Chapter Four

Mellisa's POV 

Four years later

So much has changed since after the rejection.

A knock resounds outside my door, pulling me from my reverie. I can make out the sweet voice of my son and my good friend, Fred.

“Why, we can't gwo in?” My baby, Gift questions, Fred with a cute voice. His little grammatical mistakes make him so adorable.

A sweet smile lingers on my lips at his cuteness. My feet hit the wooden floor lightly as I walked towards them to open the door.

“Because Mom might be busy in her office.” Fred answers him, just as the door swings open.

My son's face lit up and his arms opened wide. “Momy!!! I've missed you sooooo much.” 

I chuckle lightly, picking him up from Fred's arms. I wrap my arms around him.  “I've missed you much more my sweet love.”

“How was your day with your Uncle Daddy?” I ask, my son insists on calling Fred “Uncle Daddy.”

“It was beautiful, Ma. I play shoccer with him and ate lots and lots of ice-cream, too.”

I give Fred a look, he stares everywhere but at me. He clears his throat at my son.

Gift's eyes widen in realization. “Ooops, Mom I didn't have any ice-cream, just a little.”

“Fred, we'll talk about this later.” Then I give my son a stern look, “No lying to Mama, and it's soccer baby not shoccer.”

His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Yes, Mom. Never again.” He is my little ‘carbon copy’, looks just like me in every way. Even if he didn't I wouldn't love him any less.

“You little devil, your Uncle Daddy has made you so full of mischief.” I say tickling him silly.

“Fred, can you call Aiden over? I need to discuss with him what was discussed in the Alpha's Council today.”

“You can't mindlink him?”

“Nope it would seem that he is blocking me out. Since he found his mate two weeks ago. He's been a fool for love.”

We laugh out loud. “Who would have thought,” he said and walked towards the door.

“Please take him with you, I have so much work left on my desk.” I say passing my son over to him. 

“Sure thing, Alpha.” Fred carried my son and walked out.

I settle on my desk and begin to work on my stack of papers.

“Can I come in, Alpha?” My Beta, Aiden asks me using the mindlink.

I drop my pen on my desk and lean back against my chair.

“Ofcourse, lover boy.”

My door knob twists open and he steps in. His chocolate eyes meet mine with a soft smile playing on his lips.

“Alpha, you wouldn't let me hear the last of this, would you?”

“Not at all, ‘Mr. I can never do this for love’, is all over his mate.”

He shakes his head at me. “You wanted updates before we have a meeting with the Council of Elders in our pack and neighbouring Alpha, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. You're no fun at all. Go ahead and give me the updates.”

“Well as you know our world is in complete chaos, the rogues are more powerful than ever.”

“Yes I know that, go ahead.”

“Well the Council of Alphas saw a need for us all to coorporate so as to reduce the severity of the aftermath of the attacks.”

“What exactly did they propose, Aiden?” I ask, getting impatient. 

“They would like us larger packs to help those attacked.” 

“And? How would we do that? We are already giving materials and lending some of our warriors to packs that were attacked.”

He sighs and says, “I know but it would seem like we have more packs in our world, Meldova, that are attacked than those that are still standing strong.”

I heave a sigh and bite my bottom lip in deep thought. This little habit is one of the few things I've found hard to beat.

“So what are they saying?”

“They wrote down names of packs and made us pick them randomly. So whichever you pick, must be helped by you.”

“I just hope this will soon be over. We need to think of something fast to overrun the rogues. Because if we continue at this rate we may never be able to salvage the situation.”

“Wouldn't you like to know the pack I picked, Alpha?”

I kiss my teeth. “That's not important for now. What we need is to think of strategic ways of preventing the rogues from penetrating.”

“Truly, last night they got too close.”

“Yes, they did. Truly, I'm so scared, old friend. I don't know if I'm worthy of this position, but my father passed it to me.”

Aiden stares at me thoughtfully. He was always a good listener in our clique of friends. 

“Never let those thoughts get in your head. You've done a lot, so much. You have been able to successfully keep the rogues out no matter how they try penetrating.”

“I just….”

A knock pulls us from our conversation. 

“Come in.” I answer.

My father, the former Alpha Dave is the first to step in with several Elders of the pack in tow.

An attack happened yesterday, one of our warriors was severely injured. The rogues had somehow pulled him away from his team and attacked.

“Take your seats, Elders.” My voice booms round the room.

They all take their seats in my spacious office space. My father gives me a sweet smile and an encouraging nod. It means so much to me. 

“Gentlemen and ladies, I called for an emergency meeting so we can discuss two things.”

“First the attack yesterday and the fact that we have another pack to tend to.” I finish staring round the room.

“Does anyone have anything to say?”

Elder Monica clears her throat and says, “We need to add warriors by the borders and also we need to change the formation of our warriors.”

“You're right. It would seem that the rogues had it all figured out.”

I then lean forward slightly. “Which makes me wonder how they got to find out.” I barely spare a glance. 

“Are you implying something, Alpha?” The ever annoying Elder Thomas says in his strangled voice.

“Ofcourse not Elder, I wouldn't dare.”

“I feel like we should also be unpredictable and have a backup plan. They will be back and we all know it. In fact much more reinforced.” My Father, Dave intercepts knowing about how I and Elder Thomas never got along. 

“We'll be ready.”

Aiden then clears his throat and says. “We should place all wolves from age twelve to at least learn basic defense, so even our young can protect themselves.”

“Also training will be more rigorous. We need it to survive. We would also build walls around our territory for extra precaution” I say to back his opinion up.

“Now let's tackle the issue of helping the pack.” I then turn towards Aiden. “How large is this pack and what is the number of those strong enough to fight and work?”

He takes out a piece of paper from his jeans, his eyes skim through it then he places it down.

“Well the thing is we have a pack of a hundred and fifty. About a hundred can still work and fight.”

My head tilts in confusion. “They are much more than I thought. Why couldn't they ward off the attack.”

“From what I heard the rogues were so much and outnumbered them, it seems like they were hell bent on destroying the pack house and other structures.”

“I see. What about the Alpha?”

“The rogues thought they had killed him but he was just severely injured. He is fine now though scarred.”

“That's rather sad. Well hope he is still coming over today so we can make final arrangements. Our pack house has more than enough space.”

Aiden's eyes glaze over for some moments. He was definitely mindlinking someone.

He then gives me a long stare. “Fred just informed me that the Alpha is on pack grounds. Should I give them the order to bring him in?”

“Yes, that will be just perfect since the Elders are even here.”

His eyes glazed over for a bit then he refocused on me.

“You're staring at me, should I be worried?” I ask Aiden through the mindlink. 

“No, Alpha. Just keep your mind open okay?”

“O..okay.” I stress, why is my Beta suddenly acting strange? 

“Elders, we will just wait for a minute so our guest will join us in no time.”

A faint familiar scent reaches my nostrils, I shake my head so it'll fade off. It kept getting close and strong though.

A faint knock distracts me for a moment. “Alpha can we come on?” Fred asks from out the door.

“Come in.”

Fred walks in and I freeze completely, eyes bulge out in shock at the sight of who is behind him.