Steel: The Transformation

Chapter 40

He turned away from his bike, which he had been tinkering with on the driveway. A confused look played across his face as he gave me a weak wave of the hand.

I approached him and stopped, taking a deep breath before starting in on him.

"So I hear that you have been hanging out with Cleo?" I pushed out as much of my alpha authority as I could in my voice.

Tim flinched but answered unwillingly, "Yes, we have hung out a little bit."

"What made you think that was okay?" I bellowed.

I could see Tim straining to challenge my authority again, "We're just friends." He added quickly, "We might need her help if the Hunters come back."

I closed my fists as a storm of emotions swirled around inside me. Logically I could understand what he was saying, but my wolf would not let me admit it. It shouted at me, you are the alpha and he is your beta. He's your best friend and he's going against you. How could he do that to you? The words echoed through my head.

"You need to stop. We don't want any pack business to be known to the Basati," my words were final and I stomped off. As walked away my heart stung. The Basati... it felt so strange to minimise her to that word. I knew that I was being unreasonable but my pride and my wolf would not let me admit that out loud.

I turned the corner of the street and slowed my pace down. What had I just done? I was pushing everyone away from me. I was letting my wolf control my actions because I couldn't control my impulses. Did I really want to argue with Tim? I had already broken my relationship with Cleo beyond repair. Was I really willing to throw away the friendship with my best friend? As my breathing calmed, could feel my wolf quieting down inside me. As my impulses settled down, the realisation dawned on me that I should really go back and try to talking to him. Now that I felt more like myself again I didn't like one bit how things had gotten so bad, so quickly between us.

I approached his house again, this time I was considerably calmer. As I was about to knock on the front door I heard voices coming from the garden. So I turned the corner, approaching the wooden doorway in the high fence that sectioned of the back of their garden from the view of the street. As I was about to push open the door I heard Tim say, "Cleo is Basati."

I stood frozen, hidden from view behind the tall wooden planks. I heard the rickety small squeezes of their outdoor furniture. Tim most be speaking to his father as I heard the humming sound he made when he was thinking.

"She's changed quite recently and now there is another threat too. There's Hunters, they attacked Cleo and Jackson in her house," Tim continued.

I felt my jaw tense but my body was still frozen, I felt completely unable to act. I felt something small twist inside of me, a betrayal.

"The other day when I went to her house, there was this mark that was half washed away on the door," Tim hesitated.

"And you didn't like the feeling it gave you," his father added. I heard a slapping noise confirming that his father must have given him a slap on the back.

"Thank you for telling me about this son. I know it's not easy to share information like that."

I heard Tim's father get up from the wooden chair and walk back into the house. I stayed motionless in place, starting to feel a small trickle of warmth drop from my palms over the tips of my fingers which I had been jabbing into my hand.

"Hey," Tim's voice had changed in an instant, now happy and cheerful.

Faintly I could hear through the crackle of the mobile phone how Cleo replied "Hey you!"

"Want to hang out tonight?" He asked as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Sure," she agreed.

I backed away from the fence and snuck my way back out to the footpath and started running again.

I ran blindly down the street, not knowing where I was going or what I would do. My beta had disobeyed me, I had told Tim not to go to the elders and he had anyway. I had told him I didn't want him to hang around with Cleo and he was shoving that in my face. What would he do next? Try to take over my pack? The wolf in me growled deeply, I wouldn't rather die than give up my pack.

I ran until the taste of iron and acid was so far up my throat that I felt sick. My hands gipped on to a tree stem and I tried to breathe calmly. What should I do know? I pulled out my phone and called the person who I was the closets to, who would still speak to me.

"Wyhatt?"

"Yes?" He replied through the light crackle of static in the phone.

"Some stuff has happened. Can we meet up?"

"Sure," he replied. I could tell from his tone that he was not too thrilled about it but he would not say no his friend and he would not say no to his alpha.

"Text me where to meet," he finished before hanging up.

I was standing by the small playground, one of our many meeting spots for the pack. I was sitting on a rickety swing set and stared out into the darkness. Night ha truly set in and I had no idea of what time it was, right now it didn't matter. All that mattered was that i had someone to talk to, to try to sort out all of the mess in my head.

My eyes swept down the street and I spotted the muscular silhouette of Wyhatt as he was approaching. Before I could even push myself off the swing set and wave at him something dark shoot out from the right hand side, tackling Wyhatt over and holding him down. Three hooded silhouettes wrapped him up in a metal chain, as it flashed as quickly as lighting. I felt my legs moving towards them. One of the hooded creates stood up, from the shape it must be a human. The hood was slightly out of place and a bright flash of deeply red hair was illuminated by the street light. I glimpsed a split second of what looked like a woman's features. Before they dragged him in between two houses. I sprinted down looking between the houses - it was deadly calm and no movements were detected by my ears or eyes.

My hand grabbed a hold of my phone and I unlocked it and called his number without taking my eyes off the woods that wrapped themselves around the back of those two houses.

"Hello," Tim's voice was suspicious.

"I think Hunters just took Wyhatt," my voice shook uncontrollably. "All I could see where cloaked beings, one of them looked like a woman with red hair."

"I'll ask Cleo, she'll help us," he said. Even though he was my beta I knew that in this case his words not mine where the final ones.

Author's Note: Oh the drama! Let me know what you think of this chapter in the comments. And what do you think will happen to Wyhatt?

Thank you so much for reading and for showing me support by voting and sharing this story. If you haven't already - please add this story to one of your reading lists. It would mean so much to me :)

Have a wonderful week and I'll see you next Thursday for Magic's Mark and next Sunday for Steel: The Transformation.