Part of the Promise (Book 3 in the 'Part of' Series)

Chapter 28 Setting Off

Chapter 28 Setting off

-Beaumont's POV-

"How long are you going to be gone?" My oldest son asked me as my youngest sat on my knee. I was attempting to button Oran's shirt up, though it was a little bit tricky as he fidgeted.

"Not long," I told Lowell with a smile. "It's just to see Ashton, we might bring some friends back too." I pecked Oran on the forehead before messing his hair up a little bit. If I'm completely honest, I wanted to chop all his hair off. Rhodes always commented on how the full fringe and longer hair makes him adorable, I say it's our genetics.

"Will you bring anything else home?" Oran looked up at me and tried to hold my hand as I stood up, he wasn't quite tall enough for me to hold his hand without bending down quite a bit.

"I don't think so, just a quick call down there." I hoped that the children didn't know how serious it was. They knew for certain that something has gone wrong, they're not daft enough to think what happened over the past few months was normal. It had been one of the first times that trouble really stirred here. "It's going to be me, Tempest and Elowen."

"So it's like...a long patrol?" Lowell looked at me with hopeful eyes. I smiled brightly at him and nodded.

"That's right pup, it's like a very long patrol and we're gonna help some people out." We walked out of the boys' room and headed down the stairs. I stopped in the passage before turning them around to look at me, I knelt down in front of them with a smile. "Do you remember what Aiden said last night?"

The two shook their heads in confusion. My grin grew wider as I opened the front door. The two boys squealed and darted out the door. The floor and trees were covered in small white flakes. It had snowed last night, at this point in the year it wasn't unexpected. I was told that the most surprising thing was that the weather forecast was actually right. I'd know nothing about that though.

The other children were already out there, we had a bit of a late start to the day, they had been up long before we had gotten out of bed. The four of us preferred to have lazy mornings as our special family time. Though Rhodes was assigned breakfast duty today, another shocking thing was that the house wasn't on fire.

"Snow fight!" Channon and Channing cheered as soon as they saw Lowell and Oran. I backed up slightly after seeing Moss sitting by the wall. He had a cup in his hand and an unimpressed expression. Snow often meant a different kind of training, he also didn't like it when Tempest was away from the house for too long.

The sky was dark so the others still weren't here yet, the only light that was useful to us was the lanterns which had been lit all around the house. We didn't have outdoor lights, that'd take up quite a bit more energy then we'd like to give up. I could sense a change when it came to that but I didn't vocalise anything. Aiden's involvement in the pack has changed a lot of things, I wasn't sure if they were all good or not.

"Ready?" Tempest's voice made me jump as she came up behind me with a smirk. "You haven't had breakfast," she said as she handed me a piece of toast. I nodded to her in thanks before looking at it suspiciously. "Aiden stepped in,"

I chuckled and shook my head, of course, that's why I didn't smell burning. "Ah, our saviour." I started to nibble on the slice of toast. "Elowen ready?" Tempest hummed with a look of amusement.

"Yes, it took a while for Melina to detach herself but Hollis has her distracted with the snow." She started to back away slightly. "I'll get the map from Aiden, you wake up."

I stared after her for a while but then just continued eating. It was extremely entertaining to watch the kids play in the snow. I wished that I could stay here the entire day but there'll be many other snow days.

Tempest soon returned with Rhodes and Ralph at her sides. "Okay, So the map is just of England, there's a line which shows you where the forests line up. It's not continuous, so you might need to shift back at some points."

"Wolves carrying backpacks," I mused. "It's going to be alarming. We'll probably end up trespassing on other's property." Ralph nodded at my words, looking more concerned with each one.

"You're right,"he said reluctantly. "It's the best we've got, and if we can spread awareness about what's happening. It might help." We nodded lightly, some more confident than the others. "Best of luck and keep in touch." Ralph looked at us sternly before individually bringing us in for hugs.

We wanted to get moving as quickly as possible, so after our goodbyes we were off. We had our possessions in our mouths, it didn't taste very nice to say the least, and our paws hitting the forest floor.

We watched as the sun broke free from the clouds and covered the sky with a crimson hue. I always liked seeing the sun rise, it made me feel like I was going to have a successful and positive day.

The snow was still falling at around noon when we had our first stop at the edge of the forest. We had to get ready and walk a little further. Aiden had colour coded the map so that we could see where there could potentially be people. I was carrying the majority of our stuff, if we saw any humans in our wolf form, they quickly started to go in the other direction.

Randall was usually the one keeping in touch with us, it was a lot easier for him to change into his wolf and back then the others. It was just by a little bit but it made a difference when it came to immediate conversation. Randall didn't have as good concentration as some others but it worked well enough. He would talk about anything under the sun for our journey. It was a little distracting but it was appreciated.

The hours were long, we hadn't run like that for quite a while so we had to take frequent breaks. After a lot of stress, shifting and talking, we had arrived at the massive packhouse. We had to be careful around the forest for the construction sights but we made it alright.

"Can we help you?" Neva asked as she folded her arms and leant on the door frame.

"Nope, Ashton can." Tempest shoved past her with a smirk before heading in the direction of Ashton.

"So sorry about her," Elowen apologised. We looked pretty terrible, as though we'd be running in the forest for hours. "We're here to see Ashton."