Chapter 171

Fated To The Alpha by Jessica Hall Chapter 171 Andrei POV The storm was huge, luckily Mathias was able to get in and back safely to take blood samples from Jonah, though Mathias had said it would be helpful if Jonah knew his last name. Derrick also came back over night and both he and I were heading up the mountain today to find the cave Jonah was in to see if there are any personal belongings with a last name on it.

“Are you sure you will be alright on your own?” I ask Sage when we hear a knock on the door. “It’s open” I call out to whoever was at the door.

“Yeah I was going over to see Nora and Zane today” Sage says and I nod when she looks over my shoulder and smiles.

“Ready Son?” My father asks just as his scent hits me.

“Yeah, did you get the map off Nora?” He rummages in his pocket pulling it out and I turn walking over to him as he places it on the table.

“ She thinks around here is where they found him, there is a trail we can follow here” He tells me pointing out the trail which I have come across before while hunting, it actually wasn’t far from where I used to go with my father when I was a kid about a 30 minutes walk higher up the mountain. My stomach twists with that thought knowing I could have been so close to Jonah and never realised he was in a cave by himself..

I grab my bag tossing it over my shoulder and my father grabs his.

“We should be back by dark” I tell Sage, pecking her lips quickly. Walking outside, I see a group of my warriors assessing the tree that had fallen through the roof of a house. Chainsaws in hands as they figured the best approach to remove it without damaging the structure of the house anymore than it already is.

Walking over to my car, I unlock it when Jonah rushes over and I groan. My father chuckles at my reaction to the small boy, his green eyes lighting up as he sweeps his hair from his eyes. “He can’t be that bad, he is a kid” my father says, clapping his hand on my shoulder.

“I would not be surprised if the blood results come back and say he is the spawn of Dennis the menace” I tell him.

“Mr Andrei, Mr Andrei” Jonah says, waves enthusiastically drawing everyone’s attention to him.

“What Jonah?” I ask, tossing my bag on the backseat.

“Are you leaving and who are you?” Jonah asks, looking at my father, I watch as he sniffs the air, his little brows pinching together at our similar scents.

“He is my father and yes, I am very busy. Now go play or something, something that is away from me, Maybe go harass Sage she is inside” I tell him when I hear yelling before a loud crash. I look over at the house to see they knocked the tree down off the roof with the digger.

“Oh shit” My father says, while jogging over. I rush over to everyone frantically trying to lift the tree. Hearing groaning, I notice Clay trapped on the ground pinned by the tree and a branch caught across his stomach pinning him down, luckily the branch was only pinning him and he wasn’t crushed by the ginormous trunk..

“How the hell did that happen, are you good?” I ask Clay. He holds his thumbs up, he just appeared to be trapped, not actually injured.

Everyone was trying to lift the tree off him and I facepalm myself at their idiocy.

“What are you idiots doing?”

“Trying to help lift the tree, ” Casen says and my father laughs beside me. As the four warriors try hauling the tree up.

“I swear you fools only have one brain cell between the lot of yas” I mutter.

“Help us Alpha” Casen says and I shake my head. Pointing next to his feet.

“What is that?” I ask him and he looks down next to him before looking at me like I was the idiot. “A chainsaw Alpha”

“Exactly bravo, why are you trying to lift the entire tree when you could just cut the branch off that’s trapping him” I ask and they all look at each other. Thank god I depend on them for their fighting skills not their brains.

“Why didn’t we think of that?” I hear Vince mutter before picking it up.

“No, no wait, please, don’t let them do it they will probably cut me in half” Clay says looking at me horrified as Vince approaches him with chainsaw.

“Good point, Malik” I yell out. I hear a door open and slam before hearing jogging coming from behind me. I point to Clay. “Cut the idiot free that decided it would be a good idea to stand under a falling tree” I tell him and he nods before looking at Clay before mouthing what the f*ck.

“How?” Malik says, walking over to Clay before snatching the chainsaw from Vince.

“Do none of you listen, do you think I speak to hear myself talk, and where are your hardhats?” Malik, yells at them. They all drop their eyes to the ground and I click my tongue before turning on my heel knowing Malik and Zane will handle them.

“Always something going on in your pack” My father tells me with a chuckle. Walking over to my car I get in, starting the car up.

My father places his seatbelt on and we head off. Driving around the other side of the mountain would be quicker than trekking through it on my side, and there was a parking area at the bottom of the mountain and the trail led off it.

Pulling up at the service station, I fill the car up before heading inside to pay. Getting back in the car we start heading off toward our destination. There was barely any traffic on the road thanks to the storm which I am sure left plenty of clean up.

About lo minutes out a foul odor fills the car and I crack the window.

“That you, f*ck Derrick my window’s are up” I tell him, gagging and trying to get fresh air.

“What? F*cking wasn’t me” he says, turning his head to look at me before also gagging.

“You dirty bastard that was you, that’s a protein fart from that crap you drink” My father says, winding his window down and pressing his face out i n the wind.

“F*ck off it was me, must of slipped out your old ass without you knowing, you would be that lose back there old man, you probably didn’t feel it ” I snap at him.

“It wasn’t me” He argues back and I sigh the smell wafting away with the wind. The drive took an hour from the time we left home and stopped and got fuel before finding the trail.

“Yep this is it, bit of a trek the kids walked” My father says, looking up the steep trail and I agree. He pulls the map out looking at it before looking at the steep trail.

“I know this place” shrieks Jonah’s voice as he suddenly pops up between the rear seats. I jumped not expecting anyone in the back. My father lurches nearly out of his skin and smacks into the dash as he spins around clutching his heart.

“Jonah! ” I scream, glaring at him. My father looks like he is on the verge of having a heart attack.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask him and he drops his head giving me puppy dog eyes.

“Where the heck were you hiding?” my father asks, pointing at him before leaning over the seat. “ Anyone else back there?” He asks Jonah as he looks in the backseat.

“I was under this?” Jonah tells him, holding up my jacket that was in the footwell.

“I told you it wasn’t me that farted” my father says and I look at Jonah.

“It just slipped out” He says and I scrub hand down my face before shoving my door open and checking my phone. No missed calls. Scrolling through the contacts, I press on Malik’s number.

“Missing someone? ” I ask him when he answers.

“Yeah how did you know, did Casen mindlink you, I told him not to bother you, that bloody Jonah has taken off” I huff.

“Jonah is with me, ” I tell him.

“Are you bloody serious Andrei, you couldn’t have told someone. The entire pack is out looking for him” I growl at him. “Sorry Alpha” He quickly mutters.

“Do you think I would really drag a kid on a mountain trail that is barefoot Malik. He nearly gave my father a heart attack and me when he popped his head up between the damn seats”

“How did you not smell him?”

“Well I wasn’t exactly scenting my damn car, I can only smell my father and my scent in here” I growled at him.

“ I’m sorry, I thought he was with Nora and Zane until I went to go get him, I didn’t realize he stowed away, do you want me to come get him” I look over at Jonah who was now out of the car and sitting on my fathers shoulders pointing up at the trees at a bird.

“No, we can’t waste time, we will just take him with us”

“Sorry again Alpha”

“It’s fine, ” I tell him before hanging up.

“Ready?” My father asks and I nod, grabbing both our bags out of the car and tossing them over my shoulder since my father had Jonah. We start hiking up the trail. This would be so much quicker if we could shift but with Jonah it wasn’t worth the risk of him falling off. A couple of hours in, my father stopped placing Jonah on the ground before stretching his back. Jonah sits on a rock and I dig through my backpack fetching my water bottle out.

“It shouldn’t be too much farther, there are more caves further up, and a few around over that way” My father says pointing another way where the trail leads off.

“What are you looking for?” Jonah asks as I sip some more water before handing him the bottle. He drinks some.

“We are looking for the cave you were staying in” My father says and Jonah nods.

“It’s near the camp with the berry bushes, ” Jonah tells us.

“What camp?” I ask him and he shrugs.

“Sometimes I could see the smoke from the fires, ” he tells us. Looking around we see no campsites or have we passed any, and being this high up we should have noticed one.

“Maybe over the other side of the mountain?” my father says with a shrug and I stand up.

“Come on then” I tell Jonah. Tossing the bag one bag over my shoulder. Jonah jumps up and I reach for him, placing him on my shoulders. His hands are sitting on my head and I peel one hand away that was blocking my eye.

Derrick grabs the other bag and we head off and start walking around the mountain trying to find the camp Jonah was looking for.

“So did you sometimes live in the camp?” I ask Jonah.

“No, we moved all the time, my dad drank a lot, mum always said that’s why he couldn’t keep a job” He says in a screechy voice that I think was meant to imitate his mother.

“ once we lived in this house in a city, it had boards on its windows but it had a huge tree I liked climbing it”

“It had boards on the windows?”

“No trees don’t have windows, the house did, silly” Jonah says and Derrick chuckles.

“I meant the house you lived in” I tell him.

“Yep that house was cold, nearly as cold as the cave”

“Jonah do you remember anyone calling your mum a name that wasn’t mum” Derrick asks.

“Hmm, dad called her babe sometimes but most of the time he called her bitch” my father’s eyebrows lifted into his hairline almost and I pressed my lips in a line.

“So no one else used to call your mum another name?” Derrick presses. Jonah seems to think for a second.

“No, but I heard someone call my dad and my mum filthy rogues” He quotes.

“So you have no one else, your parents had no friends or family?” I ask him.

“Up that way” My father says, pointing off toward some caves.

“That’s it, that one up there ” Jonah says, pointing a little ways off from the direction my father pointed and I see a cave.

We head in the direction of it. “So you never met any family?” I press as we climb the rocky thick terrain going off the trail.

“No, only uncle Lior. My mum had a brother too, I think he was her brother, they smelt the same like how you and Mr Andrei’s Dad do”

“My name is Derrick, Jonah. You don’t need to call me Mr Andrei’s Dad” My father tells him and I smirk. Jonah was patting my head softly, It was annoying but I chose to ignore it since we were trying to get information from him.

“So your mum’s brother, does he have a name?” I ask him.

“ I only met him once, mum said he wasn’t a very nice man. He looked like her though and I can’t remember his name” Jonah tells me.

“What do you remember of him?” I ask.

“I remember he called my mum some names, so Dad punched him and they had a big fight. My dad was winning until he pulled his gun out. Dad said it was just a toy but we still had to leave”

“Leave from where?” My father asks, sending me a nervous glance. His parents didn’t exactly sound like upstanding citizens.

“My grandma’s house, she died a long time ago and she gave mum the house, but then he took it off us”

“Do you know how long ago that was?” I ask him.

“I don’t know, it was lots of sleeps ago, I was only short then” He tells me and chuckle because he is still short now.

We make it to the cave entrance and I see a small sitting area around a fire that has been out for a long time, barely anything left from the wind, just burnt rock under the debris. I placed Jonah down and my father was using his torch to look inside the cave. Seeing Jonah run off he goes over to a tree that has some red and purple berries, the tree looked out of place where it was.

Jonah plucks some off eating them. “Oh a mulberry tree” My father says, picking one off.

“Yep, I love mulberries ” Jonah says while eating some, his lips staining purple.

“Are you right with him?” I ask my father and he tosses me his torch. I entered the cave, it wasn’t very deep into the mountain and it didn’t take long before I tripped over and kicked some beer cans.

Using the torch I see blankets on the ground, a couple of garbage bags with some clothes. A man’s jacket, a crate with empty food cans in it but that’s it.

I walk back over to the bags of clothes pulling them out and checking the pockets. I find nothing of use before I pick up the man’s jacket and rummage through the inside pockets and find a club card.

The name Marshall Peters on it. The man in the picture looked similar to Jonah. Bringing it with me, I leave the cave walking back to find my father and Jonah. They were standing at the edge looking a t the trees down the mountain. Hearing me approach my father turns around and waves me over, a pair of binoculars in his hands.

“Found the camp ” He calls and I walk over. I pass him the ID and he hands me the binoculars.

“Marshall Peters?” I hear him say reading the Id. “This your dad?” He asks Jonah while I look for the camp.

“Yep that’s him” Jonah says, just as I spot the camp in the distance amongst a small clearing in the forest. Tents and small structures were set up, I could see it was a rather large camp even for a rogue camp, I would guess around 1oo people in it. I could see children running around, women hanging clothes on makeshift clothes lines between the tents. Small fires alight randomly around it.

“Pretty big, Kat told me they have had reports of a growing number of rogues, so many packs at war at the moment and a lot of people fleeing” I nod, handing him back the binoculars.

“What do you want to do?” My father asks.

“Nothing, let’s head back, I want to do a background check on Jonah’s father” I tell him though, the camp had me hesitating. So many families down there. Shaking the feeling off, I grab Jonah and place him back on my shoulders. “Are we going home now?”

Jonah asks. “Yep”