An Unwavering Promise--Completed

Chapter Thirty

Alexander’s POV

“Yes, a full-scale attack. Alex and I barely managed to get out… Yes, at the Alpha Summit… No, I don’t know when–yes, just that that is the time frame…” Eleanor said into a phone.

I turned away from her and focused on the road once more. I had contacted beta, James, earlier and informed him of everything, just like Eleanor was currently doing. Angel was on the other line. Both Eleanor and I had discussed how lucky we were to have such amazing betas taking care of our packs while we dealt with the dragon issue. Neither knew what we’d do without them.

On a darker note, neither of us knew what to do about the current situation. Demons were going to attack the Alpha Summit, which was being held south of us in the deep recesses of the Sierra National Forest. Although most people think of California, they name the big cities like San Francisco or Los Angeles; however, many forget about the vast wilderness and forests in California. It was easy to hide wolf packs in these areas.

Xavier had floated us some cash, his cell phone, and a rental car, since our things had been stolen by the demons infiltrating The Recovery. Hailey had started having contractions earlier that morning, which meant that our witch was out of the upcoming fight. I hadn’t heard from Brit at all, which was troubling.

She’ll be fine. She always is.

Sure, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her since I was attacked from behind and woke up in my own padded cell. She didn’t drop by or help me escape. In fact, I’m surprised I was able to convince that guard to let me out before we even started the sequence.

It was a lucky break, but stop worrying about it. I’m quite certain that we’ll hear from her sooner or later. Perhaps she needed to escape herself. Or she was working with them the entire time and sold you out. If that’s the case, we don’t need her anyway.

Panic and fear gripped me. You really think she could do that?

I felt Hunter roll his eyes.

No, you i***t. Worst case scenario. I’d suggest focusing on the plan ahead of you. Well, making a plan with our mate to stop the demon invasion. That seems like a more pressing worry than wondering where an old partner is.

I knew that Hunter was right, but a pit was growing in my stomach that something was terribly wrong about not hearing from Brit. It was extremely unlike her to not check in with one another.

“Okay, thank you. Yeah, I’ll call you back when we’re almost there. Um, it should be about nine more hours. We just passed Roseburg. Yes, it’s below Eugene. I know, we’ve been driving for six hours already. Okay, I’ll call you then. Bye,” Eleanor finished with a sigh.

She dropped the phone into her lap and briefly closed her eyes before turning to me.

“We can’t catch a break, can we? From situation to situation. We barely have time to breath!”

“Our lives have certainly gotten more hectic, haven’t they?” I chuckled.

She shook her head. “It’s unbelievable, actually. If I wrote all this down and tried to sell it as a book, no one would believe us. They’d say we were lying or at least embellishing parts to make it more interesting.”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I bet a few would believe it. I’m sure the other races wouldn’t struggle.”

“Well, sure. But humans? We’re make-believe in their world. We frighten their children and are used as lessons to avoid strangers.”

We both laughed and then let the silence settle in for a bit.

“I have a confession,” Eleanor blurted suddenly.

“Um. Do I want to hear this?”

“No, but I have to tell you.”

I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand’ my eyes on the road. “Great…”

“I was going to free Dominic and run away with him in order to find Nathan and figure out how to use these dark powers. That is, before Mr. Smith threw me into a cell. I wanted to look for him and help his escape.”

The pit in my stomach grew larger. “You were…going to leave me?”

“Not, like, leave you, leave you. Just… I was mad that you didn’t agree with me. That you didn’t get it. Dominic, well. He supported me–”

“He wants to f**k you,” I growled.

“Hey!” she frowned. “I wouldn’t let that happen, and you know it.”

I swallowed the first retort before answering, “Doesn’t make it any less true. That’s his ultimate goal: to take you away from me. I will not let it happen. You’re mine.”

She laid a hand on my thigh, which soothed Hunter’s anger. “I’m yours,” She said gently. “Just as how you’re mine. There’s no changing that. I’m not going to get caught up in a weird love triangle again. It wasn’t fun, and it really messed up my brain. I’m just saying that I want to explore this part of me, and you didn’t seem receptive to it. So, not that I’m stating it was good plan, but I’m being honest with you about how I wanted to seek out other help to figure it all out.”

“You promised that you wouldn’t.”

“I lied.”

I was quiet for a few minutes, mulling over her words.

What should I do? She really wants to use this dark power or whatever. I know that it is a bad idea. The moment she taps into it, I’m afraid to lose her. To lose what we have and what we’ve fought for.

Then tell her that instead of me.

And if she doesn’t care and wants to keep pursuing this? Then what?

Then you support her even though you don’t think it’s a good idea. You can’t control her, and you shouldn’t want to. Dad always put Mom in a box, and how well did that work out?

I let out a long sigh before saying, “I’m afraid to lose you. To lose us. We don’t know what will happen if you go down this road.”

“We don’t know what will happen anyway. I mean, there are a bunch of demons planning on invading the Alpha Summit.”

“You really want to do this, no matter what I think?”

She nodded.

“Then I have no choice but to support you. But know that I hate this.”

She squeezed my thigh. “Thank you, my love. I’m glad that I didn’t hide this from you…”

I gave her a raised eyebrow.

“–Any longer than I already did,” she stated sheepishly.

“Here I was, thinking that we were done hiding important information from each other.”

“Yeah… If it makes you feel any better, Rae was totally on your side, and thought I was being stupid,” she giggled.

I smiled. “You know? That actually does make me feel better. Rae is so much smarter than you, and to have her on my side– Ow!”

I looked over to see Eleanor gearing up to punch my shoulder again. She was grinning.

“Let’s never lose this,” I said in a hushed voice, looking into her eyes for a moment before turning back to the road.

“What do you mean?”

“This. The fun we have together. The laughter. The love. Our shared moments that are only for us. I won’t be able to survive if you’re not in my life. If I lost you, I couldn’t–”

“Oh, baby. I’m not going anywhere. You won’t lose me,” she quickly replied.

I nodded, feeling tears welling up in my eyes. I didn’t want to think of a future without her. Even with all the craziness that had taken residence in our lives, it was better than being without her.

Sap.

Shut up. You feel the same about Rae.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

“Let’s discuss our game plan for the Alpha Summit. What are the odds of us bursting in there, stating that demons are coming to get us, preparing for the attack, and then all working together to stop them?” Eleanor asked.

“Slim to none.”

“Figured as much. That’s a bummer. What should we do?”

“Well,” I started. “We are alphas, so they have to at least listen to our pitch. The only issue is making them believe us when we tell them what’s going on. How much of the truth do you want to share?”

Eleanor squirmed in her seat. “Another good question. I want to trust the other alphas, but we just can’t. We can’t risk jeopardizing the dragons. And, we’ll have to ensure that none of the alphas are already demons, so I’ll need all of them gathered in one spot so that I can see their true faces.”

“That’s true.”

“We don’t think that any of the alphas would willingly work with the demons, do we?”

I frowned. “We don’t have enough time to know where their allegiances lie. I guess we’ll just have to go on faith until there’s something suspicious or a reason to think otherwise.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“I know, but it’s all we can do presently.”

“So, just to make sure I get this right: we storm in, gather the alphas, test them with my sight, and then tell them a horde of demons are on their way to kill us all?”

I let out a humorless laugh. “Yup, I guess that’s our grand plan.”

“We need some sort of tact, though, don’t we?”

“Probably.”

“Okay, well, as much as I hate to say this, but they’ll listen to you over me. It’s only me and Lanie as female alphas. You know and I know that the others don’t respect me as an alpha like they should. But, they’ll listen to you,” she said with more confidence than I felt.

I snorted, “Oh I see. You’re going to put this all on me.”

“Yup,” she laughed.

“Okay, I guess I got nine hours to think of something.”

“That’s plenty of time to wing it.”

I chuckled to myself and started brainstorming.