"Nathan, you need to calm down, ok, son?" The one with the strongest aura soothed. I really looked at him and noticed his features. 'My' features. Black hair, green eyes, the tattoo that marked him as a shifter on the right side of his neck, just below a mark that denoted him as my blood. I had to quell the urge to growl and force them all to submit. That just proved that I was injured somewhat seriously and not in my right mind at the moment.
In a second, I was up and taking stock of myself, searching out the injuries I knew were keeping me from a completely calm mind. I was ready to snap at the slightest thing because of them. I felt bandages around my head and ribs, my arm wrapped tightly in a type of rubber cloth meant for durability and strength, but also allowing easy movement.
"-than," I actually let a growl slip past my defense when I noticed them moving closer. My wolf was urging me to look for the youngest of my pack, a little girl my mother had given birth to when I was eight, after the first man she had gotten together with left her. She wasn't quite five yet. Just like mom and I, she was half Japanese. I'd gotten interested in the language and mastered it before I turned ten.
"Aniki!" She yelled, scrambling up on the bed so she could throw herself in my arms. I easily caught her and looked for my best friend, my pack brother, Jake. So what? I'd known I was a shifter since I was eleven. Jake had shifted shortly after me, and I had kept him as close as possible. We were brothers in all but blood. I nodded curtly at him before burying my face in Jasmine's bouncy black curls.
"Brother." Jake's deepening voice caught me out of my reverie. I looked up. "Some other shifter's have found out. They informed the Hunter's. We're in deep s--- at the moment." I looked around me, at the people who were looking at me with some sort of longing and I felt nothing but possessiveness for my Pack. These were not Pack. I didn't know them, despite the fact that we smelled similar. "Alpha, we await your orders." Our little ragtag family. There were only eight, seven now with Mom dead. We needed to get Jake's mom, Kaa-san, and leave. "Kaa-san is dead. They got her before we realized." I gritted my teeth and nodded.
"Six. Where are the others?" It was a question, but it was serious. I needed to make sure that my Pack was safe before we could take any extensive measures. I would not endanger the rest of them.
"They're gathering any necessities. As I said, we await your orders. They should be coming any minute now. I heard their cars pull up." I went into deep thought and tried to recall any safehouses.
"Ohayo, boss." Tammy said, coming in and followed by the last two members of our Pack, Daniel and Izzy. "Orders?" The man who was obviously my father was flabbergasted. I was blatantly ignoring him, even though he was an alpha.
"Dominji." I ordered. Dominji was the name of one of our unknown safehouses. "Be cautious. Stay on alert. If you see anything suspicious, pull over and regroup. Stay near each other or have your phones on at all times. Don't get caught. Dismissed." That was my way of saying, "Be careful, don't get hurt or I'll go ballistic. I can't take anymore losses right now." As much as I wanted to believe that we could escape their notice, I had known it was only a matter of time. Now, we were in the middle of an age old war that had been hidden for the sake of 'innocents.' I just hoped they stayed that way. I would die before they got the rest of my Pack, my family.
