You're Mine

39. Alex

12.21.19

I sprinted away with the tears still leaking out of my eyes. I loved him, but I needed to do what was right whether or not he agreed. As it turned out, my father was standing on the edge of the territory waiting for me. As soon as I entered his vision, he opened his long arms for a hug. I sprinted into him and ended up knocking him onto the hard ground with a thud. The fresh tears that I didn't realize were still falling landed on his face, so he wrapped his calming arms around my shoulders. No, this is turning out all wrong. I need to stop crying this second, or I'll look even more pathetic to him.

"What happened in there, son?" he questioned, very concerned. His brown eyes held a lot of concern for me, but I chose to shove my emotions right back into where they came from. I don't know why I thought that breaking down on him was a good idea, ever, but I wasn't going to allow it to continue. He's my father, not my therapist.

"Papa, he... uh... I tried to get him to see my side, I really did, but he wouldn't. I had to leave him behind, and the only way to do that was to hurt him, Papa. I hurt my own soulmate." The guilt circulating in my chest was too much for me to handle, and I needed some kind of way to force it back out.

"Remember what you're doing this for, Alex," Camden breathed.

"I remember that I have to solve the fighting but what does that have to do with what I did to him?"

"You need peace, or he would end up hurt even more. No matter what he says, you are required to fix this in a peace, or you will all end up dead."

"You don't have to be rude."

"It's called brutally honest."

"Shhh..." he cooed, "Everything will sort itself out eventually."

"I won't be able to go against him, Pa. It will kill me on the inside. I don't want him to get hurt, but to fight against him would kill me to the very core," I murmured.

"I know, I know."

We walked back to the house together, and he opened the door for me to enter. "We need to make a plan not only to achieve peace without violence, but also one for when that fails. As part of your training to be an Alpha in the future, you need to help me with that. Without those skills you will get nowhere in life."

"What about that time with the coven? You never even tried to make a peace."

"I made the mistake of letting my emotions into my decisions, which is something you should never do when there are lives on the line. Take what happened to me as an example; you shouldn't do that, ever. Now, what do you know that could help?"

"Well, I know how the camp is organized, and most of them think that I'm dead so if I go and tell them that they need peace it might make them think that it's a divine message?"

"Or they would get upset and try to hurt you, which I will not allow to even be a possibility if we can help it.''

"I wish I could use Ash as a messenger, but I can't so we'll have to figure something else out. Do you know anyone on the other side?"

His eyes glossed over just slightly enough that I could see the difference which prompted me to remember that yes, he did know someone. "Never mind, I forgot. That was a dumb question."

Our planning went long into the hours of the night until we were ready to present it to the pack. Since it all revolved around tomorrow and the whole pack was still awake with adrenaline, we took the idea to them in order to gage if it was too dangerous. I figure that they're the ones going to be in a lot of danger if this went south, so it was likely them we had to ask. As it turned out, none of them hated the other species enough to risk a massacre of our kind over, so we all agreed to take the peaceful route and use the violent route as a fallback. In the morning I made sure that metal was touching my skin before departing. God, I hope this plan works.

I walked side by side with my father through the trees, and I figured that my nerves were obvious to him because of the shaking of my hands. If this doesn't work the first time, I have to fight against Ash and whoever else he convinced to come to the camp. I just have to pray deep in my chest that that doesn't happen, or we will be toast. As I predicted, the vampires were all standing in a tight formation that wouldn't allow anyone through. I don't think that they were expecting just the two of us to be the ones that emerged from the trees, but I knew that they were likely predicting there to be more wolves in the foliage.

Ash stepped forward from the center of the line, and I saw his father reach out to pull him back. I couldn't read the look in his eyes, but I hoped that he wasn't too upset with me for the actions I took. I sincerely hoped that he would soon realize that what I did was only for the better of both of us, but for right now he didn't seem to think that I was right. We walked forward the rest of the way so that we could be seen in the dawn light, and I was able to get a bit of a better look at Ash. His hair was all over, and he seemed like he hadn't rested in weeks with the thick bags under his eyes.

"I knew you would flip eventually, you filthy bastard," Ash's father snarled at me, and I initially felt a little bit of fear before my papa squeezed my hand. I calmed down, but I knew that my father was worse off than me. He was staring an older version of his life right in the face, and I wanted to have the chance to tell them both that the other isn't bad. Then again, I probably won't. We kind of planned this meeting to go wrong, and I'm fairly certain that it will.

"We wish to negotiate peace," my papa spoke for us, and I saw the facial expression on the other man change to one of being weirded out. He wasn't expecting my father to have the strength to talk for himself, but he didn't stop his barrage just because of it.

"Oh please, do you even know what that is Antony?"

"Refrain from being a bitch, Jackson," I interjected, tired of seeing my father being picked on. I'm not going to allow this.

"You do not speak to me using my first name, vermin," he snarled lowly, his posture showing aggression.

"Enough," Ash chimed in attempting to end the petty argument.

"Shut up Ashton, I was not done talking." He walked right up to us and got right into my face before murmuring, "Wonder what it would be like to have your head on a stick as a trophy."