*****
I was laying on the roof of Jayden's house staring at a single star above. I had been watching the heavy grey clouds move across the dark sky at first but my eyes eventually stopped on the only star I could see between the moving clouds and I had not looked away from it in the past ten minutes. The sky was slowly brightening and I was beginning to hear birds chirp and shuffling in the house beneath me. I glanced at my watch figuring that it was still too early for anyone to be awake, it was just after four now.
I listened to the person move through the house until the backdoor I had neglected to lock when I had come out earlier opened.
"Eli?" Karabo's voice called into the quiet morning. I smiled as I turned so my feet were higher on the roof than my head was before I leaned over the gutter to peek down.
"Good morning," I said.
"What are you doing? You're going to slip." He frowned up at me. "You shouldn't be out here," he added glancing towards the trees behind the house.
"I won't slip," I stood up and jumped my way onto a second-floor balcony before repeating the movement so I landed on the ground and then walked over to my mate, "and you're the one who should not be out here."
He sighed. "I didn't come out here to argue," he mumbled.
"And I would rather we not." I agreed. He smiled at me and my brows rose questioningly. "Want to take a walk?"
"You're going to walk in those?" I pointed at the once-white socks he wore; they were now covered in mud.
"Oh yeah. Shoes. I'll find them in a second." He mumbled and I chuckled.
"Do I have to help you put them on as well, Alpha?" I teased.
"I have more important things to focus on." He waved me off as he walked back onto the back porch. I followed him laughing softly as he pulled his socks off before heading back into the house. I cleaned my shoes on the mat outside and followed him inside where I leaned against the kitchen counter and waited for him to return from upstairs.
"Going somewhere?" I looked up as Karabo's mom walked into the kitchen. She's up? Maybe I'm not the reason Karabo wakes up so early, maybe it's in his blood...
"Yes. We're going to take a walk." I explained.
"A walk?" She asked surprised.
"Yes... Is that... strange?" I asked.
"No, no. Of course not." She smiled, "Don't be out too long, I'm making breakfast," she added.
"We won't be. Come on, Eli." I looked at my mate and back to his mother; her back was facing me as she grabbed some things from the cupboard. I narrowed my eyes wondering why she was so surprised by us going on a walk before I followed Karabo out.
If it hadn't been for the occasional damaged building and destroyed tree, there would have been no trace of the fight that happened the previous evening. Everything seemed so calm in the morning.
Karabo and I walked in a comfortable silence for a while, each of us seemingly caught up in our own thoughts. My mind kept wandering back to Nicholas. Something just seemed off about his disappearance, it was worrying me that I couldn't figure out why I felt like something was wrong. I bit the inside of my cheek as I looked at my mate who was walking beside me staring ahead.
"Do you travel a lot?" I asked, my speaking clearly interrupting his thoughts as he looked at me confused and I had to repeat my question to him.
"Oh, no." He shook his head.
"Would you come to see me?" I asked.
"Sure," he chuckled, "Not if things are the way they are right now, though. Too much going on. Why? Are you leaving?" He stopped walking. I didn't and felt his eyes follow me as I walked by him keeping my eyes ahead of me.
"Not yet." Probably soon. Something just didn't feel right. Bringing it up with Sean or my Paps would be stupid. I couldn't tell them it was just a feeling; that would be useless. I needed to figure it out on my own and get by 'it's just feeling' before I spoke to them. I heard Karabo jog back up to my side before he slowed to walk beside me again. "You don't like walks?" I asked.
"My mom?" he asked. I nodded in response and he sighed, "My dad liked to walk, I try not to be reminded of him."
"Why?" I asked.
"Terrible Alpha," he said. I looked at him again and again his eyes were focused on something in front of us that wasn't there.
"Terrible Alpha?" I echoed.
"He had a gambling problem. Bet the pack. I mean, what are we? Objects? Well, he lost, killed himself and I had to deal with the aftermath." I waited for him to explain, "You know, Alpha against Alpha to keep our pack independent." He replied.
"You killed him?" I asked. When Alphas fought it was always till death.
"Yeah," he replied. Why did it sound like such a big deal to him? He was protecting his pack.
"You've only ever killed one person, haven't you?" I asked shocked.
"I try not to waste life," he replied.
"Wow," I mumbled.
"How many people have you killed?" He asked curiously.
"Since yesterday? Four." I said. He gave me a flat look and I thought about it, "A few." I replied. Quite a few. Our pack had a lot of conflicts. "Only on my territory – and yours." I shrugged.
"No questions?"
"Why ask questions? If they wanted to talk, they would do so before attacking the wolves that guard our fence and forcing their way onto our territory." I said. "You're really soft, Karabo." Didn't that sound like someone I knew? My dad. Karabo was an Alpha though.
"I'm not. I'm just not impulsive and cut-throat." He replied causing me to roll my eyes. "Here's a scenario: A pack sends another pack threats in your name, the pack receiving the threats attacks you. You kill them, you killed innocent wolves," he said.
"Innocent? They attacked us. They could have asked for a meeting, we had not physically attacked them but that's what we received. If they die, it's their own fault." I said.
He sighed.
"Alright, what if some of the innocent wolves had been killed by wolves posing as Galaxy wolves?"
"Not our problem. They were stupid enough to believe we would attack without cause." I replied. "Karabo, drop it. We obviously have different approaches to this."
"Right," he said. We walked in silence for a while more, this time it felt somewhat suffocating compared to the comfortable, distracted silence we had earlier so I was relieved when he spoke again, "So... Richard asked me something interesting yesterday, I've thought about it before but we have to speak about it sometime."
"What happens when we mate?" I took a guess. He looked surprised and I assumed my guess was right, "Tamia and the guys asked that too. I guess we merge?" I questioned.
"Yeah? So you'll stay here?" he asked.
"No, you come with me," I replied as we both stopped walking so we could turn to each other.
"My pack –"
"Will move too." I finished. He shook his head.
"That's impossible," he said.
"It isn't. What else are we supposed to do?" I asked.
"You move." He replied.
"Us? No. We're the bigger pack. Naturally, you join us."
"I'm not going to uproot my entire pack just because yours is bigger. We have better land."
"We have stores, we don't need good land. Also, we're stronger."
"We're werewolves; we're always going to need good land. There are a lot more places to hunt around here. Your strength doesn't matter here, like I said: we barely have any conflict."
"We have hunting ground, it's not as wide as yours but that's not needed. You're right; we're werewolves, not farmers." I said. "Conflict doesn't matter when you can hold your own as well as we do."
"You can run out of –"
"Eli? Karabo?" I turned to look at my sister as she jogged up to us with Ben following close behind her. I glanced behind Ben but there was no Beta.
"Where's Ashton?" I asked.
"He wanted to cook so he stayed with Karabo's mom." She smiled, "I thought you would be way ahead since she said you left a while ago... Are you two alright?" She looked from me to Karabo and back.
"Yeah," we replied in unison.
"We're great." My assurance only made her narrow her eyes at me.
"Hey, Karabo. Race you back." Ben called running off.
"You're already cheating," Karabo called back laughing.
"You'll catch up." I watched as the pair went sprinting back in the direction of the house before I looked back at my sister and frowned finding her staring at me worriedly.
"What happened?"
I held my breath. There was just no lying to her, was there? I did not know if it was some type of twin thing but she could always tell when I was lying, she was literally the only person who could tell, the only person that read me so well. Not even our fathers could point out when I was lying. I guessed it was good sometimes, it forced me to talk and be honest with her which was helpful when I had no one to talk to.
"We can't have a conversation," I replied.
"What?"
"Everything ends in an argument, Tamia. This... this is impossible." I said. "Nevermind that, I think we should go home."
"Go home? But we cannot. Not until you figure out how to be with Karabo."
"No, we need to go soon. Something's wrong, I think there's something Paps is not telling me and something just doesn't feel right. Tamia, when am I wrong about things like this?" She stared at me.
"Never." She mumbled before she shook her head looking at me, "Well, we - you can't just leave..."
"Fine, I'll try to figure things out with him. Two days." I said. She opened her mouth to protest but I lifted my hand, "We were only supposed to be here for a short time anyway. Ash and I have to get back to work, Tamia."
"When exactly did you get off work, Eli?" She asked. I chose to pretend that I didn't hear her speak and began walking back towards the house. "Okay, wait," she said grabbing my shoulder.
"What?" I asked.
"Give me your phone," she said.
"My phone? For what? No." I instinctively grabbed it in my pocket while backing away from her.
"I'm not going to go through it." She rolled her eyes before they met mine again seriously, "I'm just going to keep it. You said two days before we head back. You shouldn't work for these two days. We were supposed to be here for a break, but you're still worrying about the pack and have not stopped since we left. Give me your phone and you can focus on here and now."
"Uh, no. What if there's an emergency?"
"Sean and Paps have Ashton's number, mine and Ben's as well." she replied, "Look, all I'm asking is that you focus on him. Just try to make things work. If you do, I won't bother you about it again," she said before biting her lip like she was considering taking that back.
I stared at her wondering if she was serious and when she held out her hand staring at me sternly, I figured she was. I sighed grabbing my phone.
"Not even dad does this," I muttered handing it to her.
She grinned shrugging.
"Race you back." I rolled my eyes as she disappeared before I followed suit.
*****