Page 101 of The Alpha and His Childhood Sweetheart

He winced and I knew he agreed. It was weird Melanie didn’t call me or the Gamma’s in this pack. My head began to pound, and I rubbed my temples discreetly. Rhea scoffed, “Are they really telling us her wolf’s color? Of course it’s brown. Beta children’s wolves have brown in their coat, always.” She was right.

I’m sure her wolf was beautiful. I just wanted to see her. My heart felt like it was broken. EJ was pissed and the bond told me his eyes were a second away from blazing gold. The McAlister’s were all blaming themselves.

I even saw Ben McAlister sitting on his porch with my grandpa. Both were drinking while Ben was crying. Rhea linked, “Why is mate confused about the mandate of no visitors from the school?” I admitted, “I’m not sure. Surely I told him, right?”

Rhea sighed, “We must not have. It was all very upsetting.” I frowned because EJ always knows when I’m upset, and that mandate pissed me off. I was in the gym for hours. Had Iforgotten to tell him other stuff? My headache was getting stronger. The whole situation was maddening.

My mind drifted back to that aftermath. Drake had called Melanie and told her to come home after that letter, but she begged him to let her stay. I wanted to know what type of paper that school used. All of us had a sneezing fit after we read it. Damn New York. Damn dancing arts school. Damn teachers and their damn dusty paper.

Drake was losing it, and I couldn’t blame him. Rhea groaned, “Here with go with everyone calming him down by saying ‘Melanie is fine.’ I may force a shift if I hear those words again.” I started thinking she was right. We said that a lot. Something pricked at my head, but the headache was pushing those thoughts away.

Without warning, EJ dropped to the ground screaming. Rhea growled in my head. I screamed. I grabbed onto him, looking around frantically. I asked, “DAD! What happened?!” Everyone looked stunned.

I begged my mate, “EJ?” He didn’t indicate he heard me. I pleaded, “EJ talk to me! Tell me what’s wrong?” Nothing had happened to me. Why was he down? Coldness filled me. Oh god. I ordered Tristan, “Call Black Mountain! It’s a Conners. One of the Conners is down!”

Before Tristan could dial, pain hit me like lightning. I shot back from EJ and went down myself. I thought it was through my bond with EJ, but he’d tamped that down tight. I screamed in pain while Rhea was howling in my head.

I heard other howls and managed to look around. To my shock, everyone was down. What the hell? EJ crawled over to me and held me. The pain went away in the next second. I linked Rhea, “Are you ok?” Rhea answered, “I don’t know. I do know that something very bad just happened.” I knew that. I just didn’t know what it was.

We had all managed to stand up when Alexander popped in. I was not expecting his anger or the next words out of his mouth. Rhea gasped, “Melanie? We MUST protect her, Elise! I knew that school was evil.” I reasoned, “We don’t know why he thinks that yet.” Worry and fear crept into me though.

I talked to Rhea while everyone discussed it. I reasoned, “A wolf contacted him, and hers was the only birthday around this area.” She agreed, “That’s true but she can’t contact him.” Rhea reasoned, “Maybe because her memories tell her wolf she thinks he’s theirs she could.” I argued, “That doesn’t make sense. You have to meet someone and their wolf for your wolves to talk.” She sighed.

I got a link from Tessa, our Female Lead Warrior, “Is Alexander with you?” I answered, “Yes.” She sighed, “Haley actually looks panicked. I can only imagine what the bond feels like.” I told her, “I’m sure we will be back soon.” She acknowledged, “Alright.” Man, Haley was probably a wreck if you could see it. She was always on locked down.

We tried to figure out what this was. I linked Rhea, “Any ideas?” Rhea admitted, “I really do not know.” My brothers ran in the room, all wide eyed and moderately terrified. I linked Dalton, “I thought you were in here. We were linking.” He replied, “We were in the backyard. I could hear the conversation.” Oh, that made sense.

Everyone knew this was weird. Melanie even called. I wasn’t as relieved as I thought I would be about it. Maybe I wanted the Conners to declare this an emergency since Alexander felt so strongly she was hurt. Yes, that had to be it. The headache was back in full force.

Theories went around and everyone decided that Alexander was seen as a protector by those who met him. I mean, he was. There was something there though. I rubbed my temples. What was it? Damn it! I knew the answer was right there.

I couldn’t focus on the conversation. The harder I thought the harder my head pounded. Eventually, my mom dragged me outside while EJ was on the phone. She frowned, “You have a headache again.” Sam joined us frowning too.

I lied, “It’s nothing.” Sam whispered, “We get them too. Did you tell EJ?” I shrugged, “I really don’t know. Maybe? He was confused about the letter from Mel’s school. He can’t lie but I could swear we’ve talked about it.” My mom wiped tears away, “The pack doctor said there’s nothing wrong with us.”

Sam admitted, “I’ve considered going to the Bishop brothers. They are just so busy I feel guilty asking them. Plus, it’s a headache. What can Warlocks do?” I shrugged, “I don’t know. Are you ok, Sam?” Sam started crying again.

She sniffled, “Drake thinks this is his fault, but it’s mine. He coddled Melanie so I had to be the disciplinarian. She doesn't blame him, she blames me. I was the mom monster. It’s me.” My mom consoled her, “It’s not our rule about crossing the border. It’s the Werewolf Council’s. We’ve lost too many pups to rogues. You had to follow the rules.”

Sam sighed, “I was the one who pushed Drake to let her compete in this competition. I just swore the closer we got that she didn’t want to do it. I really thought she wouldn’t go. If we’d just let her come to the Luna Ceremony she’d probably still be here.”

She stammered, “It’s just that honestly that night I don’t even know what came over me. Sometimes I still ask if I really refused to let her go. We could’ve just punished her the next day. I can’t believe we didn't.” Rhea scoffed, “Neither can I.” I had nothing but bitterness to add here so I didn’t say anything.

Sam continued, “It was Elise’s Luna Ceremony. What was I even thinking? I mean it had to be the thought of Ladybug dying. That’s all I can come up with.” I hugged her while my head pounding. Rhea sighed, “She’s right. Denying Melanie the rightto come to our ceremony isn’t like the McAlister’s.” My headache came roaring back. We walked back inside, and I just rested my head on EJ’s shoulder until we went home.

After that, the rumors were rampant that the Moon Goddess had been hurt and that’s why everyone went down. We found out that all Werewolves worldwide had gone down for a few moments. It was unheard of. EJ was worried about it, but there was nothing to find about it. Eric had the council researching, but nothing even in legends gave them a clue.

They focused on that while I focused on the drug ring. We’d managed to push the drugs out of our area, but not Blue Moon or Red Run. All our allies still had a slight problem. My grandpa and Alpha Cameron were going this time to the meet.

I stepped outside an hour before the meet was going down for some fresh air. Haley popped to me. She greeted, “Hi Elise, how are you doing?” I smiled, “Good. How’s everything with you?” Haley waved her hand answering, “Well, I have partial Fairies to find and train, and twenty kids running around. I know something is bothering some of them, but they aren’t ready to talk.”

She admitted, “It’s fucking hard. I just want to make everything better for my kids. They are the only ones that I find it hardest to respect boundaries for. I’d give the world twenty fucking times over to make everything easy for them. Something is going on with them, but they don’t want me to know. That’s their choice, but I just want to fucking fix it for them.”

I patted her hand, “I know you do. I think it’s great that you give them space.” She nudged, “More with the adults than the younger ones. It’s still fucking hard though.” I conceded, “I bet it is. Thank you by the way.” She tilted her head, “For what?”

I answered, “Not pressuring me for grandpups. My friend's mothers-in-law ask about pups all the time.” Haley laughed, “It’s your body not mine. I don’t tell people when they should beready to do things. That’s between you and my son. It’s your body though so if he pressures you, you’d better fucking tell me, and I’ll put his ass back to sorts.”

I assured her, “He’s very respectful of my decision to wait. You raised an amazing man. All of them are very respectful.” Haley smiled, “They’d better be, or they get to deal with their momma.” I nudged her with my shoulder smiling.

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