An Alpha's Claim

It was different then

"Jaaaaaaaaaaa-ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!" A muffled voice shouted, earning a groan and curse.

J flipped onto her back and sighed heavily as she blinked open heavy eyes. She sighed again as she focused on the wood panelled ceiling, feigning interest in its patterns as Kelsey continued to shout her name at varying frequencies.

Knowing the woman would never shut up, J pushed herself out of bed and yanked open her door, padding down the stairs as she brushed a strand of her long black hair out of her face.

"What?" She snapped as her feet met the cool tile of the kitchen, the coffee pot her target.

"There you are!" Kelsey yelled, rounding on J as she made her way into the living room and quietly took a seat at the dining table.

Kelsey, full of energy first thing in the morning, bounded towards the sofa and took a running leap onto its soft cushions. In response, the cushions groaned and Saf's head popped up from behind the back of the sofa, rolling her eyes for J's benefit as she unceremoniously shoved Kelsey off of her.

"I thought you had to do a shift at the clinic this morning?" Saf complained to Kelsey as she stood up and went to fetch a cup of coffee.

"I thought you had your own house to live in." J quipped, as Kelsey pulled herself off the floor and sat on the arm of the sofa.

Saf walked back in the room, her head hung, "yeh, well. I miss you guys. That house feels so..."

"Empty?" J finished for her.

Saf nodded wordlessly.

Not that J would admit it, but she understood what she meant. The fact that J was even in a house was new for her, let alone that they had their own packlands now that their pack had merged with Jake's.

"I'm not used to being in the same place for this long." J admitted, catching herself before she said anything more. Her wolf growled within her, she didn't usually admit that kind of thing out loud.

She frowned down at her coffee mug and took another sip, clearly she wasn't awake yet.

"Me either," Saf whispered as she took a seat beside her at the table. The room fell quiet for a moment, but Kelsey was already bouncing up and down, her leg twitching.

J sighed again and called on all of her internal strength to not batter her friend around the head with her coffee mug.

She turned slowly towards Kelsey and raised one eyebrow, "why are you here?" Her voice was clipped and short, and she could see the hurt flicker across Kelsey's face, but she knew J. She knew she didn't mean it personally...hopefully.

"I have some exciting news! As soon as I realised I knew I had to tell y'all. I thought I'd come over and tell you first, but then I found Saf sleeping on the sofa and then realised you were still asleep, so I thought I'd do you both a favour and wake ya up! The days-a wasting!" Her smile was so broad, so bright, that it gave J a stomach ache.

"It's 6am, Kelsey. You could have waited to wake us up until a bit later." Saf muttered darkly as she cradled her coffee mug between her hands.

Kelsey shrugged, "yeh well, Liam got up at 4am for some big meeting-thing that Jake and Cassidy arranged. I was awake, so thought I'd come and wake you up."

J grunted and kicked her leg out towards the table. "Thanks, but why didn't you go and get Leah instead?"

"She's busy. She's always busy." Kelsey waved her hand through the air like she was trying to get rid of a fly, "anyway, can I tell you the exciting news now, please?"