Alpha Black
Chapter 22 - Crumbling Walls

Alice Forrest

Jamie shoved me through the doors of the Pack house into Patricia’s waiting arms, “Go Alice, for fucks sake stay out of trouble.” The kind and lovely look in his eyes that I had grown to know had vanished, he was no longer the goofy best friend of my mate, but was the Beta of a pack, a warrior doing his duty, protecting those who depended on him.

I turned around to watch, as Jamie gingerly bounded down the front steps of the house to the line of wolves who had shifted, awaiting the command of someone, most likely Jamie or Nathaniel.

Jamie turned to look at me, as he tied his long blonde hair into a pony tail, he smiled sweetly, before saying “run.” It was like time had slowed.

Patricia slammed the front door closed, hitting a red button to the side. Metal arms slid across the door, bolting it closed and metal shuttered blocked in the lights on the lower floor, the lights changed colours, the building was once a well lit and warm place was now filled with red blinking lights and ruthless metal.

Patricia grabbed my hand and dragged me down a hallway in the opposite direction to everyone else, “where are we going?” I yelled over the sound of glass shattering somewhere in the building. I was secretly worried that Patricia would betray me and lead me into the arms of who ever was attacking us.

“The Alpha and Luna’s chambers have a personal safe room under it, it’s different to the one that everyone else is staying in.”

“How?”

“Only the Alpha and Luna can get it. There is no way that anyone but you or Nate could get in.”

“But I’m not even a pack member!” I hissed.

“He put you in the system already,” she said rolling her eyes and ripping a painting off the wall, “my brother does not muck around when it comes to you, Alice. I thought you would know this already.”

The painting fell to the floor, displaying the doorway hidden behind it. Patricia forced my hand onto the pad and the door swiftly popped open, Patricia shoving me inside and then following. “There are three security doors, go through and open them,” she sighed leaning her head on the closed door.

“Are you okay?” I asked, opening the second door.

Patricia looked up at me, “Yeah, I just can’t believe how quickly they got here. I’m not even sure we’ve had an attack this far from the pack boundary, let alone in the city.”

I held my hand out to Patricia, “thank you for staying with me,” I said as she took my hand and I gave it a light squeeze.

* * * * * * * * * *

We sat quietly, locked behind doors and walls lined with silver. This was no safe room, this was an impenetrable box, tucked beneath the Family suite and rooms above. The small kitchen was stocked with food, yet neither of us felt hungry as the ground shook and I dared not to ask Patricia what was happening outside of the four walls that kept us safe.

She eventually drifted off to sleep, curled up next to me on the large bed and I stroked her hair, running my fingers through the loose curls. Despite only having really met her a couple times and her being five years younger than me, I felt a deep connection to Patricia growing, she felt like the little sister I never had.

I wished more than anything, that I had my phone on me, so I could mindlessly scroll through social media, maybe watch some adorable baby animals doing something innocent and cute to pass the time, but alas, I was left to my own thoughts whirling through my mind.

The thought of Nathaniel being dead up stairs sent a shiver down my spine, yet something in the back of my mind was at ease, told me not to worry. So I couldn’t help it when I found myself snuggling up to Patricia and drifting asleep too.

* * * * * * * * * *

Blood trickled down his head and I leapt up off the bed, I tried to call out his name, but I no sound left my mouth, I tried to scream. Yet there was only a loud buzzing left, filling the air around us, the sound was somehow thick and clammy, I felt like I was swimming.

Nathaniel’s mouth opened and a mouthful of blood spewed onto the floor, running down his chin and dripping onto his shirt. This was when I noticed the stake that protruded through his chest. “Why didn’t you protect me?” he asked, collapsing on the floor.

I tried to run to him, to comfort him, to tell him that I was sorry… That I loved him, but I couldn’t move. A dark figure stepped out from the shadows and I tried to scream again, but it was me. I cocked my head, my eyes were lifeless and cold and yet I offered a wicked smile, she – I, opened my mouth, when I suddenly awoke.

Nathaniel’s green eyes stared down at me, fully of worry. I sat up, my head nearly colliding with his own, I ran my hand down his chest, there was no stake protruding from him. He offered me a weak smile, his eyes softening and there was not a scratch on him, no coughing up blood, no new scars from what I could see.

It was just a nightmare.

I dove into his chest and buried my face in his shoulder, taken aback by the action, his arms eventually wrapped around my, his hands soothing running down my spine. “It’s okay,” he murmured, kissed the top of my head.

“I saw you die,” I sobbed, unable to control the wash of emotions taking over me.

“I’m not that easy to kiss,” he whispered, now stroking my hair. “I’m sorry I didn’t come down and see you sooner, I was organising the clean up and getting those injured to the hospital.

I peaked up from his shoulder and looked at him, “is this my fault?” I asked, wondering if this was all somehow my fault, if they were here to get me, to hurt him.

“No, my darling, it’s not your fault,” he reassured me, “we only lost two men today, a fair few are injured and exhausted, but they will be fine.”

“You went up against so many rouges and, and, you’re fine?”

“Not a scratch, my darling, we took some captives, but most of the rouges were killed. They may have had a good fifty in number, but we have over three hundred warriors alone here. They were out numbered five to one.”

I looked in awe at my mate, who had some how so effectively delt with an attack of such magnitude. “I was so afraid, I couldn’t ask you what was going on,” I admitted.

Nathaniel looked at me and tugged me closer to him, to the point that I was pretty much sitting on his lap. At this point I noticed that Patricia was gone, but I didn’t mind.

“It’s a fully moon in three nights, I can introduce you to the pack as the Luna, you can become a pack member, you’ll be able to communicate with me and everyone else in the pack. Would you like that?”

I nodded, I hated to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t had Patricia with me and the attack had happened. I wouldn’t have known where to go, what to do. I would have likely walked into the middle of a battle looking for Nathaniel, something that could have killed him, or myself. Potentially both of us. I nodded, “Okay.”

Nathaniel carefully pulled me out of the bed and we walked up the stairs and out the doors of the safe room. The red lights had stopped, and the metal doors and window shutters had disappeared back into the building half of the windows were broken and glass was being swept up off the floor. He glowed in the moon light as we walked past the tall, skinny windows, my hand happily clasped in his.

Pack members scurried around the building despite the late hour, the glass and rubble was being swept from the floor, the blood mopped and broken furniture removed from the building.

I saw Jamie stand in the foyer, a poor nurse trying to patch up a deep claw wound on his back as he commanded the people around him. I tugged on Nathaniel’s hand, “Is he okay?”

“Yeah,” Nathaniel nodded, “I just told him to finish things up with the clean up, I needed to make sure you were okay.”

“I mean his back Nate, look at him.”

“He’ll be fine in a couple hours, come on,” and he pulled me out the front doors.

The city glowed in the moon light, under different circumstances I’m sure it would have been a marvelous view. The white foot paths seemed to sparkle in the moonlight, with the street lights creating a consistent ambiance of cool, white light, even the trees seemed to shimmer.

But the white foot paths and the smooth roads were tainted with blood. Their was a pile of bodies being stacked in the middle of the street and half of the buildings on the street that connected the entrance to the pack house were crumbling.

Nathaniel paused and looked at me as I absorbed the catastrophe before me, the aftermath of a battle.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.

“What are you talking about my love, you have nothing to apologies for,” he smiled sweetly, in a way that seemed to warm me from the inside out.

“I’m sorry that your pack has to go through this, who did this?”

A cold gleam flashed in his eyes, “that is a great question my love, one I hope to discover quickly.”

“So you don’t know?” I asked, resuming the walk down the stairs, where I was met with the rich smell of blood and water, as a woman began washing down the footpath.

“Alpha,” the lady nodded, stepping out of our way as Nathaniel led me down the street, I could feel the woman’s gaze burning into the back of my head.

“I have my hunches, my love,” he purred. He opened the passenger seat of a black car, “get in.”

“We’re not going back to your house?”

“Our house,” he corrected.

I rolled my eyes, “our house, are we not going back to our house?” I asked again as I got into the car, sinking into the rich leather seats.

“No,” he said and closed the door, quickly walking around to the driver’s side and wasting no time starting the car and pulling away from the pack house.

“Where are we going then?”

“You’re going to stay with my parents for a little bit.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Nathaniel, do not treat me like a child. I came here willingly to be our equal and you will treat me as such. You will tell me what is going on and you will do it now.”

A deep chuckle reverberated from his chest and a sly smirk formed on his lips, “or what?”

“That’s a good point,” I conceded, I undid my seat belt.

“Wait, what are you doing?” he asked, his eyes darting desperately between me and the road as he slowed the car down.

“I’ll jump out of the car,” I shrugged, reaching slowly for the door handle hoping to call his bluff.

“You wouldn’t,” he challenged.

“Are you willing to risk it?”

“Fuck, no.”

He conceded and I smiled, “tell me why then.”

“Put your fucking seat belt on first, Alice,”

I smiled wickedly, and clipped the seat belt back in, “what is going on?”

Nathaniel sucked on his teeth for a minute before answering, “one of my uncles is trying to over throw me. He believes me unfit to rule the pack, actually be believes that my father’s blood line is unfit to rule the pack and he’s been trying to cause an uprising.”

“Is that why you left for a week after your brother said something to you when I met your family?”

“You don’t miss much, do you?” he chuckled. “But yes, that is why I was gone, I was trying to snuff out the rouges who were planning an attack, this must have been the last of their forces.”

“If they were trying to get to you, why didn’t they come after me?” I asked, “or did they?”

“They don’t know about you, not yet.”

“Why?”

“There is rumour, but nothing more. No one is allowed to spread word of the Luna, or an Alpha until they’re introduced to the pack, at which point there is no point for spreading any rumours because you’re introduced to the whole pack anyway.”

“So after Saturday night I might become the focus of attacks.”

“That is a possibility,” he growled.

“So why am I staying with your parents?” I asked.

“I need to replace out how the rouges got so far into the pack. I need Jamie to take up my role seriously while I’m gone, I need you somewhere with someone I can trust, where I know you’ll be safe.”

“How long will you be gone?” I asked, my mind flashing to him leaving for a week, “you only just got back.”

He smiled and glanced at me again, “Do not worry my love, I will be back Saturday night, I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Pet and my mother to ensure everything is ready for then.”

He turned off the asphalted road and onto a gravel driveway that caressed it’s way romantically up the side of a small hill, the suburban street quickly changed into tall pine trees until we drove into a clearing where a stylish contemporary home sat perched in a quarry.

Nathaniel pulled up in front of the house and switched the car off, leaving the head lights going, “I love you, my dear,” he said, running his hand over my cheek and brushing strands of hair away from my face.

“I know,” I smiled, cupping his hand in mine and leaning into his touch.

He leaned in and kissed me passionately.