The Lost Lycan King

Chapter 2 - The urgent Alpha meeting

Cillian POV

"Thank you all for coming on such short notice" begins Alpha Murphy of the snow moon pack. He has only just started speaking and people are already muttering about not wanting to be here. It's just so rude, Alpha Chester is especially loud with his opinions about it being a waste of his time.

I sip my coffee, hoping that the caffeine will wake me up slightly. It was 5am when I got the phone call about todays meeting, which is far too early on a Sunday if you ask me! Then a three hour drive to get here, plus a lot of waiting around for the other alphas to get here. It was nearly 10am now and frankly I couldn't wait to get home. Normally, Alpha meetings were organised months in advance so that everyone had time to organise hotel stays and travel arrangements. Something major must have happened for us to be called here today.

"You've been called here today because..." begins Alpha Murphy, but he tails off as the volume of the mutterings increases and the other Alphas begin their own conversations with each other.

"You've been called here today because..." he begins again, speaking slightly louder.

No one is listening to him, Alpha Murphy is a sweet guy, but he's quite timid for an Alpha and people tend to walk all over him. I glance up and see his strained face and the bags under his eyes. Does no one else see how awful he looks? Is no one else even mildly intrigued to find out what is going on? I am sat directly to his right and as he catches my eye, I give him a small nod of encouragement as I continue to sip on my coffee. He looks around the room and clears his throat.

"You have been called here today because" he shouts, looking around to see if people are listening. A few have stopped talking and looked up, but the more obnoxious alphas look him dead in the eye and continue speaking at normal volume. What makes it worse is that there really isn't any need for him to shout, we are all werewolves and so have fantastic hearing, some of us are just more ignorant than others.

Alpha Murphy hesitates and then sits back down, unsure what to do next. He lets out a sigh and puts his head in his hands. The guy really does look awful. I look over and see Alpha Chester looking directly at Murphy and smirking, he thinks this is funny. I take a deep breath, feeling my rage simmering under the surface. I cannot abide rudeness. I hear him loudly proclaim that he has better things to be doing and I see red.

I slam my now empty coffee cup down on the table and it shatters, causing a beat of silence to fall across the room. I see my chance and jump up out of my chair.

"ALPHAS" I roar, radiating my Alpha aura across the table. It won't work on them, but it will make them feel uncomfortable. They are all silent now.

"Alpha Murphy has called us here for an urgent matter and you cannot even be bothered to hear what it is. The sooner we can discuss what is going on, the sooner we can go home, now shut up and listen" I snap, slumping back down in my chair, clapping my hand on Murphy's shoulder and raising my hand to an omega at the back of the room. She rushes forward and begins sweeping up the remnants of my coffee mug, before replacing it with a new fully filled cup.

The rest of the room are still looking at me hesitantly, it's not often that I lose my temper, but I think the lack of sleep has given me a short fuse. I hadn't wanted to come to this meeting either, but no one calls an urgent meeting for no reason do they? I only had to look at Alpha Murphys face to see that something was drastically wrong. I'd been hoping to spend the day helping Anastasia move into her new flat. She had been pretty upset with me at dinner last night, but I knew that when she saw her new apartment, I would be back in her good books. I'd made sure that it looked amazing and was fully stocked with everything she needed. All she would need to do when she got there is unpack the suitcases of clothes that she had brought home for summer. But instead, I hadn't even had chance to see Anastasia before myself and Anya had started the long drive up to the Snow moon pack. I had tried to text her, but there was no signal up here with it being nestled amongst the mountains. Anya was in a mood with me too because she hadn't been able to see Anastasia either. I would have left her at home if I could, but it was mandatory for the Luna's to attend. It seems a bit daft really, since they sit in their own room away from the Alphas, but traditions must be followed I suppose.

Alpha Murphy got to his feet awkwardly and began to speak again.

"You have been called here today because there has been a vampire attack"

"We all have vampire attacks" scoffs Alpha Chester, radiating arrogance. I roll my eyes, but I can't say that he is wrong. Vampire attacks are quite frequent in all the packs. In Blood moon, my patrols catch or chase a vampire at least once a week. They normally try to cross our borders in small groups of 2 or 3, sometimes to attack, but mostly just to find our weaknesses. Im almost certain that they are looking for gaps in our patrols to sneak into the pack undetected. They never succeed.

"You don't understand, this is different" says Alpha Murphy quietly, looking at the floor. Honestly, I'm not sure how this man became an Alpha. He doesn't have the loud, confident Alpha aura that the rest of us possess. I can't imagine him in a fight or ordering people around, but he's a genuinely sweet guy and he gets a lot of respect from his pack for that.

"Maybe you just need better fighters" sniggers Alpha Chester.

"Why is it different?" Pipes up Alpha Kade, ignoring Chester. This is a surprise, as Alpha Kade was one of the members talking loudly to Chester earlier. The two share a border with their packs and are quite close. Chester frowns in response but keeps quiet.

"This wasn't a random, small attack, I know that we all have those. These were large groups of vampires with specific targets" he places his thumb and index finger on the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes "they attacked my Luna".

The room falls silent, digesting what Murphy has just said. Several voices begin to speak at once, there is a sense of panic in the room.

"How many vampires were there?"

"Is the Luna hurt?"

"How did this happen?"

"How did they get past the patrols?"

Alpha Murphy sits back down, clearly relieved to have our full attention.

"The Luna was returning from a cocktail party with my twins last night at around 11pm, around 30 vampires swarmed her car. Thankfully the patrols were aware of an intruder and responded promptly, but they were hugely outnumbered. The Luna was also able to contact the pack house for assistance" he sighs "the 10 pack warriors on patrol were killed, my gamma is also dead".

The room remains silent.

"How is your Luna?" Asks Alpha Scott from the crescent moon pack, standing up and placing a reassuring hand on Murphy's shoulder.

"She's a bit shaken up, but apart from that she is fine. That's the strange thing, they didn't seem to be trying to hurt her, more like they were trying to take her somewhere. Thank goodness my boys were with her. I can't imagine what would have happened if she'd been on her own" he shudders and then takes a sip of his tea.

Aloha Murphy has 18 year old twin boys, who are excellent fighters. I'm sure they did their best to protect their mother.

"We need something stronger than tea to toast your Gamma, he did his duty by protecting your Luna" says Alpha Kade, waving over an omega. She disappears, reappearing a few moments later with a tray of glasses with whisky in.

We toast to snow moons Gamma and then the conversation quickly turns back to the vampires.

"How did they manage to get through your patrol?" Asks Alpha Chester, who continues to look unimpressed with this meeting.

"I can't have men on every inch of the pack! There are men spaced out along the border, covering around a kilometre each. She was attacked whilst driving near the border and the nearest patrol was around 500m away at the time"

My ears prick up at what he says.

"They knew she was going to be driving there" I mutter. The room stills, they all heard me.

"Yes, I thought that too" says Alpha Murphy.

"You need to double your patrols and increase security around your Luna" says Alpha Chester, looking bored. This guy is really starting to annoy me.

"We have all been being attacked for far too long now and I'm worried that these larger attacks are going to continue" says Alpha Murphy "we are the closest pack to the vampires land, we need to unite together to stop the vampires"

Alpha Chester jumps out of his seat

"You're being ridiculous Murphy. It's one attack, not an invasion"

"I take it that Snow Moon pack can't count on support from Blue Moon pack then?" Says Murphy standing up and facing Chester.

"No you can't, blue moon doesn't owe you anything" he says, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him. He exit seems to trigger other peoples exit too. Alpha Kade stands and leaves, as well as handful of other Alphas. I note that they are all Alphas who are good friends with Chester, or ones that hate confrontation.

The remaining few of us sat around the table, glance at each other awkwardly. What are we going to do? Hopefully this is just a one off attack and we won't need to make any major decisions.

As I drive home, Anya falls asleep in the seat next to me, she hasn't enjoyed listening to all of the others Luna's gossiping. I feel unsettled in my stomach, whilst I'd like to hope that an attack like this won't happen again, my gut is telling me that this is just the beginning.

Chester's words keep replaying in my head "blue moon doesn't owe you anything". He's right. Most pack won't offer support unless you are allied to them. Blood moon pack is allied with the Full moon pack because that's where Anya is from. When our marriage was first arranged, both packs were two of the largest. Our dads married us off in order to link the packs together and help protect the packs from enemy attacks. The Full moon pack is a lot smaller now, it ended up splitting into two packs: Full moon and half moon. But even after all these years of marriage, the Full moon pack would still come to our aid if I asked them. It's just a shame that they don't have as many members anymore.

My heart lurches in my chest as I realise where my train of thought is headed. In order to protect Blood Moon Pack from attacks, I need to make new allies and there is only one way of doing that. I need to arrange a marriage for Anastasia.