Chapter 41

REID:
Hearing Venice say that was just about enough to let me know how bad I might have fallen with my father. It was enough to let me believe he hates me even if Venice would not want to admit it to me.
“Do you think what I did was justifiable?” I ask her.
“It was. If I had been in your shoes, I would do the same,” she tells me, using her most sincere voice. “Father needs to learn how to hand off from things that hardly do not concern him. I wanted to stand up to him all these years about that attitude of his but I have never had the courage to. You wouldn’t believe how happy I was when I figured you already put him in his right spot.”
That earns a smile from me. Ever since the incident with my father that had to do with him prying into the activities of the pack, I have been feeling awful because I thought I might have overdone things by talking down on him. Turns out my sister was a big fan of what I did. Makes me delighted that I did what I did.
“You see... you’re smiling now. Aww, that’s so cute. So you’re trying to tell me now that you simply needed justification for what you said to dad? Oh dear brother. Most times I wonder who is the older one between the two of us because you tend to act like a kid when it comes to your emotions,”
I scoff at her statement. “Have you ever met a twenty-eight-year-old kid? That’s some lame talk,” and I stand up to my feet.
But as if on cue, I suddenly receive a distress call in my head.
‘Alpha Reid! We need you here!’
At first, I am a bit startled by the way the one who mind-linked just reacted via the link, I have to gather my composure because now is not the time to be a sissy.
‘Where are you? And what is going on there?’ I have to ask as I start to stride off from the training area.
‘At the main area of the pack square... I have no idea what is going on.’
I quickly shut the link and start to run off. I have taken a few paces away when I recall that my sister was still there. Geez, my mind has got a lot on it that I forgot that she was with me. I just could not handle the panic that came with the mind-link.
“Venice,” I call out to her as I turn back, “do you mind waiting here for a while? I have something important I have to attend to,” Even with the distance between us, I was certain she would hear every word I spoke.
She gets up on her feet and to my surprise starts to make her way toward me. “I’m coming with you,” is what she says when she passes by my side while jogging.
I want to rebuff but there is no way because Venice would never agree to be left behind. She was as adamant as our father.
Without even bothering too much about it, I follow from behind her, passing by her in no time since I am meant to lead the way.
As I jog and run a little at the same time, I start to hope that whatever it is that is going on in the pack square would not be something that would be too dangerous for me to handle as alpha. Gosh, I need to get my head straight around this game.
Less than a minute later, I arrived at the pack square with my sister and the sight I am met with is nothing that should warrant such a distress call.
“What is going on here?” I ask the one who just mind-linked me. He is a warrior. One of the high-ranking ones which is why he has easy access to the personal link with me. It would be unsafe for him to use the general pack link.
His face says it all. He looks distressed. But still, it doesn’t change the fact that I see nothing around here that would make him link me like that.
“Be– Beta Hunter...” he says, stuttering while doing so. Seems to me that whatever he has to say might be too hard for him to spill.
I look around the area to try to make sense of what he is trying to spout. The area seems quiet, with only buildings around. Other than that there is nothing else that would make me see why he had to mention Hunter’s name.
“And what happened to him?” I demand to know, already growing impatient with the warrior who still hasn’t said anything.
“He has,” before he said the words, I see him draw out his sword which I noticed from the scratch was within his hands reach, “gone berserk!”
At first, my instincts picked that he wanted to attack me. But quickly it shifts to somewhere else. And that is when I see what the warrior was trying to tell me all along.
Suddenly, a body crashes through a building, landing directly in front of the three of us. I look down to see who it is only to find out that it is Ryu who is right on the ground with his body looking all bloody.
He has no shirt on because it has been ripped. And the damage to his body seems to be something that would not be caused by just anybody.
“What in the bloody hell is going on here?” the words leave my mouth and at the same time, I feel my senses tingle, causing me to look up.
The sight of a brown wolf comes into a place. The wolf is sauntering toward us while drooling from the side of its mouth.
“Hunter?” I say, already having an idea who it is. That is my beta in his wolf form but something is totally off about him. Is this what the warrior meant by him going berserk?
The wolf of my beta keeps on making its way toward us. And as I watch it, I notice that it has a menacing stare directed at all three of us. Four, actually, because the bloody Ryu has stood up to his feet.
“Ryu, give me an explanation about what is going on here?” I ask the head warrior who moved back toward us, standing by my side.
“I have no idea, alpha. All of a sudden the beta lunged at me. I have no idea why but I just know he started attacking while we were doing a bit of a patrol together. I tried to fend him off because he didn’t seem like himself but he overpowered him easily.”
“Why didn’t you shift into your wolf?”
“I tried. But one odd pressure from him disallowed me from achieving that. I really did try. He seems overpowered now. More than—”
Before Ryu could finish his statement, the wolf ahead has already jumped toward our direction with its claws coming for our faces. But I was quick to react, saving the lives of the others by pushing them all away at once while taking the impact of the blow.
Instantly it sends me crashing to the ground with the wolf on top of me. I could feel a stinging pain on my face and I did not need much to tell me that I have suffered a cut to my face from the bastard.
The stinging becomes more painful when I start to feel blood trickle out of it. At the same time, I am trying my best to get the wild wolf off me. Eventually, I get to push it away, using every ounce of strength in me before getting to my feet.
I watch as it prepares to lunge at me again but I do not know if I should do the one thing that might end this quickly. However, I cannot decide in time because I still have the wolf coming at me.
It pushes me to the ground again but I was able to prevent it from clawing at my face like it did the first time. This time I was able to easily throw it off me and when I get back up, I was ready to find a means of taking it down.
The wolf and I start to circle each other and as we do so I watch from the side of my eye to see if the others are safe where they are. When I confirm their safety, I focus all my attention on the berserk wolf.
I continue rounding it while ideas get into my head about the way I could deal with it because I know it would not be any easy in taking it down.
It suddenly stops circling me but I can hear it snarling loudly now. If I didn’t know too much, I would have thought something else but I know what it is trying to do now.
And just as it does what I anticipated which is lunge at me, I do the same. Right when we are both about to collide with each other, I do the unexpected midair — shifting into my wolf. That might have stunned it because my wolf’s claws go right through its face during the impact...