives?” I asked Terence sternly.

“No. Nothing. It’s like the ground swallowed her whole or something,” he answered in misery, pressing his fingers to his temple and sighing. “You know, the worst part of it all is that I know I’m one of the main reasons she left.”

“Oh come on man. Many people are to be blamed for her leaving, not just you,” I said reassuringly to him.

“Yes, but Trudy and I were her own. She was our own little sister,” he whispered in pain and covered his eyes. “If only I had realized that a little earlier. She is only 15, not even a wolf yet, and she’s out in this world filled with rogues all on her own. She can’t even protect herself. You know she is like a child. She will trust anybody, and won’t even complain if she is hurt.” He gave a small laugh and looked down at his feet in shame. “I used to take advantage of all those traits of hers, and now I’m worried about someone else using them for their own benefit.”

“She will be back soon,” I said and gave a nod of reassurance. I didn’t know what else to say. He was whining like a girl.

“I doubt it,” he said and laughed humorlessly. “After what she went through here, this will be the last place she will want to come back. I just hope she shifts into her wolf soon.”

“She didn’t shift on her fifteenth.”

“Yeah, I still don’t get it.”

Neither did I. Templar is such an unusual case. Wolves that have one human parent always shift on their 13th birthday, but this was… I don’t have any idea how to describe it or what it was.

“Anyways, I got to go man. Or else…” Terence said getting up and let out a loud sigh.

“Teresa has to take some of the blame for this too,” I told him. Damn right, she had to!

“You have to take some of the blame too,” he said, looking at me with sad eyes, then left.

I growled at him as he left. Bastard! How dare he? I know I didn’t treat her right, but I had my reasons. If she ever does return, I’ll make sure to stay out of her way because of what I did, but I won’t apologize to her, because I am the Alpha.

I had enough drama for one morning, so I headed to the gym to work out some of my tension. There was still time before school started, and breakfast wasn’t cooked yet. The cook would take a while. He arrived after he was done at my dad’s place. So I had plenty of time.

I’m 16 and an Alpha. Unlike my father, I loved being an Alpha. I enjoy the power that comes with it. It’s amusing to see how fearful everyone is of you. My dad handed me the title of Alpha on my sixteenth birthday; two years earlier than he should have. After my mother’s death he went crazy, and lost interest in being an Alpha. He would lash out at anybody, anytime. Templar took a lot from him because she was an easy target. After she left he started snapping at little kids. I couldn’t stay with that crazy old man anymore, so as soon as I became the Alpha, I built a house for myself that suited my purposes.

Dad had handed me the title on my sixteenth, thinking that someone in the pack will turn out to be my mate. None of the girls in the pack turned out to be her, and I was glad for that. I know mates are everything, and all that crap, so I will find her when the time is right, but right now I don’t need one.

I got down on the mat in the gym and started doing pushups. Somewhere during my 105th count I was disturbed.

‘Alpha there are unfamiliar scents in our land, heading south’, Egan, my third-in-command said through the pack link.

I immediately got off the floor and began to stretch out the muscles in my arms. I hate rogues. They have attacked our pack too many times, and they killed my mother.

‘Follow the scent, I’ll join you soon,’ I answered back to him through the pack link.

‘Hey, this scent is similar to the one we had come through a few days ago, except there is one unusual scent with it this time,’ Terence said through the link.

Within minutes I reached where the others had shown me they were through the pack link. Egan and others of the pack were in their wolf forms running beside the road, following after three black cars. I shifted into my huge black wolf and started running after one of the cars.

When I reached the car, the man in the passenger seat looked to me and waved his hand in a goodbye gesture. I growled at him. Terence quickly came up beside me and Egan ran on the other side of the car, the rest of the pack chasing behind.

‘Do you smell that?’ Terence asked me.

‘Smell what?’ I snapped at him, trying to stay focused on the chase.

‘That sweet smell’

‘Rogues don’t smell sweet,’ I told him.

The man in the passenger seat was smirking widely at me and his eyes were now deep black. The car began to speedup. I wanted this son of a bitch dead. I ran faster, trying to keep up with the car and left Terence far behind as he slowed.

‘They have a girl with them,’ Egan told me through the link in worry. ‘I think they are kidnapping her.’

There was no sign of Terence now. ‘Where are you?’ I asked him through the link annoyed.

‘I can’t understand the smell,’ he answered.

What the hell is wrong with him? Ignoring him I looked back to the cars. I could see ahead of me in the second car there was a young girl. She was asleep like she had been drugged and her hair had fallen to cover her face. I could see a piece of cloth in her mouth that must have been covered with what they had used to drug her. She was being kidnapped.

I pushed ahead of the second car and jumped out onto the road, standing on all fours in front of them. The pack quickly came to where I was and stood their ground with me, all except Terence. He is going to get a blow from me later for his actions.

The car stopped before hitting any of us. The driver and passenger were both smirking at us. Those bastards.

I growled even louder at them, and then a moment later they pressed down on the accelerator, spinning out the tires and turned away from us towards the woods on the side of the road. The two other cars followed close behind them. These guys must have gone crazy. They were driving through unknown woods with a pack chasing after them.

‘Round up men near the border. I want these mutts dead before they cross the territory,’ I ordered and let a snarl flow through the link.