Fated Rivals

Chapter 18

Grayson's POV

I knock on the door of the Head Alpha office, and wait until I hear an "Enter" before I head inside. Father is seated at his desk, covered in the usual papers but now with the addition of a few maps. Some are of our territory, while others show the territories of all packs in the area. Which is what father is studying as he gestures to the seat in front of the desk. I place the reports from me and Jaden on top of the clutter and take a seat. He moves the papers aside before looking up, finally acknowledging my presence.

"I see you recovered quickly," he says, glancing at my healed shoulder.

"Yea, thanks to the pack healers. The others are fine too, though Jaden is a bit upset about the loss of her fancy fireworks. But she'll live," I say, chuckling to myself. Jaden was more upset about having to write the report than the fireworks, but I wouldn't tell him that. Father's already skeptical about who I have in my team, but I trust my friends, and I know that they'll help me make this pack bigger and better.

"Glad to hear. Now," he says looking back at, and sliding the pack territory map towards me, "your little party wasn't the only place attacked that night." There's a big red X over the area where the party was, but also six smaller Xs far north in the territory.

"Seems like they were trying to split up our guards so the party attack group would have even less things to worry about," I say, studying the map. Now I'm really glad that we found them when we did.

"Exactly. One of our guards even went missing during the attacks. Odds are they either really wanted to get to you, weaken our pack numbers, or both. Which makes me wonder why you thought that having that party near the southern border was a good idea in the first place," he says, giving me a stern look.

"How was I supposed to know that their numbers would be that large? Besides, you told me to continue on as normal until we knew more about the rogue pack. Cancelling that party without a proper explanation would have raised some questions. Especially from Luke."

"You should have said that I forbid it."

"He still would have had the party, even if it meant not telling me. Which would lead to all of them getting attacked anyways."

"So, you think that your little friend would have defied a direct order from his Head Alpha?" father says getting increasingly more irritated.

"I'm not saying anything for certain, it's just a guess," I say, trying to calm his nerves. Luke is already grounded; I don't need him getting in more trouble over a "what if" scenario. "All we know for certain is what did happen. So, lets focus on where to go from here."

Before he can respond we hear a knock on the door. Father calls for them to come in and a pack guard enters the room, kneeling before us until father tells him to rise. "Sir, the body of one of our own was found this morning near to edge of the eastern border," the guard states, handing us printed out photos of the gruesome scene. The body was Caleb, an older alpha guard in our squad, shown brutally mutilated and covered in blood. I can barely hold back my snarl as my blood begins to boil from rage. Father also becomes more rigid next to me, his jaw clenched tightly as we examine the photos. There also seems to be a craving on his chest: 1/1. What could that mean?

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. You may leave," father says to the guard, who nods and quickly leaves the room. Father sets the photos on his desk, taking a deep sigh as he sinks into his chair and cracks his knuckles.

"This is getting worse by the day. These attacks are starting to escalate in size, and my soldiers are being killed off by goddess knows who!" he says, slamming his fist into the desk. "I've studied the maps of surrounding pack territories and there is not enough land in between each of us to house a rogue pack of this size. Something is not adding up here."