Page 12 of The Alpha's Pen Pal

“Wesley! Sebastian!” he grunted, displeased with our early morning horseplay and destruction. “What have I said about roughhousing inside the packhouse?”

“To not do it near the furniture?” Sebastian supplied, trying to keep his face serious.

Dad’s lips twitched, but his face remained stoic and his voice stayed calm.

“Twenty laps around the field!” His arm gestured behind him, his finger pointing us in the direction of the training grounds.

Sebastian and I both groaned exaggeratedly, my head tilting back to look at the ceiling.

“Daaaaad….” Sebastian whined, but Dad cut him off.

“I could make it forty?” Dad asked with a raised brow. “And until training is over, you will address me as Alpha or Alpha Stone or Alpha Harrison or Sir. Understood?” We both grumbled out a response. “I said, understood?!”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, and at the same time Sebastian said, “Yes, Alpha.”

We made our way past him and through the doorway, and Reid snickered behind us.

“Suckers!” he whispered, but of course, since we’re shifters, everyone heard him.

“Reid, you can join them,” Dad ordered without missing a beat.

“Aww, come on, Alpha. I didn’t even do anything!” Reid complained.

But he scooted his chair back, anyway. He knew he’d never get out of it. My dad never let him off the hook for anything.

“It’s only seven in the morning. I’m sure by the end of the day, you’ll have caused some sort of trouble. I’m just saving precious time by disciplining you beforehand instead of waiting for it to happen.” Dad shrugged, his arms crossing over his chest as he waited for the three of us to begin our laps.

“Go on! I don’t have all fu—all day!” He stopped himself from swearing as my mom walked up behind him, coming to check what all the commotion was about.

As we took off at a steady pace, he melted in my mom’s presence, his muscular arms plucking Maddie out of our mom’s arms with ease. He snuggled her against his chest as he talked to my mother.

It surprised me that Madeleine ever learned how to walk with how much my dad carried her around everywhere.Spoiled little pack princess,I thought with a roll of my eyes. Dad would never punishherwith twenty laps for breaking a chair.

We continued our steady pace as we ran, and I slowed myself down so Reid and Sebastian could keep up with me. My eyes scanned our surroundings, as my dad had been training me to do.

I already had exceptional senses, and they would only improve when my lycan developed in a year or so. Most shifters had their first shift at around fourteen, but since I was of alpha blood, I would shift for the first time at thirteen.

I could see Nolan working on his drills with my dad and his dad, Felix Shepard, the pack’s gamma. I could smell the border patrol members hidden among the trees and posted at various intervals along the edge of our territory. But someone was missing.

“Where’s your dad?” I asked Reid between breaths, my head turning to glance at him.

His mouth tightened into a thin line, his eyes darkening for a split second before his expression turned back to normal. Most people wouldn’t have caught the change, but I’d learned how to read him over the years, so I did.

He finally looked at me and said, “He’s still asleep.” Then he turned his face forward and sped up, ending our conversation.

I frowned to myself, but I didn’t let Reid see or push the issue with him. He didn’t like people to feel sorry for him or pity him because of what happened.

Even so, I think part of the reason he seemed to get away with his shenanigans so often was because people knew about his situation, so they overlooked his troublemaking.

His mom, Stephanie, died when we were nine, and his dad hadn’t taken it well. He had good days and bad days. The bad days outnumbered the good days most of the time.

In other packs, Brad would have been replaced as beta. But between Gamma Felix and my dad’s delta, Sullivan, the work got covered when needed, and none of them complained or said a word to Brad about it. They just took care of it. Took care of him. Because that’s what best friends did.

It bothered Reid, though, that his dad missed out on so much of his success, even though he said nothing to me about it. He was always scanning the crowd at various school events or at our football games, and there was always a glint of disappointment in his eyes. But he would just steel himself and turn his attention back to the task at hand, pretending everything was fine.

It was a warm day for November, so our twenty laps took much longer than normal. By the end of the run, it felt more like we ran the forty laps my dad threatened us with when Sebastian complained.

We sprinted the last bit to the middle of the field, where my dad, Gamma Felix, Delta Sullivan, and Nolan all waited for us. Nolan sat on the ground with a smirk, doing his cool-down stretches, since he already finished training while the three of us ran.

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