The Alpha Queen And Her Chosen Mate
Chapter 37

Jonas

I got up extra early the next morning, relieving Thorin at least an hour before I was actually supposed to. We were predators, we hardly needed to keep watch. So as soon as I heard the walking muscle fall asleep, his breathing evening out, I grabbed a few of my things and set out in the hopes of replaceing another Mapinguari. Or anything else just as rare. This was groundbreaking information. The more information I could get on the massive creatures, the better. I had at least three hours before anyone else would be up, maybe more if I was lucky. We did stop and made camp late last night.

I thought about bringing Kelly with me, but decided against it. Today was going to be a big day for her and she needed her rest. I would be careful, enough. Creeping through the rainforest, I was on high alert, making sure not to step on any snakes or run into any massive spider webs. It was tranquil, filled with only the sounds of nature. I was walking for almost twenty minutes before I smelled the putrid stench of the Mapinguaris. Following my nose, I came across not one, but eight of them. I found their nest! They have nests! This was amazing to see!

Frantically, I began jotting down all the notes I could take. There was only one class I took that mentioned these creatures, and about fifty others, that were all said to be just conjured up in folklore. Of course, so were we werewolves, so the class held some water for me, so to speak. It wouldn’t be a legend if it wasn’t real, right? It wouldn’t be passed down for generations if someone hadn’t actually seen it.

I watched closely for at least an hour. I was able to identify the males from the females, but only because I caught two of them mating. The females were slightly larger and had lighter tones to them. They surprised me with the food they ate. I would have expected them to eat mostly berries, but it looked like they were eating meat. There were two babies among the group. They seemed a little rough towards each other. It made me wonder about the older ones. We were taught that they were highly aggressive, but so far, the only real aggressiveness I had seen was between the two that were mating. And that might be considered normal for them.

I took a few extra steps forward, now crouched down right at the edge of their nest. The little ones, which weren’t all that little, got into a full-on brawl and were tumbling my way. I tried to quickly move out of the way, but was taken down by them. Their skin was hard, nearly impenetrable if I had to guess. Their faces lit up in surprise and they quickly ran back to their parents who were looking at me with murder in their eyes. It was then that I realized that I f****d up.

– – – – – – – – –

Kelly

“Where is pup?” Thorin asked gruffly. “He was supposed to keep watch.”

“I don’t know.” I huffed. “I told him not to go out alone.”

“Hopefully he will be back soon. The flower should only be half a day away now.” Emmett said, trying to encourage me.

“Why don’t we start getting ready and packing up? As soon as he comes back, we can leave.” I suggested.

Emmett and Thorin agreed and began packing their bags. I decided to get ready while they did that, having been the last one up this morning. I slept in quite late, or so it felt. Keres has been mouthing off all morning and even tried to push forward once. I guess I should make my double dose a triple today. Maybe I would tell Emmett about them not working so well after all.

“Woah-youre taking three pills?” Emmett asked, stopping me from downing them.

“Yeah…” I winced. Trying not to look as guilty as I felt. “She has been trying to push forward more lately.”

“Huh…probably from all the sweating. You are burning it off faster.” he said.

“She almost came forward at my ceremony with Derek too..” I sheepishly admitted.

“That is not as surprising, there were a lot of high emotions that day.” He said. “The stress of it all and your feelings could have encouraged her forward.”

“Me?” I asked. “I could have almost caused her to come forward? I thought the pills prevented it.”

“They prevent her from taking over. But you can still shift, you might have unknowingly tried to bring her forward, fighting against the medicine.” He said. “We can figure it out more when we get home. For now, I agree you should double or triple the dose. I believe I packed enough extra to make it through our trip, even with you taking more at a time.”

“Thanks Emmett, you’re a life saver.” I laughed, reaching for my bottle of water.

“RUN!!” Jonas yelled, practically flying through the thick forest, panic in his face.

He knocked into me, yanking me along with him. I turned back for only a split second to see a group of ape-like creatures chasing after him. Oh, this was bad. I could hear Emmett and Thorin yelling at Jonas, just a few steps behind us. I tried to cap my pill bottle but was struggling to do so while running for my life. Especially when I looked forward again, and saw that we were about to jump over the waterfall at the edge of our camp.

“Jump!” Thorin yelled.

I hesitated a moment, trying once again to close the bottle, but Emmett, who was behind me, pushed me over the edge with him just before one of the beasts could take a swipe at me with its gnarly looking claws. My stomach flopped at the weighlessness that came with free falling, only to be greeted by the hard embrace of the water. It felt like I was hitting concrete. It probably would have been better if I had actually jumped on my own. I swam to the surface, taking a big gulp of air, coughing up some of the water I had accidently swallowed.

“They are jumping!! Swim!!” I heard Emmett yell.

I dared not to look back, but swam to the edge where Thorin and Jonas were helping Emmett out of the water, pill bottle still in hand, only now, it was filled only with water.

“You i***t!! Do you have any idea what you just did?!” I screamed at Jonas, shoving him back.

“Kelly, I’m sorry, I just-“

“No time, we must go!” Thorin yelled as the apes were swimming our way.

We high tailed it out of there, running for what felt like miles with the apes on our tails. The guys finally shifted, almost costing us our lives in our hurry to get our bags, but we were able to get away from them in our wolf form. My adrenaline was pumping as I rode on the back of Thorin’s wolf, Theo, with three backpacks on me.

We found a small cave at least an hour or two later, when we were sure that we had lost the ape creatures. That would give us some protection and time to regroup and figure out where the heck we were. I slid off of Theo, my back aching. I carefully slid the backpacks off my back, my back stinging as I did so.

“Ahh-” I winced.

“Kelly, I am so sorry, it was an accident, I didn’t mean to-” Jonas began apologizing.

“Get away from me Jonas.” I practically spat, moving further into the cave.

“You’re hurt.” Emmett said, moving my shirt, which had a big s***h through the back.

“One took a swipe at me when you guys were shifting. Is it bad?” I asked, trying to look over my shoulder.

“Its bad.” Thorin said, coming up with a first aid kit, handing it to Emmett.

“Kelly please, it was an accident-” Jonas continued to plead.

“You could have had us all killed!” I roared, turning to face him. “For what?! Some stupid monkeys?!” I could feel myself losing control. “You’ve damned us all either way!” I said, throwing my empty pill bottle at him.

“Why dont we all take a deep breath?” Emmett said in a calm voice, his hands raised, looking between Thorin and I. Thorin was already holding one of the electric cattle prods that he used to get Keres to back down. “Kelly, if you’ll take a seat, I can stitch you up while Thorin and Jonas go get some wood and dinner.” He suggested.

“I need a walk first.” I growled out, storming out of our cave. “Alone!” I yelled, having heard a few sets of footsteps following behind me.

I found an old, dead tree and began beating it senseless with my fists and knife. I needed to get some of my rage out without letting Keres out. I needed to calm down before going back there. How could this have happened? Everything was going so well!