The Alpha & Beta's Regret
The Alpha & Beta’s Regret – Chapter 110

Rafe POV

He and Jack could both feel that the boys were on the move out in the pack, they were moving at a fair amount of speed, racing around all over the place near the Forest Creek House, only took them a minute to realise it was likely Astral and Spark not the boys.

He’d been going to mind-link Luci about it, but could feel after a moment that she was with them, or Kali, he supposed. So he had opted not to, she had to be able to move about the pack freely, without he or Jack asking what was going on. They had to try and give her some space, she’d only been here for three and a half days.

Likely she was feeling smothered by them as well, with the amount of times they saw her, or mind-linked to her. He didn’t think she would take the boys off pack territory. She knew that Victor’s men could still be out there looking for her. Reporting back to Victor anything and everything, or trying to snatch her or the boys for him.

He and Jack were in a war meeting with West, Bradley, and Cooper. Luna Jo-anne had opted not to attend, and had stated she had her own things to deal with while here. She needed to call her mother about something and had gone up to her room. Had looked unhappy to him, quite pensive he’d thought.

West had assured him she was fine, just dealing with her own personal things. Rafe had gotten the impression that it was what Hannah and her sisters had told her about herself, or something to do with the answers to her questions she’d gone off on her own to get. He’d left it alone. She was a Luna and not really interested in the planning of the war and had said as much.

Had her own agenda now, it seemed, one likely to do with his witches.

Terence had yet to return from taking Addi to her lake. She had told him and Jack where it was so that they knew where she was going. A good thing and not that far from here, only half a day’s drive. That settled Jack.

Their war room was up on the third floor, it had a more detailed map of Victor’s pack laid out on the large table. Orien had sent them an email this morning, not only with the man’s layout, but information on the man’s packhouse, where things were inside it. Where he housed his elite warriors and regular warriors, had an itemised list of all the things he thought they should know about Victor’s pack. Had been more than helpful.

He had also contacted several of the smaller packs that he knew Victor was allied to and posed the question of if they wanted out of an alliance with the man. He had told them he wanted out and knew war was going to be taken to Victor by a larger pack than Victor’s. That if they wanted out, now was the time to do so. They didn’t need to sever ties with Victor or do anything other than be ready to assist in the war when it came. He’d sent Rafe and Jack a copy of the email he’d sent so they could see which packs they were.

It was a massive risk that Orien was taking. Any of those packs could forward that email onto Victor himself and then Nightfall would be up for the slaughtering in a matter of hours. He’d put a very brief call to the man this morning after getting that email, just to see if he was alive. He was alive and the pack unharmed. He had stated he’d chosen packs for that email very carefully. He didn’t think a single one of them would out him to Victor and so far so good, no contact with them yet likely they were weighing up the options, they would all see his pack attached to that email and realized which pack was taking war to Victor.

They were going to talk to Luci about Orien later on this afternoon, and his willingness to help them, when she came to pick up the boys. He and Jack had decided that now that Thatcher was not in Nightfall and his safety not threatened, they could actually inform her of exactly what was going on. Didn’t need to keep that from her, she now wouldn’t go rushing off to help Thatcher. Also, it would show her that Orien was at her side in all this, something he was sure was going to shock her completely, but likely deep down inside of her, since the man had raised her, make her feel a little better; she had been his daughter for 18 years.

Jack had brought a detailed map of the area around Victor’s pack. There were two abandoned pack territories out there. Though none of them believed they were empty, likely being so close to Victor, it was where he was housing his rogues. One on the north east of his pack and the other just to the south of it. Good places for him to store back up.

They also had the number of Warriors now, and how many Victor would leave inside his pack when off to battle was 150. Their total was 950 and Victor was sitting on 500, or at least that was before he’d attacked them. Orien had informed them, but for all Rafe knew, those he’d brought with him that day could have been rogues.

West and Bradley didn’t think so, not after hearing about how they were trained, didn’t think it was possible for anyone to train up large groups of rogues in such a manner. They’d need to be pack members to train like that, because that was intensive training, which would likely take years as well.

Hannah confirmed for him 69 dead on Victor’s side that day. When he asked her that question, he needed to know numbers. She’d know how many she’d blipped away. So, if they were correct, Victor only now had 430 dedicated warriors. That was good for them.

Though they still had no idea just how many rogues the man could pull to him at any given minute, he needed recon on those two packs, couldn’t use Orien even though he was the closest. Victor’s men inside Nightfall would report it.

Looked at where those packs were and asked Jack to go and contact the council, to get any information about those destroyed packs. Jack had nodded and gone off to do so while the rest of them talked more about strategy. Rafe was looking to use Victor’s own strategy against him, knew that the man sent in wave after wave of wolves, would surround the pack he was attacking and never went in himself, unless he was sure he was getting in undetected.

He was looking at the man’s borders, assessing where it was best to put his men. Brad thought it was best to have eight or nine units of a hundred warriors each all coming in at the same time from all over the place. Make Victor’s warriors scatter to different places, reducing the numbers of defending wolves in each area. If he only had 430, that would be 50 or so to each area. They’d be outnumbered 2 to 1. It was a good plan, he thought. West also agreed. Though he wanted 3 to 1 odds, reducing the risk to their own wolves.

Cooper touched that pool that was situated under the packhouse, “What’s it for?”

“Don’t know.” Rafe shook his head, though thought about it. “What if he built it for Luci?” He voiced.

“Built it long ago, Orien said it’s been there for ages, right, in that email.” West commented with a shake of his head. Didn’t think that was it.

Rafe checked the email “18 years ago.” He told them.

“You don’t think he’s been planning this all that time?” Bradley frowned deeply.

“Surely not. No one even knew about Luci until just a few weeks ago. Officially only a few days ago. When Addi told us, she stated she’d never told Orien about Luci’s linage.”

Again they were all silent.

“You said he came prepared, knows about Sirens.” Cooper touched the pool again.

“Yes.” Rafe sighed as he understood “You think he has a Siren already. That’s where it lives.”

“Yes, 18 years and under the packhouse. Addison said the cells were under that packhouse, but Orien puts them out here in the woods,” he touched the place indicated by Orien to the north of the packhouse.

“So under the packhouse is something else altogether.” West murmured “What?”

No one knew the answer to that. “If that man has a Siren, that would account for his knowledge and that pool. That creature likely has full roam of his pack at will, but would mostly stay in Siren form, if it’s a full-blooded Siren.”

“Lets keep that in mind.” Brad nodded “Fighting a Siren will not be easy. And none of us have that hearing protection.”

“No.” Rafe agreed, “but I have a couple of teachers working on that.”

“A good idea, will need a lot for our men.”

“Or we could just send Luci in, Siren to Siren.” Cooper voiced.

Rafe frowned now at the man. “I’d rather her not go in at all.”

“Hmm.” It was West. “But she wants to. I don’t think you’ll be able to stop her either. I wouldn’t try to, Wolf, Witch and Siren. You might replace yourself on the receiving end and that could leave this pack without its Alpha.”

Rafe huffed the man was not wrong, “Let’s see if we can replace out if he has a Siren first.”

“Who has a Siren?” Jack asked, walking back into the room.

“Victor.”

“That would explain a lot why he has so much knowledge about them.” he put a sticky note on both the abandoned packs. One had just over a hundred rogues in it, “Trying to assimilate themselves back to wolfen society,” he stated, “Victor is watching them for the council.” Shook his head they all understood that, likely his band of rogues. The other had empty written on it, “Nothing there as far as the council is aware of.”

“So his help will come from the north-east and number a hundred.”

“That puts his men at 530,” Rafe sighed. This was not going to be a bloodless battle, many lives were likely going to be lost.

“What if we take the rogues out first, get rid of them or make them scatter out east away from Victor, so he’s got no back up.” Jack commented.

“A good plan,” West agreed.

“I heard back from our recon unit Rafe, yes there are rogues up north watching that road in.”

“So Victor is watching everyway in and out, waiting for us to make a move, while he’s planning who knows what down there.”

“Yes. Likely, we need to take them out before we do anything else.” Jack nodded.

“It’ll have to be an in-sync mission attack, all of them at the same time, so we need to scout them all out first.”

“That might be harder than you think now.” Bradley stated “We took out that lot that took to us. Likely, they all have to check in and when that group doesn’t he’ll call everyone and move them. It’s what I’d do.”

They took a break for lunch and Allen headed off to go and get the boys. He was a little disappointed that Luci wouldn’t come and spend time with them, but couldn’t blame her, didn’t try to reconnect with her when she’d shut him out, knew she was still trying to cope with being here inside the pack. Knew she needed time and space.

Though feeling both his boys suddenly bolt across the pack gained his undivided attention, he saw Jack look right at him a little worriedly. Rafe connected to Allen. He could feel that man tracking them, ‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m not going to catch them,’ Allen told him. ‘Are all excitedly tracking Terence in his helicopter as it comes in.’

He and Jack both visually relaxed. They were just fine, just excited, it seemed ‘Astral and Spark?’ he asked.

‘No, just little Rafe and Jack on foot. Bloody fast Alpha, out running me the pair of them, using their full Siren Wolf speed.’

He could only smile at that so fast even now, at just six, he was curious if he’d be able to catch them at that rate. ‘Does Luci know?’

‘Yes, wished me good luck, full of amusement even.’

Both he and Jack chuckled now, it seemed not even Luci thought Allen was going to be able to catch them, thought it was funny as well. That was good she was happy today. He liked hearing that she was happy.

‘Keep them on the ground.’ He chuckled softly before closing out the mind-link.