Unattainable Fruit

Chapter 10: Celebration & Partners

James' POV

My father waits impatiently inside the car, waiting for my mother to say her goodbyes, but my mom seems unfazed as she grips me tightly and giving me a smile. It's been two days since Cody ran into me. Two days of nothing but anxiety surrounding my parents. I give her a half assed one in return, the best I can manage at the moment, waiting down the seconds for my father to finally be on the road again.

"We're going to the Werewolf Council in the south. We won't be back for a few weeks. You'll be in charge of the Semi Annual Pack Run, James. Make sure to make us proud." She tells me reminding me of our packs age old tradition. I have the urge of resist, but something tells me doing so will only have my dad staying around that much longer.

"Okay mom. I'll be sure to send you pictures." I assure her before waving as she strides towards the car.

As soon as she's inside, the car is pulling away, not a backwards glance from either of my parents as they disappear into the horizon once more, leaving me to pick up the pieces of their latest visit on my own. I already have a massive headache, and the idea of trying to organize a pack wide event sounds like a headache. However, knowing there's no way around it, as soon as their car is no longer in sight I turn around to head back into the pack house. I make my way straight upstairs to Zee's office, knocking on the door before entering.

I find her hair wrapped around her Mate's hand, the Asian Faerie smiling down at Zee lovingly. I clear my throat and avert my eyes, realizing I walked in on something. I hear Rain sigh before going to move, her grumbles noises of annoyance reaching my ears quite easily. When she leaves the room, it's with a glare that I personally wouldn't wish on anyone.

I close the door behind the Faerie and turn towards Zee who's looking at me with the most no bull shit face I've seen. "I swear to every Goddess alive, James, if you came in here for something stupid, I swear I will kill you." She tells me and something tells me that she means it.

"I'm sorry and I promise to make it up to you, but I need some sign up sheets and for an announcement to be made that the Semi-annual Pack Run & Race is in two weeks. People need to start signing up as pairs to compete." I remind her and from the looks of it she completely forgot about what time of year it was. She immediately starts clicking away on her computer as she goes to answer.

"Fine, I'm printing them out now and I'll make Rain help me put them up. The deadlines for signing up will be in one week." She tells me and I nod along.

"Awesome. We're going with track two this year. Have the Warriors help with set up and the Omega Corp help with sign ups, registry and all the detail work. Everyone gets double pay these next two weeks." I tell her and she takes a pause in whatever she's doing to take down the notes.

I'm reminded when I first turned eighteen and it was time for me to slowly start taking over all the Alpha responsibilities that I had been training for since I started school. I was nervous as shit and fucked up a lot of simple tasks and events that first year. Thankfully with Alex as my Beta and Zee being the best Elder and trainer ever, I have been able to have a smooth second year of being mostly in charge. Speaking of Alex...

"I'll talk to him about it, but I want to see if Alex will be willing to be the judge and MC ?" I ask her and her eyebrows shoot up.

"You don't want to do it yourself?"

I shake my head. "This is going to be the last year that I can really participate. After this I'll be officially Alpha and people will expect me to act more refined than running around wildly like that." I tell her, ignoring the secret reason.

'You can ignore it all you like hun, doesn't make it any less true.' Sloan tells me in an obnoxious singing voice.

'I choose to ignore that statement." I tell him kindly before turning my attention back to Zee.