Alpha Battle (11 page)

***

Jadelyn lay on her stomach in bed contemplating everything that happened to her the last few days and smiled.  Everything in her life was finally going the way she wanted it to.  She finally had something nice to write her mother about.  She decided to do just that while everyone in the house was still asleep.  She leaned over and reached into her nightstand, pulled out her pen and diary, and began writing.

Dear Mom,

I have been through so much stuff lately, and it has made me realize a few things, even though I still have much to work on.  I have realized that as long as I am okay with my being a latent and love myself, I shouldn’t worry about what others may think about it.  What I am trying to say is I don’t think I was ever comfortable with myself since I discover I was a latent.  Don’t get me wrong, Mom, I have always loved myself.  I just think I never fully accepted the wolf side of me.  I was also worried about the friends who dropped me when they realized what I was, but then Eli made me realize true friends would always stand by you even when you don’t know they are there.  So now, I fully accept the hand I was dealt, and I love how different I am from everyone else.  Well, Mom, it is time for me to go find out what really happened to you.

Love,

Jadelyn

As she was signing her name, Eli woke up and enticed her with a hot steamy shower she just couldn’t refuse.  Just as they slipped on their last piece of clothing, someone knocked on their door. 

Jadelyn sat in her room along with Eli, Ace, and Chelsea planning how they were going to discovered what truly happened to her and Eli’s mothers. 

“If I had something from the accident, I can smell it and tell you whether your mothers’ crash was accidental or not,” Ace said while the others were deep in thought.  He had the power to smell anything magical and determine the origin of the power.

“Do you still have the pieces we collected from the scene when we snuck out of the house to see our mothers’ crash site?” Eli asked Jadelyn as he raked his hands through her hair.  Eli couldn’t hear Jadelyn’s answer as his mind drifted back twelve years ago to the day of their mothers’ death.

Jadelyn
and Eli were in the living room at the Alpha’s house waiting for Chelsea and Ace as they planned the next few days leading up to Jadelyn’s thirteenth birthday.
 
Just as they were planning the day, their mothers walked out from the backroom toward the front doors. 

“Be good for Ella, no getting into mischief like you always seem to do when you are together.  We are going to the store to get a few things for Jadelyn’s birthday and ourselves,” Eli’s mother said. 

Eli jumped up and cut them off at the front door.  Looking up at them with a gleam in his eyes, he said, “Can I go with you to the store?” 

Before either of their mothers could answer, Ella stepped forward and answered for them.  “You already have plans with Jadelyn and your other friends.  How about I take you to the store later today after Ace and Chelsea go home?” 

Eli wanted to protest.  He needed to get Jadelyn one more gift, but he knew he couldn’t object without Jadelyn getting suspicious, so he went along with Ella’s plan.

Thirty minutes later, they were outside with Ace and Chelsea exploring the Alpha’s backyard for any sign of Alpha shifter fossils, when they heard a car pull up.  Thinking it was their mothers back early, they ran toward the front yard, only to notice it was
IPPD (Isle of Paradise Police Department).  Being the nosy kids they were, they decided to investigate the reason why they were there and followed them into the house.  They waited until the door to Jadelyn’s father’s office closed before they grabbed some glasses out of the kitchen and placed them on the door. 

“There has been an accident.  A car has exploded and the occupants inside are dead.  We are sorry to inform you both that the occupants of the car were you
r wives,” one of the officers said to their fathers.

The door to the office swung open after they heard Eli yell out, “They are lying, I don’t believe them.” 

His father thought he would be in tears when he opened the door, but all he saw on his son’s face was anger. 

“They are not lying, Baron and I can feel it, and if you reach deep enough inside of you, son, you can feel it, too.  Now Baron and I have to go down to the station, you and Jadelyn stay in the house until we get back.  We will return as soon as we can.”

Before leaving, both Baron and Jake made sure the Enforcers were guarding the living room and the front door so neither Eli nor Jadelyn could sneak to the scene of the accident.  They both knew telling either of them to stay was like giving them invitations to leave, and they didn’t want them to see the accident that caused their mothers' deaths.

Five minutes later, Eli and Jadelyn both paced her bedroom floor back and forth
, trying to come up with a plan to escape the Enforcers so they could go to the scene of the accident. 

“I have it.  I will put on an illusion so the Enforcers will think we are still here, and then we will sneak out my window,” Jadelyn said as she stopped pacing and looked at Eli and the others. 

“Yeah, that can work, but Ace and Chelsea would have to stay here.  Just in case something goes wrong and they have to cover for us.”  They all agreed with the plan. 

Jadelyn put up the illusion of her and Eli talking with their friends as they slipped out the window.  Once outside, they followed the charred smell until the
y came upon the accident.  Police cars were still there, but it didn’t stop either of them from getting closer to the accident.  They had almost stepped on pieces blown from the car during the accident.  Each of them bent down and picked up one thing from the car.  When they got back to Jadelyn’s house, they hid the items inside a special box in Jadelyn’s closet.

“Eli, Eli, I have found the pieces.”  Jadelyn kept yelling until Eli finally came back to the present time. 

He nodded to Jadelyn, letting her know he was all right and it was okay to give the pieces of the car to Ace. 

As soon as Ace took hold of the items, he sniffed both pieces.  His brain began to sift through all the different scents of magical beings on the Isl
e until he recognized the one he was looking for.  “I found it.  It wasn’t an accident. A witch killed your mothers by blowing up the car.” 

To Ace and Chelsea’s surprise, neither Jadelyn nor Eli looked surprised by this revelation but instead looked like they knew all along. 

“Okay, we have to go to my grandmother’s house first so she can point us in the right direction.” 

“Why do we have the feeling you two knew it was no accident the whole time?” Ace said as he looked back and forth between Jadelyn and Eli. 

“When we came upon the scene, something felt off to us, but before we had time to investigate, Ella made us move away,” Eli answered as they all gathered everything they would need for the day. 

Eli decided to ride his bike to his grandmother’s house as they were walking out the front door of the Alpha’s house, so he could
think through the information all of them just learned.

Chapter Eight

“I have been sitting here for a while waiting for all of you to get here.  No need to tell me why all of you are here, I already know,” Eli’s grandmother said as soon as they walked into the house. 

The change in the living room was the first thing they noticed.  It was a drastic change in scenery since they had been there the other night.  The walls were a light purple, and all the furniture was gone.  In the place of the furniture was a small glass circular table with a crystal ball laying in the middle of it. 

“Sit, sit all of you,” Eli’s grandmother said as she swept her hands in the air.

They were all confused by this since there were no seats in sight.  Jadelyn moved from the group to get a better view of the table.  When she walked close enough to the table, a chair materialized right behind her and the others followed.  Eli’s grandmother approached them after they sat down. 

Eli’s grandmother began pulling in power.  The more power she pulled the more fog covered the crystal ball.  The fog from the crystal ball became a deep purple; it then seeped out of the crystal ball and into the gypsy’s head.  The magic-filled fog swirled around the inside of her head and when it cleared, all that remained were the answers she needed for them. 

“You will find everything you are looking for on the witch side of the Isle, look in the jail.  And that is all I can tell any of you.  Just find the one thing that is out of place on your journey and seek your answers there.”  She looked at Eli when she said the last bit since he always tried to get her to tell him more than she could.

“Now hurry up and go.  All of you are wasting time here, and you will miss your chance if you do not hurry,” Eli’s grandmother said as she ushered them out of her home.

She reached for Eli just before he stepped out of the front door with the others and pulled him back into the house.  “What you find might be hard, but if you look deep enough in your heart you will find it is the truth you have looked so long for.”  As soon as she was done, his grandmother pulled back, pushed him out of the door, and shut the door behind her, confusing Eli in the process. 

Jadelyn noticed the confused look Eli had on his face as he got into the car and closed the door behind him.  “Eli, are you okay?” Jadelyn asked as she nuzzled her cheek along the side of his face. 

“Yes, just trying to process something my grandmother said.  She always tells me when I have to take on something, but through riddles.  I just have to figure it out,” Eli answered. 

“It will be fine.  We will figure it out together,” Jadelyn said as they drove east toward the witch side of
the Isle of Paradise.

They parked in an isolated area of the witches and warlocks part of the Isl
e where they could see everyone, but no one could see them.  They wanted to scope out the land, without any interruptions, before coming up with a plan.  This was their first time being on this part of the Isle.  There was an unspoken rule that shifters stayed on their side of the Isle while the witches and warlocks stayed on their side.

A twinkle blazed in Jadelyn’s eyes as she looked at the beautiful place the witches called home.  Their whole living quarters, along with their shops and restaurants sat on a stunning beachfront, but one thing on the beachfront looked out of place.  It was a rusted old building far away from all the other buildings, with rusted bars for windows. 

Eli noticed it as well.  He would bet everything he had that he would find the answers to his grandmother’s riddle there.  She always gave him the information he needed without giving the answers.  Eli didn’t jump for joy yet, he still had to come up with a plan to get to the rusted building on the other side of the beach.

Jadelyn was looking between the lilac sky and the beautiful
deep-blue ocean while the others were thinking of a plan.  She couldn’t help it, the beautifulness of it all just kept capturing her attention every time she tried to think of anything else besides the beautiful beach.

“Jadelyn, you have to pay attention.  We are in a dangerous situation right now, especially if we
are caught.  I just told them my plan, and I bet you didn’t hear a thing I said,” Eli growled as he waved a hand back and forth in front of Jadelyn’s face.  He knew Jadelyn tended to get easily distracted at times and waited until she came fully back before he repeated the plans to her.

“We have to make this quick right now.  Most of the residents here are at their council meeting, with the exception of their guards.  Jadelyn, you will create an illusion of us all still here, just in case they are somehow watching
us, while Chelsea makes us invisible.  You and Chelsea will have to use your powers at the same time for it all to work.  We will then have to hurry to the rusted building over there while being on the lookout for guards since I don’t know how long Chelsea can keep us invisible here,” Eli said. 

Jadelyn turned to Chelsea and nodded.  They could do this trick in their sleep after all the years of sneaking out right in front of their parents' faces.  They were both equally surprised at how fast they were able to do the trick after going so many years without using it. 

When they were a few feet away from their hiding spot, Jadelyn noticed she could now see their shadows bouncing off the ocean.  “Umm, guys, I don’t think we are invisible any longer and there are guards a few feet ahead of us now.” 

Eli looked up just in time to see five guards charging their way.  All of them, except for Jadelyn, quickly tried to shift, but something was preventing them from shifting.  It felt as though a solid force was holding their wolves back so they couldn’t come forward as they were calling for them. 

They instantly knew the rumors were true about the witches casting a spell to prevent shifters from shifting on their side of the Isle.

Eli could see one of the guards reaching for his walkie-talkie to alert others of their arrival and knew he had to stop him before he made the call.  He picked up a solid rock and launched it across the beach at the man's hand that held the walkie-talkie before the man could use
it to radio for backup.