The White Wolf

Chapter Thirteen

~Payton~

As I woke up, I started playing the day before in my head, how Jake took me to the cave and how magical it was in there, how sweet and tender he was. Then the dinner he had planned ready for when we got back. I felt happy and relaxed with him, something I haven’t felt in a long time. I felt a little sad that my mum never got to meet Jake, but I know she was watching from the Goddesses realm. She would be happy with the man that the Goddess chose. I turn to find that Jake isn’t in bed with me, there was a note left on the pillow, telling me that he got up to cover training as we are all at the hospital today. So, I get washed and dressed and head downstairs in a sports bra, dress, and leggings. I thought that way I looked presentable but I could still fight if needed and I really hope it isn’t needed, but considering we upped the guards around the perimeter, the girls haven’t been out anywhere and I and Jamie keep tight to the house just in case.  I start down the corridor from mine and Jakes room to the other end and I come face to face with Jake’s ex, Tasha. She looked worn down, a little rough to be honest, she also looked angry but that couldn’t be because of Jake and me, we’ve been married for a while now, and it’s not like that was a shock either. Her bird-like features looked more bird-like, her pointy nosy and sharp check bones are sharper than normal.

“Luna.” She nod’s a little. We do this as a way to be submissive, but she didn’t want too.

“Good morning,” I say as I pass her. I smile just a little bit, it’s an awkward kind of smile, like I can tell she’s annoyed, but I also know that she shouldn’t be annoyed with me. I carry on walking. She stops suddenly, next thing I know is she’s running down the corridor at me, she jumps and yells something I didn’t catch. I duck and she flies over my head, crashes into the wall at the end of the hallway. She knows I am a trained fighter; how did she not expect me to know that she would attack me and move out of the way. I roll my eyes.  “What the hell?” I grumble, more to myself than an answer from anyone.

“He is mine, he loves me, he still loves me, he told me that the other night, while you were mourning the loss of your mother” she sneered, “he’s only with you because he knows that if he left you for me, you wouldn’t survive and the wolves need you.” she taunts. My heart froze. My blood runs cold, my body has goosebumps all over it, my heart feels this ache like it's missing its other half. Then it just stops beating. I feel trapped in those words, everything around me begins to slow, I feel the panic bubble up inside me. Then questions hundreds of questions flood into my mind. Why be so romantic yesterday? Did he love her? Using all the questions flying around in my brain she runs at me again, she hits love and flips me over, I roll out of the way as her fist comes towards my face. “He’s just too nice to tell you, but I’m not” she growls. I get up and block a few hits, then she shoulders barge me and I fall against the window breaking it. “I don’t see why you're so special.” She laughs. My brain is still processing making me slower to react to her, we fight, I block her, eventually, she gets annoyed and shoves me, I slip and fall through the already broken window. I have cuts and bruises all over, as I fall, I shift and land on all fours in the garden. Tasha, Zoey, and Steph’s heads all poke out the window. Normally people’s blood would have warmed up by now, that cold feeling should have started to warm, but it hasn’t it’s only getting colder. Their face disappears and then Tasha comes flying out of the window landing in wolf form. Her wolf lands perfectly, her wolf is made up of different colours, red’s, browns and blonde. She is also bigger than your normal wolf, but not as big as me. Jamie and Nick appear at the back door, standing on the steps, after a few moments, Steph and Zoey appear along with Claire, all have faces covered in shock and concern. They know what I could do to her if I wanted. I shifted back and held my hands up.

“He chose to marry me; I didn’t force him,” I say trying to not sound too bitter.

She shifts back, naked as she doesn’t have my magic, “Only because that is the proper thing to do. He had to marry you; you are his mate. He doesn’t care about you, only what you’re the white wolf and you’re the saviour of the wolves, he didn’t want us all to die.” she stands with her arms crossed, voice mocking.

“Of course, he hasn’t been with anyone else, he wouldn’t want to cause his mate pain even if he didn’t care for me, plus I would have felt the pain of him being with another, no matter the emotional pain I was already in” I replied. Trying to sound confident.   

“Oh, would you? while you were grieving? Are you so sure?” she smirked, well no I’m not so sure but how did she know that.  

“No, he wouldn’t be with anyone else,” I say more strongly.

“Well, how about this, when Jamie would come to get him for food, you remember that don’t you? do you remember how long he was gone, Jamie would feed him and then thinking Jake was going back to you, he would leave, and Jake would visit me, he joked how you wouldn’t know, that you barely registered time anymore. That the pain you would feel, you’d mistake that for your grief. He would kiss me, we even had s*x, that’s how I ended up pregnant. He made sweet love to me, over and over again, all the time you never knew, you never showed any inclination that you knew, that it even hurt you, so we carried on.” she laughs and shrugs.

The others started talking about stopping me, if I went for her, the pack would never forgive me. She looked happy that the weight had been lifted of off her shoulders. That look, made the cold feeling run all over me. It froze me. I froze. She took her chance and lunged she shifted, and got knocked over by a big black wolf. It was Jake I knew like I always did. He growled and she shifted, he did too.

“I’m sorry my love, but I am with child. Your child. She needs to go, death would be kinder to her don’t you think?”. She says, she must know he would deny it. I still couldn’t move. It felt like ice was travelling all over my body, my heart still pumped, but with each pump, I feel like I was going numb.

“Oh, don’t you dare, you know dam well it isn’t mine.” he growled at her, “we will do a paternity test at the hospital immediately.” He turns to those training that had followed him, “Training is suspended until this matter is resolved. Spread the word.” His voice flat. His eyes are dark. He either didn’t like her lying, or she wasn’t lying, and he didn’t like her telling me. Either way, he would be angry.

As each second passed, my body started to feel more numb, I could barely register the pain in my wrist. Jamie, however, noticed and rush to my side lifting my wrist, I look down, barely registering it was my wrist. There was also cuts all over my arms.  

“Water?” he questioned. I just stare at him. Water? That was the symbol. Huh? Explains a lot. I read in one book, a white wolves heart turned to ice, figuratively not literally. It meant that the wolf couldn’t feel anything. No pain, no hate, no anger, and no love. It happened when her mate died on the battlefield. She turned into a machine, killing most of her enemies. The rest retreated and hide for a decade. Eventually, she died because she couldn’t warm her heart back to normal, she couldn’t make friends or fall in love again.

“Bambi, if this happens you know you can’t come back from this”, tears welled up in his eyes, I knew what he was saying I just couldn’t find the energy to care about it. I now felt nothing, no pain, no heartache.

“No”, I say turning to the group that was training “training will continue as normal as of tomorrow. I will be taking over and stepping up the training. We need to be ready” I say, the pack murmur “yes Luna”. As I walk into the house and ask Claire for breakfast. I take my seat at the table, while the others take theirs, Jake puts Tasha in his office and tells her to stay put, using his Alpha voice meaning she has no choice but to follow his command. We ate breakfast. Jamie and Jake whisper at the table, while we discuss how to split the cars.

“Well, Jamie, Nick, Steph, Zoey and Tasha in one car, me and Jake will follow behind. That way we can see if an attack is going to happen and prewarn you if they do a frontal assault you can warn us.” I say.

“Bambi, you are in no state to fight,” Jamie says.

“State? What state?” I say looking at him before he talks, I cut in, “Oh you mean my mother dying, then my mate's ex tells me she’s pregnant with his child. Yeah well, just as well I finally learnt to invoke water isn’t it?” I say. I don’t feel anything so hard to feel sad about that has happened. He gets why I should be there, there will be no guilt about killing people, people trying to kill us, but killing none-the-less. I would be more of a machine than human. They probably wouldn’t even need to get out of the car to help me.

“Well, Bambi we both know what happens to white wolves who freeze their hearts, they don’t survive,” Jamie says matter of fact. “You need to go through the pain, not hide from it”.

“I need this Jamie; I need to not feel. I can’t process this. I need to know the truth otherwise I will just react, and I can’t do that. You know that.” I say.

The others were watching us, watching me. “Let’s just go?” they all nod and start getting their stuff together. The hospital is not that far but if we hit trouble, we will still want to make sure we can get our appointments.

While the girls get their stuff together, Nick goes to see Tasha, think to see if he can get a read on her. Jake starts looking for books on white wolves and gives them for Elizbeth to read and make notes on. Once everyone is ready, we head to the cars, everyone starts to get in as Tasha makes a big scene about getting in the car with Jake. I just stand there passively watching her, as she annoys everyone with her whining.

“Tasha. You got to choices, I either shut you up permanently, or you do as your told. I am fed up with listening to your whining and self-entitlement.” I growl at her, she whines and gets in the car. Everyone gets into their assigned cars. Nick’s car taking the lead me and Jake following behind. Over the radio there are red warning for blizzard coming in, meaning it's going to get cold fast, limiting humans being out and about. I check in with the warriors to ensure that all the pack gets to their homes safely. Once we are at the hospital, Steph is called in first and comes out happy, she’s having a single pup. Then Zoey goes in when she comes out with Jamie, he rushes over to me, to show me their sonogram, they are having twins. It’s still too early to tell the s*x of the babies but they are all healthy. Then Tasha gets called, we all go in for her sonogram. Jake explains to the doc about the situation, he mentions he had heard some of it through the grapevine, and her randomly turning up on his schedule. He takes what he needs to, to do a paternity test of the baby. Tasha doesn’t look very happy with this. She whispers that he should remember his deal with Wyatt. The others aren’t listening in, but I am. He nods. When he comes back, he looks white as a sheet.  

“So,” he begins, he takes a deep breath, “Tasha is pregnant by an Alpha, but it isn’t ours.” Everyone relaxes in the room except Tasha and me.

“So, who is the dad?” Jake asks.

“Without the DNA I can’t tell you, but the baby has similar DNA to you Jake, like something a sibling would have.” He looks visibly uncomfortable.

“I thought you were on our side” Tasha growls, flying at the doc.

I catch her before she reaches him. “What your tone missy, it will give you away” I growl at her. Jake and Steph ask to change up the cars. Everyone agreed. Steph came in with us. I told her she needs to sit in the back seat, behind me. That way we could protect her better. Tasha and Zoey sit in the other car with Jamie and Nick. You can tell Nick hates being separated from Steph. She is a target and she is his, I told him I would protect her with my life, and that while I cannot feel anything at the moment, my word is still my word.

“We won’t have to worry about Rogue wolves, it’s too cold for them, but human’s cant drive well in the snow and vampires will still be out,” I say. Reminding everyone. Nothing happens on the way home. They either didn’t expect us to be out, or they are waiting for something. Most the way home Jake and Steph talk about how to talk to their mum about everything.

“Payton?” he eventually says. I turn from looking out the window.

“Humm?” I mumble.  

“I would never.”

“I know.” I say before he gets another word out. “my heart froze, not because you could, or would, but because it couldn’t take the pain of what she was saying.” I say.

He nods, he knows. We drive the rest of the way in silence. Once we get back Tasha is escorted to a nicely kitted out cell. Jake heads down to talk to her. I stand back quietly as he does. I am trying to put the pieces together in my head. Once they finish, he leaves, I push up from the wall to follow him.

She grabs my arm, “I was told what to say” she says quietly.

“by Wyatt?” I say and she nods.

“I was chosen by him to be Luna, Jake never loved me, but he never found his mate and Wyatt told him, it had to be me. I am sorry Payton.” She burst into tears. His dad hates me that much that he would do this. “Did you tell Jake?” she shakes her head.

“Payton be careful. He knew Sebastian very well before all this. This is something not even Jake can fix.” I nod once so she knew I heard her, and I walked away.

She is hurting you can see that; she loved Jake and knew he didn’t truly love her. She knew she was a pawn in the old Alpha’s game. This changed everything for me though. I know this is Sebastian pulling the strings here, maybe he is the evil that’s coming or maybe it’s something worse than him, either way, I need to train. Sebastian needs to die. I can’t have him around if there is something worse coming.

Wyatt is away with a neighbouring pack, although now thinking about it, it probably wasn’t the best idea. Jake called his mother into his office and sat her down. Jake told Clarissa what Tasha had said, and she broke down in tears.

“Mum, what is going on?”

“Jake, my sweet, sweet boy. Your dad since learning about Payton, he’s changed. We’ve known Sebastian for years, which is why we sent you to train with them, like your father, we knew you would be a black wolf. We knew it could be a possibility that you were Payton’s mate” seeing our shocked faces “yes, we knew about you, well your existence. It’s why Wyatt stepped down from Alpha so early so that you wouldn’t travel to meet your mate. We couldn’t chance you happen upon her, you’d know even before he got her wolf and as Payton was travelling and helping other packs train we couldn’t chance it.

“But how didn’t Sebastian know Payton would be the white wolf mum?”

“Because of her fighting skills, it was clear she was a natural-born fighter, she could get her way with the pack from the day she was born. It was no coincidence that your dad died and that the alpha wanted your mum Payton” she says. “I also didn’t know Wyatt slept with Tasha or how long he’s been doing it, which could mean two things, our mating bond as weakened, or he’s been drugging me so much that I wouldn’t know, either one isn’t good. I am so sorry Jake. I thought I could fix it, the more he knew Payton, the more he seemed to like her.” She was crying, tears streaked down her face disturbing her makeup, her eyeliner ran a little mixing in with the streaks. My heart broke for her, her mate double-crossed her. Even if their bond was lessening, it will still hurt. Jake put her to bed, where she cried herself to sleep, we could all hear it, the rooms were soundproof, but Jake left the door open so he could listen in on her. We sat downstairs talking with Nick and Jamie about what needs to happen. None of the conversations was good. Our priority was to protect the pack and most of all protect the pregnant girls. Next was to deal with Wyatt, they all agreed to put him in the basement and deal with him later. Which seemed like a cop-out, in my opinion, he had been conspiring behind the pack. We also tried mediation to see if I could lessen the ice around my heart, but instead, I ended up putting an ice wall around the boundary. Which I tried to take down, but it didn’t work. Nick joked about the fact they have no aircraft flying over overwise we would have been given away. The ice wall towered over the tree’s so they couldn’t be used to climb over it. The warriors tried melting it, which didn’t work People who wanted to leave, or visit could via the front gate. We tried to climb it, but it seemed impossible. So, we just had people stationed at the front and then someone to run the boundary to ensure it was still there. With the blizzard in place, which Jamie now thinks was me, no-one would be around to notice the frozen wall. We stationed the warriors we knew to be loyal to Jake on the front and they were told to alert us when Wyatt came home. They wouldn’t alert him or spook him. He should be home early hours of the morning. We decided to get some sleep before he gets home, and all hell breaks loose. If he questions the frozen wall, the warriors will tell him that I was meditating trying to control the elements and that somehow, I accidentally erected the wall of ice. We left it at that.