Tracking the Wolves (Madison Joshi and the Wolves series- Book 3)

Chapter 3

As Maddy and the others walked down the aisle of the plane after finishing all the security checks, Alexa and Leia grinned at Maddy before grabbing hold of an oblivious Jeremy and sitting in one row. Maddy managed to stifle a groan. Alexa's matchmaking was bad enough but with Leia included into the mix, Maddy would have her hands full with trying shut the two of them up. At least Alexa was a little discreet and she wasn't that nosy considering the fact that Xander was her twin. Leia was blatant and the worst part was that she enjoyed watching Maddy struggle with embarrassment.

Huffing, Maddy sat in the middle seat of the row behind the row where Alexa, Leia, and Jeremy were sitting. She made sure to not sit on the window seat. She knew from experience that Xander would stubbornly want to sit on that seat.

After finishing his usual check of all the passengers, Xander sat on his seat, happy that Maddy had left the window seat for him. Till date, Maddy couldn't completely figure out Xander. He was an Alpha; when Maddy thought of an Alpha, she thought of someone who was serious, vigilant, and responsible. Xander was... different. He had two extremes. Sometimes he was extremely casual, acting without thinking, but at times, he was also extremely overprotective.

Maddy unlocked her new phone and was about to open the Wattpad app when she heard the much-dreaded sentence.

"I'm bored."

Maddy looked up at Xander with exasperation. "Are you serious?" she said, making sure to not raise her voice too much so as to not disturb the guy wearing headphones sitting on her other side.

"Of course, I am serious! I have absolutely nothing to do."

Maddy sighed as she rubbed her forehead with her fingers. "Watch some videos on your phone."

"I don't have my phone," Xander pointed out. "I gave it to the girl from the dark market, remember? I don't know where it is now."

"If you knew that you didn't have a phone, you should have brought something to keep yourself engaged!"

"Why would I do that when I could just annoy you instead?" Xander asked with a smirk on his face.

"You are unbelievable." Maddy turned back to her phone, pointedly ignoring Xander.

For the next fifteen minutes, Xander tried his best at annoying Maddy by poking her, trying to strike up a conversation with her, and covering her eyes so that she couldn't read. After sometime Maddy managed to completely make Xander fade into the background. Well, she managed to do that until he took her phone away.

"Give it back to me," Maddy demanded.

"Nope," Xander said as he grinned and slipped it into his pocket.

"You are extremely importunate, you know that?"

Xander wrinkled his nose. "I don't even know what that means but I am going to assume that it was a compliment."

"It wasn't a compliment," Maddy deadpanned.

"Yeah, yeah. So, you've spent two months among werewolves. What is your opinion of werewolves?" Xander asked as he lowered his voice. It was a commercial plane after all. People could overhear them.

"I want to read not play 21 questions," Maddy whined with a scowl on her face.

"Too bad. Your phone is with me." Xander smirked, and suddenly Maddy couldn't breathe. Xander's smirks were usually playful, but now his smirk was smug. Everyone knows that all bookworms have a certain attraction to cocky, jaw-droppingly handsome, and extremely fictional boys. Xander checked the first two criteria, and two months ago, he checked the third box too (Maddy still had trouble believing that werewolves were actually real at times).

Maddy sighed. She looked to her left to make sure that the human sitting beside her was not listening on their conversation. The person sitting to her left was a guy in his twenties. He had his headphones on but his head was tilted backwards and his eyes were closed. The music was still being played. The sound was so loud that Maddy could hear it from her seat. How he was sleeping with such loud music playing in his ears, Maddy had no idea.

Maddy raised her eyebrow as she turned her head back towards Xander. "I'm pretty sure you already know my opinion on them. If my squealing and excitement isn't a giveaway, then I don't know what is."

"I mean what your opinion is on the real-life werewolves," Xander asked seriously. "I want an opinion from an outsider's point of view. What and all changes can be made and all that jazz."

"Ah," Maddy said, understanding what he meant. "First of all, you guys got to digitalize yourself. If that is a word. Finding the guards schedule in your dad's office was a pain in the ass. You can also fix CCTV cameras near the pack borders."

Xander grinned. "Dad is not the tidiest person. The last time mom made him clean up his office, he nearly started crying from frustration because there were so many papers scattered all around."

Maddy laughed at the description of the current Alpha. He was usually serious and intimidating. Maddy couldn't imagine him the way Xander did. Then again, Tristan was also probably intimidating to others, but to her, he was like the dad she never had.

"Also, the werewolf hierarchy is sexist. Why are all the Alphas only males? What if a girl wants to be an Alpha?"

Xander wrinkled his nose. "Some werewolves are sexist as hell," he admitted. "But the point you brought up is not correct. I don't think you have understood werewolf hierarchy. At the top position you have the Alpha and Luna. They are like the kings and queens. Just like how a female can't become a king, a female can't become an Alpha, but that doesn't mean the Luna can't be more dominant than the Alpha. Take Leia's mother for example. If I recall correctly, she was more dominant than Tristan and usually took care of the pack."

Maddy blinked with surprise. "Oh."

"Usually, the Alpha and the Luna are equally dominant or almost equally dominant so that if by chance the Alpha is killed, the Luna can step up and fill the position and vice versa. In fact, all mates are usually equally dominant so that they can fill in for each other's roles if the need arises."

Maddy stayed quiet for some time as she processed that information. She had gotten it completely wrong. She thought that a more dominant werewolf would be mated to a less dominant werewolf but when Xander explained it that way, she could see how equally dominant mates made things easier.

"So, you are telling me that Leia and Jeremy are equally dominant?"

"Believe it or not, yes. They both are Betas. If something were to happen to Jeremy, then Leia would step into his position. Leia usually doesn't like taking the lead because it is too much of responsibility, but you should have seen her when you got kidnapped the first time. She practically dragged Jeremy all over the globe searching for you."

"What happens if the Beta didn't find his mate yet? Does the position pass on to the Delta?"

Xander nodded. "Yup. Just like how dad made the current Delta his Beta, Katie, the future Delta would become the next Beta if the Beta position was vacant."