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Chapter 11.
*****
*Corey*
It was early Saturday morning and I was in the gym supervising the kids’ training session. It had been days since we got the letter, we still hadn’t gotten another or experienced any kind of confrontation. Sean and I were considering that the letter was just a prank.
“Ah!” Sean clenched his teeth slightly from beside me hearing the painful yell, I would have too if I was him. Eli had punched Ashton square in the face before kicking him in the chest so that the young beta fell onto the mat out of breath.
It’s a good thing Izabella and Jayden stayed away from the young Alpha and Delta training sessions or they would have already killed us. If Izabella knew Sean was letting Ashton get hit the way he had just been, Sean would be banned from his own pack.
Ashton jumped back to his feet before going at Eli again. I tried not to react too much as my son fell back onto the mat after receiving a forceful knee in the gut from his best friend, despite his obvious pain, he got up just as quickly as he fell down. I smiled seeing the fire in his eyes as he launched at Ashton again.
Now, usually, the fight would have been over by now, my son being the winner – not by much but still, he won. Today though, Ashton wasn’t giving up. The reason? The other rooms of the gym were being cleaned out and the girls’ gymnastics team was right across the room, Tamia was in it. There was no way Ashton was letting her watch him get beat up without putting up a hard fight.
“Maybe we should get lunch?” Sean looked at me after checking his watch.
“I want lunch.” I looked down at Ben. Ben and Ashton were pretty much equal in levels of power, I tried not to make them fight often, it never ended until we called it a tie and forced them both to quit.
“Me too.” Gabriella frowned at us. I smiled patting the ten-year-old future Delta of security on her head.
“Lunch sounds nice.” I mumbled, “Maybe we should call it a tie?” I asked Sean.
“No!” Eli shouted as he tackled Ashton. I chuckled. He was incredibly competitive. I watched as he got onto Ashton’s back and swiftly twisted his friend’s arm. I wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing; I hadn’t seen him do it before and I certainly had not taught it to him. Sean seemed pretty surprised too.
Sean winced as we heard a sickening snap and my eyes widened. Okay, no more action movies for Eli.
“Oh shit!” Eli jumped off Ashton wide-eyed, “I-I’m so sorry!” His distraught eyes were stuck to his best friend’s broken arm. I made a mental note to reprimand Eli about his language later.
“That was so cool,” Ashton replied in a groan as one of our pack doctors ran up to the pair of boys. “Good fight.” He smiled up at Eli who laughed in agreement as he first-bumped the hand Ashton held up.
“His wrist is broken, Alpha.” The doctor looked at Sean.
‘I’m so dead.’ Sean swallowed as he linked to me. I lifted my hand and patted his shoulder sympathetically. Yeah, he was. We healed quickly as werewolves, but that was going to take more than a day so Izabella was definitely going to be seeing it and would be pissed.
“Ash?” I narrowed my eyes as Tamia ran over and knelt down beside him and suddenly Ashton seemed not to care about how much his wrist hurt as he smiled up at her widely.
“Tam, Eli, we’re leaving,” I said. Sean shot me a smirk and I cursed at him through our link because I couldn’t openly flip him off in front of all the kids and pack trainers around us.
“Actually, we’re getting lunch, Beta,” Sean said. “Well, after I get Ash fixed up.” He added.
“We’ll meet you in town,” I said. “Let’s go, guys!” I called to the twins.
“I want lunch!” One of the girls from the other side of the room called.
I chuckled. “Come on,” I said pulling my phone out to call for one of our pack’s busses.
—–
It was just past three in the afternoon when we returned with all the kids and teenagers we had left with in the morning. They were a massive handful for the few of us that had to take care of them but they all had a lot of fun so none of the adults minded. It was nice seeing our pack happy, mingling and spending time with the kids. Sean and I didn’t usually get to just hang out with our pack because of all our work so times like these were amazing.
After greeting all the kids, I grabbed my own and we began to head home.
“Papa?” I looked at Tamia when she tugged at my sleeve gently, trying to get my attention without making me drop the box of cakes we had brought back for Jayden.
“Yes?”
“Are you and Daddy still fighting?” I stopped in my tracks.
“What?”
“When Aunt Izzy dropped us at the house the other day,” Eli said. “We heard you yelling at each other.” It was unusual for me to see Eli looking worried, he usually tried to hide emotions like that and pretended to be tough because of his Alpha status.
“When you said Tammy was in the garden?” He nodded a response. Crap…
“Are… are you going to move away?” Tamia asked softly.
“What? No, of course not. Why would you think that?” I asked kneeling down so I was at her level.
“That’s what happens when people fight. You get tired of each other and don’t talk anymore and someone leaves.” Tamia replied.
“Yeah, isn’t that what happened with Grandma?” Eli added.
We had never told the twins what happened to Jayden’s father and instead always just changed the subject when anyone brought him up. It probably was not the best way to handle the situation but any mention of the man clearly made Jayden uneasy even though he tried to hide his initial response when the guy was brought up.
“How do you even know that?” I looked at them before shaking my head, “It doesn’t matter, no one’s leaving, I promise.”
They nodded and I sighed as I stood up. We walked the rest of the way home in silence while they linked to each other, I could easily have listened in but decided to give them their privacy; they obviously didn’t want me to hear them.
When we reached our house, I let Tamia run ahead to open the door but froze hearing a familiar laugh when the door was pushed open. No… No, no, no. There’s no way.
“Who are you?” Was the first thing that left Tamia’s mouth when she spotted the blonde woman on the couch talking to her dad as they had what looked like coffee.
I tensed as panic rose into my chest. What the fuck was she doing in our home?! With him!
“Oh, hey, Sweetie. You must be Tamia! You’re so pretty. I’m Carrie, an old friend of your Papa’s.” She smiled brushing some of Tamia’s curls from her face as my daughter glanced at me curiously, “And let me guess, you must be the amazing Eli –” Carrie reached out to touch Eli but he stepped back away from Carrie, grabbing Tamia’s arm to pull her with him.
“Don’t.” He said warningly. I had to stop myself from openly patting him on the back and grinning at him for his attitude. Jayden would kill me.
“Eli,” Jayden said, surprised by Eli’s behaviour.
Eli just glared at Carrie and moved further away from her to Jayden’s other side. I didn’t know why he was glaring at her and being so standoffish but I definitely didn’t mind his attitude towards her. Why was she in my house?
“Oh…” Carrie frowned at Eli, “Anyway,” her smile returned as she looked at Jayden, “As I was saying, I had to see some people before I came back here, and now that I’m here, I have nowhere to go.” She let out an embarrassed laugh that almost sounded real, “I guess I suck at planning these kinds of things.” She said giving me a smile that I didn’t return.
“You can stay here for a couple of nights, we don’t mind.” Jayden said, “That’s not a problem, right?” he looked at me. I wanted to tell him it was and he may have agreed in the moment, but eventually I would have to explain why it was a problem and that wasn’t something I could do.
Why did he have to suggest that? I absolutely hated his friendliness and helpfulness at that moment. I wanted to tell him she was bad news but couldn’t in a way that would not result in me looking just as bad.
“No, you can’t. I’m sorry, but the twins don’t really like having new people in the house.” I said to Carrie.
“What are you talking about?” Jayden asked confused, our kids loved new people.
‘She can’t stay.’ I linked to him.
‘She has nowhere else to go. You guys accepted her back into the pack, I’ve already asked Sean about it and he said she can stay.’ He linked back.
‘Then have her live at Sean’s house.’ I replied.
‘But she’s your friend, and you know Sean has constant guests. She can’t go anywhere else.’ Jayden frowned.
‘Homeless shelter in the city.’ I suggested.
He shot a death glare at me and I let out an aggravated sigh before looking at Carrie. Jayden was not going to budge.
‘What are you doing here?’ I knew Jayden couldn’t link to her because he wasn’t the same type of wolf and they were not mated.
‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell him if you don’t.’ She winked at me. Eli must have caught it because his eyes shot to me questioningly glance while still looking quite irritated. Tamia was caught up in linking to Jayden as she moved to wiggle onto the couch beside him.
‘She’s crazy.’ I linked to our son.
‘I thought so, she’s weird.’ I smiled at him and Jayden’s eyes shifted between us confused.
“So –” Carrie began but was cut off by my phone. I answered it quickly recognising the ringtone assigned to only one person.
“Alpha?” I spoke.
“Got another letter. Guess who it’s for?” Sean asked.
“No.” I said, “Seriously?” I groaned. Now the entire situation regarding the Phil pack was going to be on me. What the hell could I have done to some pack no one’s ever heard of before?
“Yeah, I’ll meet you in the office.”
“Now?” I frowned glancing at Jayden. I had just gotten home!
“Yes, now.” He said and I could practically see his eyes rolling at me. He hung up as I sighed dropping my hand to my side as I gave Jayden an apologetic smile. He chuckled understanding it completely.
“I have to get to work.” I sped over to Jayden and planted a quick kiss on his lips, “I love you. I’ll see you tonight, alright?” I said. He nodded grinning back at me.
We just kind of moved by the argument, we had a few more but we managed to let that go quite easily. Basically, we stopped because of the kids but both knew we would eventually end up arguing again.
“Can I come?” Eli asked, I looked at him before looking at Jayden to see his reaction, my mate shot me a glare: no. I fought not to roll my eyes. Jayden was so protective of Eli, if it was up to him our young Alpha would live encapsulated in a bubble.
“Soldier, Daddy says no.” I gave Jayden a smirk, now he had to deal with Eli.
‘You’re going to pay for that.’ He linked to me as he glanced at the not-too-happy little Alpha who stood at his side.
‘I might, but it is your fault, Babe.’ I replied in a link as I gave him another kiss. He gave a chuckle.
I stood up and saw Carrie watching us with a forced smile, I had almost forgotten she was there and shot her a narrow-eyed glance as I walked out. I had to think of a way to get her out of my house immediately.
*****
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