The White Wolf

Chapter Four

~Jake~

So, the guys manage to get me back in the house, I am so angry that she managed to command my pack, we aren’t even mated yet and she can do that. Tasha won’t leave my side. She keeps pawing at me like a lost kitten, after the third time of her telling me she was so scared and how she needed someone so big and strong to protect her, I start to ignore her. I know what she is trying to do, she wants the wolf outside to kill my mate because she thinks I will go back to her then, but I won’t, I don’t want her, I don’t love her anymore but she doesn’t seem to understand that. I can feel Payton’s panic and fear was coming through the link, I am barely able to control my wolf which will be terrifying for anyone around if I lose control.

“Let me out there, she needs help. Look at her!” I try to get out, but they block my way, Tasha is still trying to get my attention, and murmuring how much she needs a strong man to protect her.

“Come on, I know its hard, but she’s got this, she’s an amazing fighter,” Nick speaks up, probably feeling guilty as there is no way in hell, he would have left my sister.

“Yeah she will be fine baby, I know she’s your mate and all but you’ll be stronger when she dies” Tasha speaks up, there’s a sharp intake of breath and everyone goes still, I turn to her barely able to keep my wolf from killing her.

“Get her out of here now, before I lose control of my wolf”. She starts to fight them

“Remember when we did it as wolves, remember that night baby?” she purrs.

“Now!” no-one can remove her, “Tasha, I will only say this once more, I didn’t split up with you because I found my mate, I split up with you before I found her, we were not working, I do not want you. Your only alive because of my mate and your standing telling me that it would perfectly ok for that monster who tried to kill you, to kill her. I do not want you; I do not love you, and right now I do not want to see you! GO!!” she relents, and Thomas can remove her from the room, once she is gone, I can control my wolf a little bit more. He hates to think of us with her now that he knows our mate. We watch in horror as he causes her to bleed.

“Are you lot blind! She needs help, let me out there! She’s bleeding!” I shout at them but none of them moves to allow me out, I walk up and down the kitchen, trying not to concentrate on her feelings. The longer the fight goes on the harder it is for me to control him, she was winning, but he started to learn and counter all her moves.  I’m sure she called him Jamie when we were inside, who’s Jamie? She mentioned a best friend earlier, was his name Jamie? There was also this girl and a boy in the shadow pack, I never got to meet them, but they were treated like royalty. Everyone used to talk about them and how they will be mates, and how they are training together and so were amazingly good that as a team of essentially children they would fight against vampires. I went there soon after I turned to learn to fight and this girl was a year or two younger than me. Which would all fit, wouldn’t it? Wonder what happened to her when she turned then because the wolf community should have known about the only white wolf in the last few hundred years. Watching this fight is truly awful, we all believed that she was unbeatable, yeah whoever she fought always managed to get a few hits off but ultimately, she would win, but here I don’t think she will. Just then he barges into her and she goes flying across the clearing. She tries to get up but can’t.

“Let me out now!” I growl at them. They instantly part, I open the door and start running to her, everyone following behind. By the time I get to her, he has shifted and is kneeling over her sobbing about how sorry he was, how much he loved her and how she can’t die. I hear her mummer about the elements, thanking them or something until she passes out.

“How dare you touch her” I growl at him. He’s just sat there sobbing, she naked although the way she’s laying you can’t see anything. It still makes me angry though.

“Tie him up!” I order them.

“Please don’t Jake” I hear her plea. Her voice sounds rough and she’s drifting in and out of sleep.

He was kneeling beside her, crying over her body, murmuring what has he done and please don’t die. Caleb and Nick try to remove him, but he growls at him. They step back from him.

“Your Jamie right?” I bark at him; he looks up, the face is red and blotchy, and into my eyes. They are the people from the shadow pack. I just knew it. What the hell happened to them.

“What’s it to you?” he growls, he’s now standing there in a protective stance over her.

“I am her mate” I growl back.

“Oh, then yes I am Jamie. I know how to save her; do you have her bag? Please I must save her.” He pleads with me, “Please I will even swear to your Alpha, so that you know I am safe, please”.

“I am the Alpha” Nick throws him a pair of pants and he quickly puts them on, then he steps back so I can pick her up.

I kneel and put her in my arms, all the men have the decency to turn their back as I pick her up. Being naked around your pack is normal, we shift around each other all the time, but when she shifted back she always had clothes on so they must have figured that since she always shifted with clothes that she was shy or something.

I mind link the doctors to meet us at the house and continue to carry Payton up to her room. Jamie follows us in, she had left her bag on the bed in which he noticed and empties the contents onto the bed. Murmuring about how she was running low and wouldn’t have survived alone much longer, let alone meeting him.

“Jamie, how did you lose control?” I ask. I’m watching him hunt through the contents of the bag.

“I was tortured to the point of breaking. We are missing an ingredient.”

Payton stirs in my arms, “Ducky”

“Her duck,” he looks at me as if I’m stupid, “Her duck has the ingredient, I assume anyway, all she said was ducky”

“Ohh, makes sense, smart girl,” he says as he grabs the duck it has a Velcro bottom and he pulls out another sachet. “Do you mind if I run a bath? I’ll explain everything I can once you’re in the bath?” I nod, assuming he will work quicker, and I sit on the edge of the bed while I wait, eventually, he shouts come in.   

“This will work better if your naked, ill hold Payton” I do as he says, my wolf hates handing her to him and starts howling in my head, “ get into the water” which I do and he lays Payton on top of me. “So, how much has she told you?” He sits down on the floor, he leans against the cabinet for the sink.

“She hasn’t told me anything, she thinks if I find out I will reject her, or the pack won’t want her as their Luna. I have worked out that she is the stepdaughter of the Alpha of the Shadow pack, I trained there when I first turned, so I know a lot about the pack. I know nothing about her first shift, or what happened after that, or why she ran away, or how she could run away, I mean they are the best trackers and fighters in history, and their Alpha is bloodthirsty.” I stop, his face is pale.

“Well, it’s not my story to tell, but when she turned she was held captive, I helped her escape, I got caught and was tortured to breaking point, the Alpha knew she was the only one who could save me and let me loose in the hopes that I would wreak enough havoc that it would draw her out of hiding, but I had told my wolf what to do, to find Payton, and she would heal us. Her White wolf abilities link her to the Goddess magic and therefore she can call on them to help her. The Alpha exploited this, he learnt all he could about her, made every man in the pack see her see if her mate was in the pack, He didn’t abuse her, but he would ignore her, eventually, I was allowed to see her and helped her escape, I was meant to run with her, to help protect her but I got caught and tortured”. Payton has started to glow and I couldn’t stop staring at her, “ It’s where her magics are being returned to her slowly to be able to heal herself, she is also drawing strength from you, don’t worry, you won't be weak or anything after, it just helps restore her somehow”.

“How do you know so much about white wolfs?”

“Oh, Payton was fascinated by the myth, so she liked to research them before she turned, she knew all about white wolves and being her best friend, we did everything together.” He half-smiled at that, his eyes far away like he was living in a memory. While he was caught up in memory, I studied him, he was the same height as me, brown hair, cut short, blue eyes. He was skinny, so during this torture, he wouldn’t have been fed. You can tell he is a trained fighter, the way he sits on the floor is so that he can get up straight away to fight. “So, how has it been with Payton?”

“Erm, I’ve only known her for two days, so you know, not great, when I found her, she was fighting five rogues, then she came back here, and saved a boy from being taken, then his mate showed up and she allowed us to accept them into the pack, turns out they were thrown out of theirs because they are gay, then she started training the pack warriors, which are the best of a bad bunch, then she protected my ex from you and here we are” I shrug,

“Oh wow, so you’ve not mated yet then?”

“Nope, we haven’t had the chance plus, she keeps me at arm’s length, constantly thinking that I’m going to reject her.”

“Yes well, that would be her old Alpha’s doing. Ever since she was a little girl, she wanted a semi-human wedding, with aspects of the mating ritual thrown in. When she shifted, the Alpha told her that no-one would want her and that she should forget a mate” he looked sad. “He broke my best friends heart that day, we were already bonded, and I felt every bit of that, her wolf disowned her for weeks, refused to be called forward and shift, refused to talk to her, in the end, she decided she needed to run away and find her mate, only then did her wolf reappear. She’s lucky to have found you”

“your bonded?”

“Yeah, not in the way you guys will be, but like an extra pack link, she wasn’t allowed on the pack link so we created our own, she can do it because she was a white wolf” he shrugs, he looks so tired and hungry.

‘Steph, can you bring some food and clothes up for Jamie, please? We are in Payton’s bathroom, could you also ask the pack doctor when he gets here to look over Jamie to make sure he has no long-term effects of torture please’.

‘Jake, you can’t be serious?’

‘I am very serious Steph, he has been tortured since Payton left her pack, we need to make sure he is safe in the very least.’

‘very well I will ask Claire to make something for him”

She shuts off her link to me but appears an hour later with a dinner plate of food for Jamie and some warm clothes for him. She barely talks which is unlike her.

“I have made up the room opposite this one for you, when you would like to retire to bed, you will have someone on watch outside your room as the pack doctor cannot make it until tomorrow, Marissa has gone into labour.” She gives him one last look and walks out of the bathroom.

Jamie falls asleep on the floor and I fall asleep in the tub, I wake up when there is next to no water in the bath, I wake Jamie up and he takes Payton from me, I get up and dry and then put on my bottoms, I then take Payton and dry her off and put her in her PJ’s. I Show Jamie his room then go back to Payton and cuddle up to her.

She slept there for a week. I came and went, conducted only absolute necessary stuff. Jamie was kept in the room opposite from her in case I need him close. I stayed by her side most of the time. Nick took most of my Alpha roles, as many as he could. He was good at it, but I’m sure Steph guided him. One evening, she kept tossing and turning, it was driving me crazy, so I moved and slept on the floor, it was easier than her keep moving.