Luna Grace [COMPLETED]

16.

Grey.

After I dropped Gracie off, I raced to my house. A lot had been going on since my father and brother's death. Namely, my becoming the interim Alpha.

When I was smaller, it was my dream to be Alpha; to be the head of this huge family, my pack. As the first son, I was entitled to the title but after a while, I noticed that my father was taking a special interest in my younger brother; Jared. He trained him more, took him instead of me on visits to other packs.

I realised he was thinking of making Jared the Alpha and not me. I confronted him about it and he had said very simply that he didn't think the pack would have a future with me as the alpha.

I was so angry, at him, at Jared and mostly at myself because I felt that something had to be wrong with me for him not to see a future just because I was alpha.

But after a while, some of the anger faded; not all, definitely not all and I just took my place as a normal member of the pack.

Now with both my father and my brother gone, and mother still not really well enough to rule the pack as Luna, the responsibility fell on me. The pack elders decided that I would have to rule the pack for the time being while they decided if I should become the permanent Alpha or if they would have to find somebody else.

I had refused at first because that dream really had died. I didn't want anything to do with that position but then I reconsidered and realised whether I had been first choice for Alpha or not, I was still the first son and this was still my pack.

So, I had accepted and had a lot of work pushed onto my desk. Most important of all the work, was finding out what exactly had happened to my father and brother.

Originally we had thought it was rogues since rogue killings are quite common but it would not be easy for rogues to take down an Alpha, much less an Alpha with the strongest members of his pack so we had eventually ruled that out.

Now, when Gracie and I were at the top of the cliff, Ryan had mind-linked me that some new information had come up which was why I was rushing home.

Choosing Ryan over Mason to be my Beta was a very difficult decision. But Ryan, as playful and childish as he could be was damn good as a right-hand man. When it came to pack-matters, he was almost a totally different person and Mason had no problem being third-in-command.

After parking my car in it's place by the side of the house, I stop at the kitchen first to grab an apple and a bottle of water. I was starving especially as Gracie and I never got to have that lunch.

"Hit me" I say as I walk into my office where Mace and Ryan were waiting for me.

"Okay you know that we ruled rogues out, right?" Ryan started.

"Yeah because they were to weak to take down an Alpha, yeah?"

"Right. So then Mace and I started thinking. The only wolves that would have the strength required would be about 20 normal wolves or a few top-rankers in a pack."

Mace took over, "The pack warriors who we had sent to the place where the killings happened said there were only five foreign scents on the scene. Which would mean that they had to be pretty high up in a pack and had to include an Alpha."

Back to Ryan, "But there were no known pack territories anywhere around there. Emphasis on known."

"So you're saying-" I cut in "that there is an underground pack somewhere around there?"

Underground packs were packs that because of a serious attack that took out a lot of their pack members or just  really small packs whose numbers made them a target for every rogue and  any other danger out there went underground. They built small habitations underground where they lived for years. Usually they didn't bother anybody because practically any pack was stronger than them, so this was new.

"Yup" Ryan popped the p. "We went into the library and found this really old map of territories and discovered that there was a pack called the Shadow pack near there about 50 years ago. They were attacked by unknown wolves and a lot of them were killed...including their Alpha. So, obviously becoming undescribably weak without their Alpha, they disappeared. They went underground and they haven't been seen among other wolves since."

"They were always a weird pack apparently. They all had yellow eyes, and didn't interact with other packs and they h-"

I stopped mid-bite, "Did you just say they all had yellow eyes?"

"Yeah" Mason said cautiously "Why?"

My heart started racing. "Fuck!"

"What's up, Grey?"

"Gracie saw a wolf with yellow eyes from her bedroom window yesterday night."

Their eyes widened but Ryan spoke first "Gracie knows about werewolves?"

"No, no. She described it as a creature and was convinced she imagined it but-" I looked at them meaningfully.

We all know she hadn't.

"At least now we're sure the Shadow pack is back in operation and involved in this somehow but what do they want with Tamara? How do they even know her?" Mason asked.

I growled. "Well I'll be damned if I let them lay a finger on my mate. We have a foreign wolf on our territory, questions are; how did he get in? Why didn't the wolves patrolling our border pick up the strange scent?"

We were all silent; none of us had an answer.

"Double the number of border-patrol wolves on every shift. If one is in, more are coming."

They nodded and left. I leaned back in my chair, locking my fingers behind my head. Those fools just signed their death wish by simply looking at my mate.