Four large black paws hit the dirt hard and fast, an urgency like never before, tiny plumes of dust exploding out under each step of the large body. Running as fast as his bulky yet streamlined body can possibly handle, his well built and highly conditioned muscles burning with the strain, but he doesn’t even feel it, he only wills himself to move faster.Even though his footsteps are loud and in any other circumstance he would be easily found, they are nothing compared to the cacophony of sounds filling the night air.Surrounding him are screams of anguish, cries for help and the unmistakable sounds of fighting and blood shed.The rest of the forest is surprisingly quiet, as if the forest creatures have disappeared from the scene. Removing themselves from the harrowing scene. Knowing what dangers lie throughout. Even the safety of the trees is not far enough from this brutal battle.The usual tranquil setting is now anything but.Jaxson diverts a little from his straight line, his paw
*Trigger warning, infant loss*Jaxson reaches out a shaky hand and places it on Alaska’s shoulder and rolls her half off Torin in an effort to see what has happened, Alaska curls into a ball, the hands that were clutching Torin only a moment ago press on her stomach, her stomach is a mess as if it was directly targeted."He is gone, they are both gone, I tried so hard but in the end I wasn't strong enough to save either, I failed them, I let them die…"Jaxson’s tears finally flow as he watches her hold the flesh of her shredded stomach in such a way. They had only celebrated the news of her pregnancy a few weeks before their parents demise. Alaska’s last piece of Torin.Alaska wails, rocking back and forth on the ground with no way to vent her hurt. The pain doesn’t lessen the louder she is."...I want to go with them. Why can’t I go with them? Am I being punished? Did I fail so badly that I won't be granted this reprieve?"Alaska has tried to slip into death, she has closed her eyes a
*3 years later*"Alaska, I'm home"Jax’s voice reverberates around the cavernous space as he walks into the warehouse. It is unrecognizable from the empty, near rundown place that he walked into three years ago. It looks very much the same on the outside and anyone would still consider this an abandoned warehouse. Inside it is polar opposites.Of course, it wasn't a quick process and they have only put the final finishing touches on it recently. It was a massive effort to get it to where it is now, to get them to where they are now and it wasn’t a rapid incline from the near unlivable space to the wonderland that appears in front of him now. It remained near uninhabitable for a long time.He receives no reply, not a single sound can be heard, his face tilts up and he takes a deep breath in."I know you are here, I can scent you"Jax’s eyes scan the once empty space that is now filled with training equipment, a set up that they never dreamed of having within the autumn pack. They use th
Jax’s head tilts back as he looks toward the roof, trying to stretch out the tension, he has known for a longtime that this was coming and maybe Alaska is right, if they are ever going to be ready they are now. But he is finally comfortable in the life they have. They may not have everything they used to have, they may only have each other, but that is all he needs.Jax is terrified of losing her and going head to head is classified as a suicide mission, but saying no will just result in her moving forward without him, which he will not allow.Jax looks at his meal, the tasty dish only moments before is dull and tasteless now and he can barely choke it down, but he shows none of that on the outside, pretending it is the most interesting thing in the world. Right now he needs a moment to think and doesn’t want to engage in this conversation. He needs the perfect words, but just like so many times before, when it comes to Alaska he is drawing a blank.Alaska doesn’t wait for an answer ev
The week passes quickly and Jaxson really does regret it, not because Alaska is out on a death-defying mission, not because she has delivered something so brilliant that he can’t possibly say no. It is because she is so deeply immersed in the planning process that she doesn’t do much except disappear into her room and then reappear to eat and work only.It is hard for him to adjust to the sudden loss of her as his constant companion. Even when she was in such a bad state, she was there. She didn't need to say anything. She didn't need to smile or give him any emotion. Just being there was enough. When they first arrived, when she was just laid out in her room for months on end. The only difference was that back then he had free access to look after her. Sometimes it was like she didn't even know he was there, but at least he could be close. But now it's different. Instead of hearing, silence or sobbing, now he can hear progress. He can feel her happiness at the process and it makes i
Alaska eats her cereal so fast that she appears to be inhaling it, barely stopping to take a breath. She places her bowl on the sink before gripping Jaxson’s forearm and kissing his cheek."Only a quarter of who you are would still be a good man"Alaska doesn’t wait for a reply as she practically skips out the door with a smile on her face and her emerald eyes shining with sinister ideas, her whole persona is out of place in her outfit.Jax just stares at her disappearing figure long after she is gone. She touches him so softly, she says all the right words, but he is well aware that she never intends for them to mean what he wants them to.Jax stares at the photo on the wall, one of the two remaining photos of their previous life. He could have had so much more if he had listened to his father, one of his many regrets."Stop it Torin, I am well aware that her heart will always be with you…"Jax stares at the smiling face of his best friend, Torin’s arms wrapped tightly around Alaska o
Jaxson looks at Alaska as she emerges from her bedroom. He has been up half the night, just sitting on the sofa staring at Alaska’s door like he used to do early in the piece, sleeping on that broken old sofa waiting for her nightmares.Sleeping with one eye closed, wanting to get to her before it got too bad. The sofa is new and a lot more comfortable now, but right now the anxiety is very much the same.Jaxson stares at Alaska’s neat clothing and glowing face, her small amount of makeup is impeccable. Her lips look soft and subtle with a tint of pink. She looks healthy. She looks glowing. She looks a long way off all the other times that she has presented herself in front of the five. Admittedly, it is not often that she has had to show herself in front of them. Jax has to go once a week, but Alaska has only been requested as little as once every six months. Alaska may have good breeding and come from good bloodlines, but they expect very little from a female beta blood who would st
*Three years earlier continued*The large black wolf skirts the edge of the summer pack, just as he is about to head to the main entrance to be allowed in by the border patrol, he has a strange feeling down his spine.He has been to the summer pack many times before. Technically, the alpha, Valen, is his uncle. He is a couple of times removed but they all like to play on it. At one time, in Jaxson’s great-great grandfather's time, this was all one pack. The seasons pack, Jaxson’s great-great grandfather had four sons, which was incredibly rare for an alpha. The sons were very close in age, one set of twins and two separate on either side. The season's pack was incredibly large, to the point where it was nearly too difficult to protect the borders. All the sons were very similar in abilities, which made it hard for him to choose who was going to take the pack.The only logical solution was to split the pack into four smaller pieces and allow each of his sons to have a pack of their own.
Cohen looks at Arden gritting his teeth. If those two have nothing to do with it, then they are going to be the ones that look like fools. It is not just their father who they are worried about making a humiliating spectacle in front of if they have got it wrong. They have managed to make a production already and nothing has even been said. If they are wrong, and they are fishing for information that is not even there, then they risk a fracture with the pack members which might be hard to recover from. The good guy act might be broken.The Autumn pack seemed like the logical place to hold such a meeting because they found the information here. It seemed like the best choice for rubbing salt in the wound and having them on the backfoot, making them attend what was once their birthright. But some loyalties run deep. There is every chance that some members of the pack will be easily swayed to that side which is something they have avoided for all these years. If they are over the top in
Jaxson takes a deep breath in, letting the unseasonably cold air fill his lungs as they stand on the very line of the autumn pack border. The place he has avoided for these whole three years. The air does nothing to calm him, so he reaches out and touches Alaska’s hand. Her skin is slippery and ice-cold, it doesn’t have the same softness or warmth that it usually holds, but it doesn’t make him recoil, instead he just holds it tighter.The walk cannot be blamed for this level of saturation, they were drenched from the second they walked out the door of the cabin. So the duration matters little. The actual walk to the pack took a long time. The heavy layer of dark cloud makes it impossible to gauge the exact moment of sundown, but they know they still have time. They took a roundabout route in an effort to cover tracks was as necessary as it was a delay tactic. Even though they never had the thought to shy away from their own actions or to cower in the face of the Barrow’s even one more
Outside the study, Jaxson's name seems to carry and Mila’s ears prick up, but she can hear nothing else of the conversation. Once again, within this pack, she's just shoved in a corner after being torn from the uncomfortable confines of the car. This time, very obviously guarded and while Arden tried to pass it off as protection within an unfamiliar pack, it seems much more like being locked down and that is a far too familiar feeling for her. She is in a bad spot. If this ends and she has to go back home without Arden, things are going to be hard for her, but it is increasingly appearing like things are going to be hard for her here. All she can do is wait it out.Trip is nervous to say the wrong thing. He had very little details from Draven. He just made the calls and followed orders trying to guess what is in his alpha's mind is near impossible. "I think after getting his first clue about Hayden's disappearance from Alaska, and then I guess he spotted the same trend as you, I thin
"You’re in?"Trip’s voice finally, after the day from hell, has a slight hint of excitement as he leans over the shoulder of his hacker contact, leaning far closer to the fully grown man than he usually would, invading the man’s personal space to the maximum in his desperation.He doesn’t even exit the room to meet the occupant of the next high-powered sports car which roars into the pack before the first one has even left, knowing that it can only be another member of the Barrow family and knowing whoever it is will come straight to him and just glad that, at the very least, he has this. He has never really felt like a failure as a beta, but the fact that he wasn’t even the first to notice his alpha's disappearance plays on his conscious and then giving Cohen nothing after a night of investigating just made it all compound."I am in"Trip sighs in relief as he hears the two sets of heavy footsteps moving toward the office with haste. The door isn’t even knocked upon before it is push
Before they were only working off a strange feeling. Now it is much more, there is a sense of urgency that wasn't there before. Cohen feels stupid for wasting so much time coming here, but maybe he needed this to even be able to understand it. Arden glances back at the still open door of the pack house."Is it time to bring dad in now?"Cohen rubs his chin, their father is wise and has contacts that they might not have access to otherwise, he might even know far more than they do. But it is time for them to start doing things on their own and if they are wrong about this and have blown everything out of proportion, won’t they come out looking like the stupid ones? If the two truly are hiding and trying to fuck with them, wouldn't they then be implicated in the stupidity?"There is no need to cause him unnecessary worry until we know more"While the sons don’t know much about a father's love except for what was shown to the world, their father is much the same as them, there has to be
"Cohen has just crossed the border on the western side…" Valen announces to Arden, who has only just arrived in his office. While Hayden is technically the alpha of the summer pack, Valen still has his own space, and it is much the same as the alpha office, as prominent location and as luxurious decoration, because truth be told, he does as much for the summer pack, if not more than his son, who holds the title, they veil it as he is running operations under the guise of the seasons pack, but his workload seems to be more than when he was alpha and most of it is from the summer pack, until the undertaking his adult sons were shouldering most of the burden of the running of the pack while he was scheming in the background, and he had taken a step back from running the pack even when he still officially held the title, now they have their own packs which they are taking from strength to strength while the summer pack is now the one lagging behind, and it was always the mightiest of the
Cohen drives towards the Autumn pack. He would rather be anywhere else, doing almost anything else than chasing after his delinquent brothers. Draven has just been thrown into the same pile as Hayden most of his life, even though he is completely different, and this fiasco has just confirmed it.He rarely goes to the Autumn pack. If there is a meeting of the brothers, it is always in the summer pack, away from prying ears, most of the summer pack knows what they did, because they were a part of it, they cannot risk word spreading further. Cohen mostly spearheaded the campaign against the Autumn pack and would like to take far more credit for the quick submission than is probably due, but for that reason, he also likes to keep himself away from here and while he and Draven are probably the most alike on paper, it is also the reason that they get along the least. There is usually no reason for him to visit this brother alone. Just because he hasn't been much in all these years doesn't
Jax’s arm is firmly fixed around Alaska, holding her close to his body. He can feel her warm breath penetrating the material of his shirt, but it doesn’t make him feel the comfort that he would usually feel, instead he just feels frustrated.He scrubs his free hand down his face, pulling his skin so exaggeratedly under his eye to the point that the red of his socket can be seen even past his closed eyes."I don’t know Alaska. Maybe this means I am supposed to be alone for a lifetime""Don’t say that, wouldn’t that mean that I am too?"The air in the room freezes and any pitying thought that still lingered in Jaxson’s mind is gone. He looks at Alaska with wide eyes.Jax is almost too scared to say anything in case she understands the real meaning behind her words, but he can’t keep quiet and what is a simple question to some but the most loaded question to her comes tumbling out."Do you think that you are ready for that?"Jax knows that he has fucked up again, he didn’t need to push,
"I completely choked in there"Jaxson and Alaska are back in their warehouse lying on Alaska’s bed. Jaxson is just staring blankly at the cork tile ceiling above him as if he can count the millions of holes on the otherwise white surface.Alaska lays with her arm draped over him and her cheek resting on his chest just staring at everything but nothing at all. It was a mission to get him back here without being tracked. While Jaxson was still living and breathing, he was just going through the motions and far more reminiscent of a dead weight than anything else.It was an effort and by the time they arrived back she is sure that it appeared much the same as the first day they arrived here, only she is sure that she didn’t look as heroic as Jax would have. She was a sweaty, exhausted mess, he is heavy!Jax’s words snap her out of her stupor."You did not choke"Alaska pats his chest."What else do you call sitting there as a mute, unable to look at anything or anyone, unable to even tel