White Lightning

Chapter 85: Disbelief

Ryan was currently staring at the Alpha in complete disbelief, a deep furrow creasing his brow. "You're serious?"

Sure, he had been the one to infiltrate the little incident that had occurred the day before, had caught the two she-wolves sneaking back onto the property. Remaining hidden in the shadows, he had listened as the pack's Gamma directed the two to scamper back into the compound quickly and to cover their tracks at every turn. The Luna was clutching her stomach and complaining of cramping, and it had been abundantly obvious that she had done something that neither she nor Crimson, nor TJ for that matter, wanted anyone to know about.

His brother's puffy red eyes continued to leak the occasional tear. "I'm very serious."

His expression was a match for the Beta's: confusion, horror, and anxiety. How was any of this even possible? From a security standpoint, how had they even managed to leave the property without anyone noticing or alerting him? Beyond that, how had they known where to go and who to turn to for such a thing? He knew instinctively that Rick was not involved, and that his brother TJ definitely had a shit-ton of explaining to do.

The Beta took a deep breath, exhaled and glanced out into the woods, and his search for answers was met with nothing but birds chirping and a gentle breeze through the trees. "This is bad. Not just for the obvious, but this is bad."

"Yes," the Alpha agreed, chewing his bottom lip. "It's an ominous sign."

Ryan considered the information for several minutes and then sighed heavily. Right now, the pack implications seemed less important to what his brother must be going through personally. Feeling a great empathy, he compassionately inquired, "Are you alright?"

Chris took a swig from his bottled water, considering the question at length. "I don't feel that I have any option but to be alright. Do I get to not be alright?"

"If you're not, I would understand completely," his brother admitted. "What she did was –"

"I'm heartbroken and I'm angry," his brother admitted, turning his eyes down toward his fidgeting fingers. "I cannot believe that Ophelia would do this, would stoop this low. I knew she was scared and I knew that she hadn't recovered from the last birth, but I never in a million years expected she was capable of this. I want to scream and cry. There's an unbridled anger building in my wolf, but I'm trying to quell the violent fantasies."

Considering his words carefully, the Beta asked cautiously. "What of Crimson?"

The Alpha dismissed that idea away with a wave of his large hand. "I knew that girl was trouble from the second she set foot on our soil. I wanted her gone, but you know that TJ fought for her. He swore that he would keep her in line and that she would be his perfect mate. I was a fucking jackass to consider that she would be anything less than a nightmare. I'm an utter fool for allowing her to stay in this pack!"

"And now you can't let one get away with it and not the other," Ryan cut to the chase.

Chris nodded. "If this was a case of Crimson sneaking off the property to abort her pup, I would assume that our idiot brother was complicit and I would just let it go. It's not my business what those two fools do, and I would rather not get involved in their insanity."

"But it is your business," Ryan argued, his voice growing in strength. "If you allow our brother to continually cheat the established rules of the pack, then those rules become situational and they lose their – What's the word I want? No one will respect the rules if nearly everyone is allowed to break them. You are the Alpha, you should know this above all else and you should protect our pack at all costs. Allowing TJ to break the rules over and over again shows a weakness in your rule, and you don't want to be weak, Christopher."