Page 78 of The Alpha and His Childhood Sweetheart

Julian wasn’t going to pop them in to avoid suspicion and hopefully maintain a distance from our family. Brutus argued, “He looks too much like us.” I replied, “We went over all that.” He continued to grumble in my head, and I agreed with him. The thing was Julian deserved to do the things he wanted to. He was an Alpha too.

My mom stormed into my office an hour after they left. She glared at us, “ENOUGH! All of you cut it the fuck out. Julian can take care of himself. Plus, he’s with two of our allies who are damn good fighters. Your moods are driving me fucking crazy!” I could tell they were in the bond because she was letting us.

I sighed and gave her a hug, “Sorry mom. To be fair, you’re worried too.” My mom muttered, “Not to an annoying degree. He’s my child so I get to be worried to a healthy degree. I know he’s capable. I worry when you all out go out on missions or things like this. Your all’s worry is about to have me scrubbing this house from top to bottom BY HAND. I do not do shit by hand. I snap it done. So, this is my warning to get it together.” She kissed all of us on the cheek. Before she left, she told us, “I love all of you and Julian will be ok.” I sent her my love in the bond. She left muttered, “Because I fucking said so.”

I was monitoring Julian so closely I could tell he was annoyed. I looked at my clock on the wall. The meeting had started. Julian suddenly felt suspicious then stunned. When his adrenaline kicked in, I frowned. He didn’t appear to be fighting. My mom linked, “He is FINE! I don’t even have a bad fucking feeling. Stop it!” I don’t know if anyone answered her, but I didn’t.

I got on the phone. Dakota answered immediately, “I literally haven’t answered the phone yet, Dalton. I don’t know if he knows anything. WILL you shut up! UGH! You’re obnoxious.” He cleared his throat, “Hey EJ, did Julian call?” I looked at Alexander for the answer.

Alexander answered, “He’s not calling or answering in link. Something happened though.” Tristan asked, “Are Jase and Grandpa Ben ok?” I told them, “All I know is Julian isn’t fighting, but his adrenaline spiked. Fuck it. We should just pop to him.”

Alexander disagreed, “No, we shouldn’t. He’s not pulling us to him. So, we need to let this play out. He’ll come home. We’d know if he was hurt, and if Jase or Ben got hurt, he’d pull us hard. Or at least me or...” He trailed off then yelled, “FUCK! Is mom still here?!”

My dad answered, “Yes, she is. In fact, she’s cleaning the house with physical supplies. She said your asses are kicked.” I snorted, “It’s grass. Your ass is grass.” My dad smiled, “She says that doesn’t make sense.” I laughed, “Of course she does.”

Elise pulled up a skype call, so we were on video chat with Red Run. Their room was just as tense as ours. We’d been waiting for an hour when we heard a pop. I raised an eyebrow. The group was all covered in blood spatter. It did not appear to be theirs. Brutus growled because he didn’t like seeing Julian in this state. I didn’t either, it was unsettling.

I asked, “So, the meeting went that well, did it?” Julian showed me a picture on his phone. He asked, “Do you know what this is?” It was a business card with a blue ring with a slash through it. I answered, “No. I’ve never seen that before. What is it?” Julian told me, “It was graffitied on a rock near the place where the sniper was. This card was taped to a tree.”

I shouted, “SNIPER?! Why didn’t you call us?” Brutus said, “I’m giving Leif so much shit right now.” Good. Jason said, “Well, the sniper wasn’t after us. He or she saved our lives.” Elise questioned, “What?” My dad said, “Please snap them into clean clothes. I don’t know about anyone else, but it is unsettling to see Julian….” His voice cut off.

Drake cleared his throat, “I second that request.” Alexander snapped them clean. Julian threw a baggie on the table. It was stuffed with the drugs we were trying to stop in their signature green packets. I asked, “How did you get it if it went south?” Julian answered, “They told us we were going to die so we should know what it was for.”

I was not alone in my growl. I asked, “How did they make you?” Brutus grumbled, “He looks just like us. That’s how.” Julian shrugged, “I don’t know. I thought it was me, but it seems there’s some code words we didn’t know.” Alexander asked, “When did the shooting start?”

Jason snorted, “When they told us we were going to die.” He threw a listening device down. He told us, “It’s got no prints on it.” I asked, “Micah, can try to track down a buyer with that. What did the sniper say when you popped to them, Julian?”

Julian ground out, “I couldn’t pop to them. Not even like I popped and got thrown, I literally couldn’t pop. Nothing happened.” I pointed at what they collected. “But clearly you found the hide.” Julian sighed, “After a while. We wouldn’t have found it if not for this symbol and these.” He took out the casings for a sniper rifle.

Julian said, “They meant for us to find this.” Alexander jumped in, “How do you know?” He answered, “They left them sitting on a rock.” I was excited, “We seem to have a common enemy. If the sniper wants to get our attention, they have it.” A blue circle with a line. What did that mean?

Julian disagreed, “Then why wouldn’t they stick around to talk to us? There was no scent to follow. It wasn’t just one shot either. This sniper was pissed.” Alexander questioned, “What do you mean?” Ben answered, “All three men took six shots. The first shots were kill shots to the head. They were dead and the sniper kept shooting.” I considered that because it sounded like something a Hackura would do.

Elise offered, “Maybe it’s someone with a personal connection. This drug is addictive to the supernatural community. Maybe the sniper is related to someone who died. Or were mated to them even.” I added, “They have to be good at some kind of electronic monitoring set up. They had to have known the meeting was happening.”

I looked over, “Micah?” He frowned, “I don’t know how they got in. They’d have to have insight we don’t have. I could monitor cell phones and messages, but I need to know who to monitor. We don’t have a lock on any of that, but this sniper clearly does. They couldn’t have been there by chance.”

I asked him, “Do you know this symbol?” Micah shook his head, “I can take it back to Uncle Bjourn.” He wasn’t biologically related, but all Uncle Gunner’s kids call our uncles theirs too. I agreed, “Go talk to him. Alexander, go with him.” Alexander nodded and popped Micah away while Max pouted. I rolled my eyes, “Go with them Max.” He smiled at me and popped away after them.

I rubbed my temples, “We need to figure out this code word.” Tristan stood announcing, “I’ll be back.” He stepped out. Dalton explained, “Our border patrol said they had something for him.” I nodded. We talked about other things until Tristan came back. He had a note with him.

He frowned saying, “This was dropped off just over the edge of our territory with Alpha Raven addressed to the leaders of our pack.” So, it was not directly addressed to him. He asked, “Nice weather today, isn’t it? Correct answer - Bless the Goddess for such a day. Does this mean anything to you Grandpa, Jase, and Julian?”

Julian gaped, “HOLY SHIT!” Jason frowned, “That’s clearly what we were supposed to say. That’s their code phrase. What else does the note say?” He flipped it over showing the symbol on Julian’s phone. A blue circle with a line through it.

I asked, “Do you have trackers on this?” Tristan sighed, “There’s no scent.” My raised a brow, “Witches? Great. Your mother is going to flip shit. Here we go about Witches in ditches rants.” Julian argued, “Fairies can conceal their scents for a period of time too.” I reasoned, “Royal Fairies can.” Julian said, “We might not have found all of us.” I shrugged in acknowledgement, “That’s true.”

Jason said, “No offense but that doesn’t make sense. There was rage and control in these killings. This was personal. I can’t think of a Witch or Fairy who would give a shit about the three ofus dying. Maybe Julian, but six shots to the guys who were going to try to grandpa and me? That’s just not there.”

I agreed, “You have a point. Wolves can’t conceal their scent though.” Jason shrugged, “True.” I sighed, “Let’s get to work. Whatever this circle is, whatever this symbol means, we need to reach these people. We have a common enemy that we can help each other take them down.” Everyone nodded.

We could do this. We just needed to get the leader to contact us. They’d already opened a channel of communication. We just had to keep it open. We were going to take down this drug ring and the undergrounds. We just needed to find a sniper.

Becoming the Luna

Elise is Nineteen Years Old

Elise’s phone was ringing. I smiled when I saw the time because my goal was accomplished. EJ worked so hard every day, and I was still trying to help him find his balance with everything. It was a work in progress for sure. I had asked Alexander, Toby, and Genevieve to let EJ sleep in today.

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