Authors: Marquaylla Lorette
Chelsea had to shield her eyes from the sun when she walked in but the view of the garden was worth the little time spent adjusting to the light. She sat in the middle of her mates while Charity sat next to James and Trevor next to her. On the opposite side of the table were Eli, Jadelyn, Treasure, and Greg. They lightly chatted over the next thirty minutes as they ate breakfast.
An hour later, they were all in the backyard waiting for Eli to signal the start of the next practice battle. The rules and who they were fighting was the same as the last practice battle they had.
Chelsea and the others not battling with James, Trevor, and Greg all sat on the porch to watch them.
They practiced the whole morning and half the afternoon away until Chelsea called a stop. She wanted to get to the campsite and have everything setup before evening so she stopped the practice a little earlier than James wanted to.
***
The group Shifters with a Cause immediately called for a meeting. When the male wolf shifter came in bruised from Charity’s torture and with a message from James, the leader of Shifters with a Cause was pissed. He had sent over ten shifters to the Alpha’s house to kill Charity and her mate. He thought Charity would be an easier target since she was a female and only had one mate with her at the time. He was surprised that she killed five shifters by herself before her brother even entered the room. He wasn’t expecting the connection that she had with her brother to be that strong. The leader of the group knew he had to pull in more shifters to get the job done.
So he called in someone who wanted justice for their family. He didn’t tell them why they were going after James and Charity, just who their mates and friends were. If they knew he was going after them because their parents were different species, making Charity and James mixed shifters, they wouldn’t have come aboard to help him with his plans for total control of the entire Alpha house.
He didn’t like that the Alpha or his Betas and Enforcers were receptive to James and his sister. So now, instead of just Charity, James and maybe their mates, he was coming after all of them, including the Alpha and his family.
The non-shifter he was waiting for finally arrived with her guards, who were going to help him. He handed one of her guards a note and said to him, “Here is what I need you to do. Take the note, read it, and do as it says. Come back for more information when the first part is complete.”
“They will. Here are their numbers, call them if you need anything else or to switch to a plan B, and remember, next time it might be one of my sisters coming in when you call instead of me. I still have a colony to set up just in case a war breaks out with a couple of shifters,” the non-shifter female said as she handed him a piece of paper with her guards’ numbers on it.
The leader of the group watched until the female and her guards left before turning to his shifters. “Follow them, I don’t trust her.”
“Well why did you give her guards an assignment instead of giving it to one of us?” one of his followers asked.
“It is their first test to see if we can trust them with other assignments. Now follow them before they get away,” the leader said. The male shifter immediately shifted and followed the non-shifters scents who were just in there only moments ago.
The leader of the group gathered his things to make his way home to his mate. His mate had no idea what he was doing and would leave, plus tell the Alpha if she found out.
The leader of the Shifter with a Cause knew the other shifters would leave if they knew why he was really doing this. Katarina was supposed to be his mate; he was the only shifter with Beta blood on the Isle without a second mate. Katarina was supposed to un-mate with Zuri and when she did, she was supposed to mate with him, but she didn’t. Instead, she chose to leave the Isle and continue to be with a lion shifter instead of a wolf shifter.
The leader was a paranoid man. He thought everyone was looking at him funny or talking behind his back since he was the only one without a second mate on the entire Isle.
He was going to make the whole Isle pay, just as he made Zuri and Katarina. Their kids and mates were also going to pay for taking his second mate away.
***
James, Ace, and the others were looking at Chelsea as if she was crazy as she handed out schedules on their walk to the campsite. Chelsea had OCD when it came to organizing and planning something. She already had the trip planned down to who was going to carry what, how many breaks they were able to take on their way to the campsite, and the section were each couple would pitch their tent.
“Where exactly are we going camping?” Jadelyn asked. She knew Chelsea had already planned everything since she was the one with OCD in the bunch.
Ace, Jadelyn, and Eli never cared where they camped at when they were younger, but Chelsea did. If it were up to them, they would have walked through the woods until they were tired and camped wherever they had stopped. Chelsea, on the other hand, couldn’t do that. The one time they tried she nearly had an anxiety attack so they let her plan everything she needed to in order to avoid her anxiety.
James was the same way when it came to control, protecting others, family and friends. The difference between Chelsea and James was that Chelsea had a wild side, like when it came to partying or doing something crazy, but James didn’t. He was usually the person who grounded everyone when needed. James enjoyed himself wherever he went, but it was more of a controlled enjoyment; he never went overboard or got out of hand.
Ace was a different story. He didn’t really have a stop button for anything like everyone else. He just kept going and going until someone had to stop him. Even with his sometimes out of control personality, Ace was a loyal friend and someone you wanted around when something went wrong. He just liked to have fun and do anything his mind thought was cool—even if it was dangerous.
“We are going to camp by the site where our school is being built,” Chelsea answered. She then proceeded to walk into the woods behind the Alpha’s house, with everyone following closely behind her after grabbing the packs they were assigned to carry.
The school was a long way from the Alpha house, deep into the woods. When the school does open, there will be a school bus, which will pick the kids up and transport them to the school. Rose, the Alpha’s mate, had volunteered to drive the bus and three Enforcers would be on the bus with her just in case something happened.
After ten miles of zigzagging through trees and hiking up and down hills, they finally approached the school and campgrounds.
Chelsea headed right to the school while the others dropped their bags at the campsite. The school was nearly built, the only thing missing was paint and the roof. When it’s finished, the school would be four stories high and two acres long. There was also a cliff twenty feet away from the right side of the school, leading into a waterfall. They were going to use the cliff and waterfall for P.E. activities in the spring. A hundred yards from the waterfall was a water spring. The water spring was in a circular hole next to the cliff and usually was warm when the sun was out.
Out of the corner of her eye, Chelsea could see the green and brown paint. She picked those colors so the school could sort of blend into the woods, just in case someone got past their magical barriers.
“Don’t you even think about it, Chelsea,” James and Ace said at the same time when they saw Chelsea eyeing the paint.
They knew she was thinking about painting the building just by the way she was looking at the paint.
“Chelsea, we are supposed to be relaxing before the battle, not working. How about you and the rest of the girls go to the spring water, it should be warm right now, while we set up the tents and sleeping bags,” Ace said when he noticed Chelsea was still eyeing the paint. He knew he had to get her away from there fast or else she would start either painting or finishing the roof.
“Alright, just let me start dinner and then I promise I will head to the spring,” Chelsea said. She wanted to have fun. This was the first time in eighteen years that Jadelyn came camping again with them. It was also a way for her to get to know her new sister and Treasure better.
Chelsea grabbed the wood she asked her uncle the other day to gather and leave for them, before making her way to the center of the campground. She piled the wood up, lit it on fire, and hooked the pot. She was going to cook by hanging her pot on a branch that hung above the fire. She added her beans and bottled water to the pot, and then she added the sausage and crumbled-up bacon from breakfast. Jadelyn dumped the herbs Chelsea had her stop and grab on their way through the forest. Jadelyn also handed Chelsea her swimsuit and pushed her toward the spring with Charity and Treasure following behind them.
***
Baron had called a meeting when he woke just after breakfast. He couldn’t believe what happened the night before while he was at a council meeting. Baron, Jake, Cornelius, Gabe, and their mates, along with Jake’s mother, Aishe, were in Baron’s meeting room. They needed to figure out who was bold enough to send someone into the Alpha’s house to kill one of the shifters living there. Baron thought this was over when it turned out Jadelyn wasn’t latent and had won the Alpha Battle. He was pissed off he didn’t do more to find the culprits when it happened to Jadelyn.
Aishe was the first one to speak up when it was time to start the meeting. “I think we should send someone out there to their campsite just in case. I know the perfect person; he can hide in the shadows and make sure no one sneaks up on them while they are relaxing.”
“Alright, you can send the shifter to the campsite after the meeting is over. Make sure whoever you send stays in the shadows enough where they won’t be seen,” Baron said. He wanted Jadelyn and the others to have all the help they could get out there.
Baron and Cornelius already had Trevor’s dad send Enforcers out there to help. The Enforcers were surrounding the forest in a huge circle and at a great distance away from the campsite so Chelsea and the others wouldn’t be able to scent them.
“I have already sent him and they will not be able to detect him,” Aishe said as she pointed to her temple, letting them know she used her mind to send the shifter the message.
“Okay, now we can get started with the rest of the meeting. We have to establish the right Enforcers to help guard the school and the parents’ homes of the students,” Baron said.
“I have one problem with this. I think we should have the right Enforcers, but Jadelyn, Chelsea, and their mates should be the ones picking the Enforcer Guards for the school. This is their attempt and dreams to get the Isle together, and changed the school system and views of others. We should wait until after the Beta Battle to resume this meeting and let them choose the Enforcer Guards they feel would be right for the school,” Rose said before they could start trying to pick the right Enforcers. All the mothers agreed with what Rose had said.
“We know this is their project, but we wanted to make sure they have everything right,” Baron answered.
“If you guys keep jumping in when they don’t need you, they will never learn. All of you have to make sure they are prepared to take over your titles when you retire, and you cannot be sure of that, if you keep stepping in before they need or ask for your help. Did your parents take over for you and make your decisions when you were stepping into the role as Alpha, Beta or Enforcer?” Aishe asked.
Baron, Jake, Gabe, Trevor’s father, Mence, and Cornelius all answered ‘no.’ Their parents never stepped in when they were learning the ropes and when they were in training for the titles they held today. All of them knew they needed to step back and let them learn by trial and error, but it was hard when it was their pups. It was hard for them to realize they weren’t pups any longer, even if they had mates.
“So, let’s step back and get together with Chelsea and the others to pick the Enforcers to guard the school after the battle. Today, we can go over the council meeting. Yesterday, I was called to a surprise council meeting without any prior knowledge. As some of you already know, they had just received a petition to change the terms of the Beta Battle. The rules are now both the first battle and the loser’s battle will take place the same day and the final battle will be the next day. I think whoever tried to kill Charity and Trevor had the petition signed and sent it in yesterday on purpose. It seemed like the petition was a decoy. They wanted me out of the house for some reason and the rules of the battle to be changed,” Baron said.
“We have to figure out who started the petition and just maybe we will figure out who is behind the attacks on the Isle and James and his family,” Cornelius suggested.
They all agreed to keep what they were doing away from James and the others and that Baron was going to get the petition from the council.
***
Chelsea went behind one of the trees, slipped off her clothes, and put her bathing suit on. She quickly made her way to the water spring. She was finally going to be able to enjoy it. Every time she tried to enjoy the spring, Ace would decide to try to do something dangerous. When they were younger, Eli or whoever else they were camping with, had to come get her to stop Ace, but now that James was here, she was going to let him deal with Ace’s antics while she enjoyed herself in the water spring until dinner.
Chelsea sank down into the warm spring water and closed her eyes—this was the most relaxing she felt in a long time. For the past twelve years, she was on edge with worry about Jadelyn being hurt or killed by some of the shifters on the Isle. Now that Eli was back, she could finally relax for the moment.
Chelsea could feel as the others climbed into the water spring from the sway of the water. She could hear their chatter but was so relaxed she didn’t want to open her eyes just yet. When Chelsea finally opened her eyes, she noticed they had the adult version of Would You Rather out and Jadelyn was handing out margaritas.