Chapter 3.

*****

I stood on the balcony of my hotel room as I scrolled through my phone. It was dark out as it was four in the morning, everyone else was still asleep. We usually woke up around three to do some training, but I guess the others were taking our holiday a lot more seriously than I was. I had been up for an hour taking in the view of the glittering city below.

I dialled my father Corey's number once I got to it and looked out towards the forest in the distance wondering if Karabo was already awake. It would have been nice to see him so early in the morning...

"Eli, everything alright?" He answered.

"Yes. I –"

"How is it out there? Better weather than here, I hope. It's freezing."

"The weather's great, Paps. Can you –"

"Where's Tammy?" He cut me off again. I frowned while leaning back against the wall beside the glass doors I had come out onto the balcony through.

"She's asleep."

"You guys having fun?" I knew his question was less aimed at everyone else and more aimed at me because of the tone of voice he used.

"Yes, Paps." I broke a smile as my excitement heightened, "Something happened." I grinned.

"Mmm... Sounds exciting. Did you meet someone?"

"He met someone?!" I heard my Dad's voice somewhere in the background.

"Sort of. Uh, Paps. I didn't call to talk about that, though. How's the pack?"

"You're on vacation." I heard my Dad say.

"This isn't work, it's... concern," I said furrowing my brows at myself. Why did I have to explain why I was checking on my pack anyway?

"Pack is fine. See you next week."

"Paps," I called seriously.

"Eli, you need to learn to relax a little." He said before sighing, "The pack is doing fine. We've just gotten another rogue attack." I straightened from my leaning position. Just before I had left there had been two incidents a few weeks apart of wolves without packs – known as rogue wolves – attacking members of our pack on our territory.

"'Just another rogue attack'? How can you say that like it's a normal occurrence? Did anyone get hurt?" I asked.

"One wolf, he's healed now. We've got it taken care of; we managed to capture the rogue."

"One rogue?" I asked confused.

"Yes."

Why would a lone wolf attack a pack as big as ours? Unless, he only intended to hurt one of our wolves. The previous two times there were also just three or two wolves. We had killed the pair that trespassed the previous week, it was dark and they attacked a group of pups. I had been pissed at the wolves guarding our fence for somehow not noticing two rogue wolves pass them by. Was this wolf from the same rogue group as the others?

"Have you questioned him?" I asked.

"Yes, surprisingly he answered without any force. His group of wolves are not related to the wolves we killed previously, but he had heard about their attack on us. Like them, he claims we kidnapped one of their wolves, he wanted to get a hostage so that we could make an exchange."

I frowned. Rogue disappearances seemed to be becoming more frequent. We needed to look into it, in case it became a bigger threat to our pack.

"How does he know the missing wolf did not just leave their group?" I asked.

"I don't know. He really believes there is no way this wolf would willingly have run off from them."

"What did you do to him?" I asked.

"Sean has decided that we should let him go."

"What?" I hissed.

"He thinks spilling more blood would not be necessary, he's going to walk the wolf through our grounds so the guy can realise that his friend's scent is not anywhere near us and he won't find his friend on our grounds."

I grit my teeth. "That is not going to convince him to back off, anyone could have muted a scent and then lock someone up somewhere. He's still a threat; tell Sean it's not happening." I said.

"It's already happening."

Ashton's father, Sean, had been the previous Alpha of our pack. His lack of brutality never ceased to amaze me. We disagreed on a lot as I grew up, so did my Pap's and Sean because like Ashton and I, Corey could be pretty ruthless.

"Sean's not wrong." I heard my Dad speak.

"Jayden –" Paps began.

"The rogue seems more hurt and worried than bloodthirsty, he didn't attack to kill. He clearly just wants this wolf back, if we agree to help him look for his friend – and we should because we have a lot more resources than his group does – he will leave us alone."

"We don't owe the rogue anything." My Pap's voice was accompanied by my own. I heard a door shut from their end of the call.

"Sometimes it's good to just help people, they're not bad rogues," Dad said.

I thought about it for a few seconds. He was right. We had never had trouble with most of the rogues around our pack; they lived in groups that kept their humanity in check, unlike some rogues that lived to kill anything they laid eyes on.

If it turned out that the wolf did not run from their group and had actually been taken, helping them could solve a problem that we might have had to face later.

"Fine. Help the rogues – only those rogues and tell Sean to contact me before he makes any decisions like this again." I said.

"Like hell, I will. I was an Alpha before you were even born, calm down Kid." I heard Sean.

"I know, I respect that, Sean. But you chose to let me run the pack; you have to let me run it... I'm not a child anymore." I said.

"I know, but sometimes you have to take the kinder approach to things, and neither you nor Ashton seem to realise that. I'm worried; it's a cause for unnecessary war, Eli."

I opened my mouth to disagree immediately but stopped myself. He was right...

If I always rushed into punishing wolves that I thought threatened us and it turned out there was a mistake somewhere along the line, we could meet a lot of unnecessary trouble.

"Now, forget about the pack and enjoy your time off," Sean added.

"Forget about the pack? No, we have to deal with the rouge attack –"

"We're dealing with that. I swear, Eli if you show up here before next week, I will have the pack vote us back into leadership." Pap's said.

"Good luck with that. The pack like us more." I heard Ashton mumble sleepily as he stumbled onto the balcony. I grabbed his arm afraid he would topple over the railing as he reached it. He would not die if he fell, but the severe injuries would be terribly painful and it would take a couple of days minimum to heal. I heard our fathers scoff.

"You want to cut your holiday off right now?" Sean asked.

"No! Who suggested that?" Ashton was suddenly wide awake before he turned to glare at me, "Was it you? Damn it, Eli." I shot him a glare as he grabbed my phone and ran back into the room, I was too lazy to follow him, "There's no way, we'll see you next week, maybe. Maybe we'll take another week. I love you, say 'hi' to Mom." I sighed as he ended the call before he walked back onto the balcony.

"I will surround this room in wolfsbane if you even think about ending our holiday again." He said seriously.

"And I will ban you from my pack." I matched his seriousness. "They got another rogue attack," I said. His face turned concerned.

"Anyone hurt?"

"Not badly, already healed. Sean decided to let the wolf go."

"What the hell?" He began scrolling through my phone but I grabbed it before he could dial his father's number.

"They'll handle it," I said.

He sighed throwing his head back and I realised the sun had begun to rise. I looked back at the forest once again wondering if Karabo was already awake. Probably. He had probably already done some training or was still running through it. Hopefully, he kept hydrated.

"So that's what I look like every day... Well, this is sad."

"What?" I asked looking at Ashton. He shrugged and walked back into the room. My confused gaze returned to the forest ahead and as my lips began to tug into an automatic smile, I realised I had unconsciously been smiling the whole time.

I frowned immediately dropping the smile. I had seen Ashton do that: just stare into nowhere smiling, Ben and I made fun of him for it our entire lives, but I couldn't stop my smile or the excitement in my chest at the thought of seeing Karabo again. I would have to keep my reactions to him in check; I didn't want him to notice how happy I was about him and appear overly excited. I chuckled knowing that if last night was anything to go by, he would suck at hiding what he was feeling and that only made me more ecstatic about seeing him.

For a second, I thought about texting him a good morning but quickly realised I had not asked for his number. I would just be following his pull to wherever it led me in the forest.

Walking back into the room caused my brows to raise at the sight of Ashton trying to wake Ben up. Ashton's version of waking people up consisted of pilling random things onto them. So far my mattress and pillow had been added to Ben as well as the shampoo and towels from our bathroom. It reminded me of when we went camping and something similar had happened with everyone's sleeping bags.

"Go away!" Ben's muffled yell came from under the mattress.

I laughed at the scene while grabbing my jacket. "I'll be getting breakfast," I stated heading out of the room.

I had not gotten cleaned up yet so was still in just track pants and sneakers, not too concerned about being presentable, I just tugged my jacket over my bare chest and did not even try to bother fixing my hair. Tamia hated it when I looked that way around her, she was always really pulled together as soon as she woke up, whereas I only got to that after training. She thought I was lazy but I thought it was a waste of time to make an effort only to have to do it again when we finished at the gym.

The dining area of the hotel was basically empty so I took a seat right beside the window. It was almost five but in the midst of summer, the sun already shone brightly on the street outside. Watching a few people walk past in their work attire made me wonder what Karabo looked like at the moment, what he looked like when he woke up. He seemed like one of those people that would go to bed and wake up looking like they actually got some rest, even if they didn't. He was handsome. I frowned at myself getting annoyed by my mind's constant wandering off towards him. I liked thinking about him, but it was a bit much to only be thinking about him. Mating was already proving to be quite annoying.

"Eli!" Tamia whined immediately trying to fix my hair as she sat down beside me.

I looked at her and chuckled seeing her glare above my head annoyed that it wasn't doing what she wanted it to do. She finally gave up and frowned at me. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, the back of which she had left curly, and she was already well-dressed as I had expected.

"I forgot my flat iron at home." She explained her hair with a pout.

"Good. You always look nicer with it like this." I said.

"True. You look stunning, Babe." She grinned as Ashton leaned over from behind us to plant a kiss on her cheek before giving an exasperated sigh as she realised that Ben and Ashton looked the same way I did; basically a mess. "What are you guys –?" She began but Ben lifted a finger to her mouth as he slid into a seat across the table.

"Shh – positive energy, Tammy." Ben's speaking only made my sister's glare at him deeper. He quickly tugged his hand away from her when she tried to grab at it.

I laughed watching Ashton punch Ben's arm lightly.

We spent the next couple of hours eating breakfast and getting distracted by arguing about our pre-made plans for the next few days because everyone wanted to change things before heading back upstairs to get cleaned up and then we began to make our way towards the forest following just the pull that linked me to Karabo. It felt strange being led towards something without knowing what to expect, moving without any real information about my destination was not something I usually did. I stopped when we were just outside the forest and frowned while staring up at the trees. For some reason, I suddenly had a heavy feeling of anxiety that made my stomach twist nervously.

"Do you have his number?" I tilted my head to look at my sister. Perhaps if she did, he could just come out to the hotel to meet us.

"You want to run?" She asked raising her brows while looking slightly amused.

"No, I want to schedule a meeting in town," I replied honestly.

"This is new." Ashton said, his eyes studying me, "I don't think I've ever seen you scared before."

"I'm not scared." I hissed feeling quite offended that he would even think that, "I'm just not prep –"

"Let's go –" Ben cut me off running into the threes. I raised my brows hearing cracking.

"Don't shift!" I ran after Ben but stopped and glared at the unusually large brown wolf in front of me. My eyes moved to my right when a growl came from behind the trees and I watched as a wolf walked out slowly revealing himself followed by several others that clearly belonged to the same pack, Letsela based on their scents.

He looked on-edge and it made me realise Karabo really had not told anyone from his pack that he was expecting us.

The wolf growled again demanding that Ben shift back and we follow them. I frowned. I wasn't a normal wolf; I knew the wolves that now surrounded us could see that. I was an Alpha who didn't take orders from anyone and this wolf wasn't even trying to be respectful.

"We're not here to fight, just to see your Alpha. We'll find him ourselves without trouble." I said.

The wolves sneered at us and their leader growled again repeating his demands louder. I was becoming very annoyed by his tone and demeanour.

'What do we do?' Ashton linked to me.

That moment would have been the time that any wolf without Alpha or Beta blood in them decided to be 'rational' and agree that we should just follow these wolves, but Ben had grown up with Tamia, Ashton and me and we had rubbed off on him, he acted like us. We had too much pride to back down from a fight.

'We're not following them.' Ben linked to me. I gave a nod. Perhaps if they had asked with a respectful tone and not demanded.

'Don't kill them.' I linked to my friends. Just knock them out.

I was going to kill Karabo for making me have to waste my energy so early in the morning, it did not matter if it was only a little bit of energy.

*****