Alpha Mates (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 23.

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I slammed my fist into the punching bag in front of me aggressively, only stopping to kick it instead. The past few hours had started out as a normal training session for me with a few different exercises until I just felt angry and made my way to the punching bags. After that, I had not moved from the area for a while and had broken a few things, but it seemed to be helping yet not at the same time because I was still mad and frustrated.

Before coming to the gym, I had tried doing some work. I couldn't sleep so I had decided to run over some pack work that had piled up in my absence, but I couldn't really concentrate on it so I ended up there at two in the morning.

I had been hitting this particular punching bag nonstop for the past thirty minutes, I was certain of that. What I wasn't sure of was whether I was hitting it to exercise, whether part of me just wanted it to be Nicholas or whether I was trying to gain strength by going at it for as long as possible and liked the feeling of my aching wrists and knuckles.

I don't know. I guess part of me felt like I deserved to get hurt because of how weak I was. I sure hated it. I hated the fact that despite being there for the past two hours, I still felt weak. I hated myself for being unable to return to normal.

I grabbed the punching bag to stop it and listened to my breathing as I looked down at my hands on either side of the bag. My knuckles were bruised and that only made me angrier at myself. Still not healing properly...

"Who's there?" I called. I had heard someone from outside – it was the reason I had stopped punching the bag. I may have been weak, but I seemed to notice everything around me so much more. I heard every noise, noticed the slightest movement.

"Eli, what are you doing? Doesn't training only start at six?" I heard Ben's sleepy voice.

"I have work to finish later." I didn't turn to look at him. I could smell that Ashton was with him.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" Ashton asked.

"Why? I'm fine. I've had enough rest." I said. I would think I had with the sleeping for two days after they found me thing.

"Did you do that?" Ben asked. I looked past my current punching bag at the four broken bags on the mat across the room.

"Uh... we need new bags anyway, these aren't very... durable," I mumbled.

"Eli, are you okay?" Ashton's hand touched my shoulder and I had to stop myself from tensing or grabbing it to fight him. I had not realised how touchy everyone around me was until then.

"I'm good. Just wanted to get some exercise." I said letting the bag go. I clenched and unclenched my fist as I watched the bruises on my knuckles heal slowly. There we go... But the black around my eye was still there, and there were the stab wounds that were healing so slowly they needed stitches. Burn scars. Not even Ashton's blood had helped me heal. I pulled my sleeves down over my wrists and covered my palms, fisting the fabric in my hands before I turned to face my friends. "You made any progress with finding them?" I asked.

"We know that they haven't taken a plane anywhere, but that's about it," Ben said. "We'll see if one of the witches could track Nicholas with some hair from his brush or something." I nodded.

"I'm sorry, Eli," Ashton said. "My dad told me not to say anything, after everything that happened just because people knew about my mom's blood –"

"I understand, but you know we wouldn't have told anyone," I said. "You should focus on apologising to Tamia."

Sean's mother, Izabella, had the same type of blood he did and other packs had found out long before we were born when she was a teenager. Our pack and Izabella had been attacked so many times just to get a hold of her blood so of course Tamia, Ben, and I would not have said a word to anyone, even if he had not asked us not to.