Chapter 4.

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I sat comfortably while staring back into his glaring dark brown eyes unfazed. We were in his office and he was standing at his desk while my friends and I were seated on the couch and on chairs placed around the room.

"Karabo, we're sorry –"

"No, we aren't." I cut Tamia off. His glare at me deepened and I didn't react to it at all. I could feel his temper rising even though he was trying to hide it.

"You beat some of my Gammas up for no reason."

"Ah. They were Gammas." Gamma wolves were just normal wolves. "I was hoping your Deltas were not that weak... Whatever, we had reason to. They commanded that we follow them."

"You..." He drifted before he shook his head, "This was because they told you to follow them on THEIR territory?" Karabo said; his voice was laced in disbelief.

"Uh... yeah." I said simply before I held up my hand knowing that he was becoming really pissed at me, "Would you have followed if you were in my position?"

"Yes," he replied, "Because I would know they were leading me towards my mate after I stepped onto their territory unannounced and they did not attack me."

"Sure you would have." I rolled my eyes obviously doubting his words. He clenched his teeth continuing to glare at me silently for a few moments before he spoke again.

"Alphas like you are the reason everyone thinks we are all brain-dead, blood-hungry animals." He snapped.

"Excuse me?" I lowered my brows, straightening up in my seat.

"You fucking made my entire pack hate you before they even met you!"

"Well, your pack shouldn't have –" I looked up surprised as Ashton's hand suddenly covered my mouth.

"Karabo, we really are sorry. We will apologise to them." My sister spoke, I knew she had linked to Ashton to make him cover my mouth.

"Apologise?" Ashton's hand dropped as he questioned his mate in surprise.

"Alright." Karabo's mood lightened in less than a second.

"Ha. There's no way we..." I cut myself off when my eyes met my sister's icy glare before I looked at my mate and his brows were raised questioningly waiting for me to finish. I did not want to apologise, saw no need to, but did I really want him to be angrier at me? We just met. I just wanted to hug him, I doubted denying the apology would make him allow me close to him. "There's no way I could apologise without apologising to my mate first." That's not where that sentence had been heading to begin with, but with it, my sister's glare softened and Karabo smiled. I pushed myself out of the chair I was seated in and walked up to where he had been standing in front of his desk. "I'm sorry I beat them up, it won't happen again if you tell them who I am and they don't go demanding –"

"Wow." He cut me off with a scoff but I ignored his continuous disbelief and shrugged.

"Let's be honest, none of this would have happened if you just told them you were expecting me."

"I wish I had not been expecting you." He frowned at me. I gasped lifting my hand to my chest in mock hurt.

"That hurts, dear Mate." He stared at me completely serious and I dropped my hand letting out a sigh. "I'm sorry, alright?"

"You're so sincere." He replied dryly.

"Oh, come on!" I threw my head back before I looked at Karabo's desk as something beeped twice. He moved to the door and pulled it open.

"Alpha –"

"I'll be out in a second." His tone had changed as he nodded to the man outside his office before he looked at my friends and then me. "Try not to act like hooligans while I'm gone." His eyes said his statement was directly aimed at me. I felt my anger flare but Ben grabbed my arm and Karabo left his office shutting the door.

"I'm going to –"

"You're not going to do anything." Tamia cut me off, "Eli, look at this from his point of view. We not only embarrassed him, we put him in a really tough position. He's going to have to convince his pack that we're not here to hurt anyone. How long do you think it's going to take for them to trust us – specifically you – after we attacked some of their own on THEIR territory during a 'friendly visit'?" She asked.

I sighed leaning back against his desk.

"It should be easy to convince them, he is their Alpha." I shrugged.

"You're being really selfish." She glared at me.

I looked at Ashton and Ben to see if they agreed with her.

"Don't look at me. I'm torn." Ashton shrugged. "Tamia's right, but they were rude to us. I don't regret anything," he said.

I looked back at my sister, her glare was now aimed at her mate and I frowned.

Fine. She was right. We had been really selfish. They were rude to us, but we had been unknown wolves on their territory, they had every right to be unhappy and unsettled by our presence and I knew that when I decided to fight them. Now Karabo had to deal with fixing things between us and his pack.

I suddenly felt like an asshole for putting him in that position.

"I'll be back."

I walked out of the office and began making my way through Karabo's house. He did not live in a packhouse so did not share a house with his entire pack, my pack was the same way. He lived alone in a two-story house not far from his Beta's home. I had not even met his Beta yet. He had pointed out the house when we passed by it earlier.

Noise, more than our pull, led me down the hall and into the living room where we had first come in through to find one of the men I beat up – the one that had spoken to us – and someone I had not seen before. The familiar man instantly glared at me, clearly tensing up slightly as I walked in and I raised my hands in surrender.

"I'm sorry." His glare melted into surprise as his body relaxed. "I'll admit that I was wrong and I am sorry, you had every right to react to us the way you did and I should have understood that," I said reaching my hand towards him.

"Apology accepted... I'm Vince." He said. I smiled as he shook my hand.

"Eli, Alpha of the Galaxy pack." I introduced myself.

"Galaxy?" The man I had not seen before asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"Levi. Army Delta. Why are you here, if not to fight?" His question caught me by surprise. Did Karabo not tell them that I was his mate?

The door opened and I watched as Karabo, the man from earlier and their Beta walked in. I could sense that his power was higher than everyone in the room except Karabo's so I assumed that he was their Beta. My power couldn't really be felt as my pack used magic to hide our strength, but it was easy to see that I was an Alpha.

"Eli," Karabo said as his concerned eyes fell on me before he looked at Levi and Vince.

"We're fine," Vince explained.

"Oh." Karabo smiled at me, instantly making me happy that I had apologised.

"You didn't tell me he's an Alpha." The Beta stared at me surprised.

"Didn't I...? Really? Oh. Must have... slipped my mind." I watched Karabo pretend to have forgotten that fact as he rubbed his arm while his Beta still seemed completely surprised.

"How can you be mated to an Alpha? It makes no sense. Is he joining our pack?" Wait...

"Mate? I'm so sorry." Vince gave a sight bow and I grabbed his shoulder.

"Don't. I was wrong." I glanced at Karabo and smiled seeing him grin at Vince. Seeing him happy made me so glad until I remembered what bothered me.

"You didn't tell them I'm your mate?" I asked.

"Well, one step at a time, Eli. It was late last night, and we had work this –" He was cut off by the door and I smiled seeing the older kid I had met at the beach stumble into the house rather energetically.

"Alph – Eli!"

"Hey, Kevin." I greeted him with a fist bump.

"You know each other?" Karabo looked at me.

"Just met him and George at the beach yesterday." I explained.

"Alright. Kevin, you can't be here, we're working." I looked at Karabo questioningly and he linked to me telling me Kevin was over quite often because he lived next door.

"I know, but you have to see this video!"

"A video. Kevin, come on. Don't you have to get to school?" The Beta speaking made me realise that I still did not know his name.

"Wait, just watch it, Beta." I leaned against Karabo as Kevin held the phone up in front of him and their Beta and felt my mate tense against me. I chuckled lifting my hand to his waist but he shoved me away from him making me laugh.

'Do I make you nervous?' I linked to him.

'Shut up.' he linked to me.

I chuckled still amused by his reaction as I looked at the phone. It was just a YouTube video. I watched some guy sit down and begin ranting about the existence of werewolves. He didn't look bad, he was actually quite handsome for someone I was sure spent most of his life in his parent's basement.

"Kevin, we have work to do. What is this?" Karabo asked unimpressed by what he was seeing as he looked at the teenager.

"Wait for it, look."

I watched as the guy began explaining that he had been working really hard on a secret project but now had enough information to make it public, and I furrowed my brows as he began talking about how he had found real-life werewolves and had proof of our existence.

"Werewolves? He's insane." Karabo's Beta joked and we chuckled agreeing.

We watched for a little longer until it ended with him promising to share his proof that werewolves were not just fictional creatures from books like everyone thought.

After the video came to an end Kevin tapped to have a look at the stats and comments. I noticed there were only seventeen thousand views with just a few comments, most of which were people teasing him for being a grown man with a werewolf obsession. And telling him he needed to stop watching and reading so much material about the imaginary creatures

"Don't worry about it, Kevin. No one's going to believe anything he says." The Beta pat Kevin's shoulder.

"But they do. Quite a few people do on other platforms, and they're agreeing. Some people say they've seen werewolves too."

"They're probably just messing with him and if they aren't and they have seen werewolves, there's no way they can prove it. There's no way he can." I said. Karabo nodded.

"If he gets anything on tape, it'll be written off as really good editing, at most people will think he's just trying to go viral to market his CGI skills."

"Yes, but you guys always say it's better to be safe than sorry. We tracked his IP address and he actually lives really close to Galaxy."

"My pack?" I asked.

"Oh, yeah. Yes, Galaxy."

"Don't you have a test tomorrow?" Vince spoke. "Why are you watching YouTube videos?"

"Educational purposes." I chuckled as Kevin disappeared when he sped-ran away from us before Vince could push further and the door shut once he was out.

"You're his father?" I asked Vince.

"No, he's in my son's class."

"Alright, let's get going. Wait – Uh, Eli, my Beta, Richard. Richard, Eli. He's the Alpha of the Galaxy pack."

"And your mate." Richard grinned.

"Yes, that too." Karabo nodded. I chuckled at how awkward he seemed when stating that.

"So you're staying here?" Levi said.

"I think so, just for the week," I said looking at my mate who had no initial reaction as he seemed to be linking to Richard.

"What do you mean just for the week?" Levi questioned.

"We're going home." That caught Karabo's attention.

"Home?" He asked turning to me. I paused instead of answering the question because it made me wonder how I could leave him, even being away from him the previous night had left me unable to sleep for most of it.

"So... if you two don't mind me asking, are you moving here?" Levi asked when Karabo's question had gone unanswered for a few minutes.

"Us?" I tilted my head confused, "Of course not. You're moving."

"What?" Karabo asked.

"You have to move. From what I've already seen, my pack is three times bigger than yours is. Naturally, if we merge you join my pack."

"No." Karabo shook his head, "Not 'naturally.' You'll be moving here if we merge, there's more forest area."

"Your pack is weaker than mine is," I said.

"Your pack is problematic." He frowned.

"What?"

"The last time my pack had a run-in with anyone was before my father was even born. In that time Galaxy has had what, fifty wars?"

"Because we're strong."

"Because you're reckless."

"No, because we are seen as a threat. We don't start fights, we end them but Letsela wouldn't even last a day in a fight, would you?"

"Do you have food?" My head turned to the hallway opening as Ben walked in. "You two are becoming annoying." He added with a frown. How long had they been out of the office? I looked back at our mate and we just frowned at each other before he pointed to the kitchen.

"Help yourself, I have work to do."

"Work? You mean making friendship bracelets for your surrounding packs?" I asked sarcastically. What work could a pack that had no battles possibly have to do?

"If I was, at least it wouldn't be tombstones for the wolves we lost in unnecessary battle." He glared at me.

"Of course not, ass-kissers like you don't fight, you polish armour." I sneered.

He growled and I felt a hand on my chest shove me back. I had not even realised that Karabo and I had begun to advance towards each other, but Ashton pushing us caused us both to take a couple of steps back.

"Get some food." Ashton said to me, "You get to work." He said to Karabo.

Karabo looked past Ashton as he pushed the hand from his chest, his eyes still narrowed at me.

"If you're anything to go by, your pack is ridiculous and not one we would even consider merging with."

Before I could reply Richard spoke up. "Alpha, let's go."

Karabo and I glared at each other once more before he disappeared from his house, the door opening and shutting in less than a split second because of his speed. I grit my teeth glaring towards it.

"Well... It's clear that you're both Alphas." Levi said uneasily before he smiled at me, "Make yourselves at home, we'll be back later."

"Alright." He left and Vince and Levi followed.

"What was that?" Ashton looked at me.

"Doesn't matter," I muttered walking towards the kitchen before I stopped in the hall. The book Snoop stated that a lot can be learnt about people judging from even mundane things in their living spaces... What could I learn about Karabo? I smiled as I began making my way down the hall.

"Eli, what are you doing?" I heard my sister question from behind me.

"Getting to know my mate."

"You're going to snoop through his things?"

"Basically."

I heard her sigh in defeat before she walked into the kitchen with our friends while I made my way into the first room I saw.

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